I would like to respond to Mr. Williams and Mr. Johnston's one-sided conservative reply to Ms. Janssen's January 23rd column. I have serious doubts about the more "realistic" view presented by these two gentlemen.

I agree that U.S. citizens would rather be free, but I fail to see how this ties into increased defense spending. Are you suggesting that we increase our arsenal because the Soviet Union is planning to invade the United States?

If you have information of this type, you really should be sending it to Washington D.C. rather than the Collegian! We're not talking about "the Evil Empire," but about another of the world's superpowers that has to coexist with us.

Of course the U.S. should be able to defend itself, don't you think, though, that there is a point when enough is enough? The U.S. currently has enough weaponry to make large chunks of this planet uninhabitable for a VERY long time.

On top of all this firepower, what possible good will more bombs serve? To blow up the ashes of the people and buildings that have been destroyed by the first wave? Sounds kind of silly to me.

Concerning education -- please, PLEASE, don't try to tell me that "the 13 percent of all 17 year olds who are functionally illiterate are so voluntarily."

I'll admit that there is a percentage that will not take advantage of the educational system no matter what, but don't you think that there may be a few people here and there who can't receive the education they are entitled to because of deficiencies in the educational system? I think the numbers would surprise you.

You say "higher education is a privilege and not a right." Obviously you gentlemen are part of the privileged few. If federal funding for higher education is done away with, some of our country's best minds will be working in the local McDonalds. Not a very smart expenditure of this nation's resources.

I'm not saying that I'm one of this country's best minds but I am one of the thousands of students who attend college thanks to federal funding. It's very easy to speak of privileges when you're the ones who have them, isn't it?

Your response to AIDS makes it sound as if Ms. Janssen was advocating free sex. Let's take your automobile analogy a little further, shall we? If one doesn't know of the potential dangers of driving an automobile then the precautions you speak of won't be taken, but this is due to lack of knowledge, not recklessness.

Ms. Janssen's "two-fold attack" of education and information will combat this problem. The amount of AIDS misinformation in today's society is staggering; if people are made aware of the dangers, we won't have so many "auto accidents" caused by people who don't know the new "rules of the road."

In summation, for the most part I don't think we're dealing with the "lazy and inept" of Darwin fame, but people who want to get ahead but can't because of other people's privileges.