From: bud@mtek.com (Bud Hovell)
Subject: Re: Banned Computer Material 1992
Reply-To: bud@mtek.com
Organization: MTEK International, Inc.
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 92 17:21:09 GMT
Summary: I'm oughtta here -- but *will* be back. :-)

kadie@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) writes:

>bud@mtek.com (Bud Hovell) writes:
>> [ deleted ]

>I confess that an implicit premise of the List is that academic
>censorship of computer media is generally wrong. I'm sorry if this was

Your premise is, imo, both overstated and undersupported, since you
introduce the word "generally", which allows for exceptions. If this
is so, then the basis upon which such exceptions might occur must be
objectively understood, else such occult criteria are available in 
this particular temple to only the one Head Priest: Carl Kadie.

This was one basis of my original objection. And, I think, of not a
few other people.

Or do you wish to withdraw the qualifying word "generally" to rule
out the possiblity that there could ever be *any* basis for such
limitation of action (I'll not accept your prejorative term "censor-
ship", since that has specific connotations that may have no bearing
upon other possible motivations or needs for such limitation)?

>unclear. Now that you have "caught" me, you are welcome to argue
>against this premise. A good forum for this continuing debate might be
>alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk (or the corresponding mailing list).

I accept. :-) But not the forum: I have no intention of moving outside
the comp.admin.policy group, since "policy" is really the underlying
subject of our disagreement. Not whether academic freedom is, per se,
a "good thing" (since like apple-pie and motherhood, it gains only
fools for opponents, and may thus be viewed as something of an
"attractive nuisance"). :-)

Also, I frankly have little patience for dealing with what some snot-
nosed teenager whose parents have come up with tuition may have to say
on the subject, based solely upon his belief that one slow reading of
the Bill of Rights entitles him to thus draw sweeping conclusions
about what *must* have been in the minds of the Founding Fathers with
regard to his personal login privileges.

Most of the people who post here, by contrast, bring at least some
modicum of experience and thoughtfulness to the discussion. This is,
I imagine, mostly because they frequently have some real, everyday
*responsibility* for such decisions, and eventually have begun to
recognize that "it ain't all that simple".

Unfortunately, my response will have to wait, since I am pressed for
time over the next two days to complete necessary duties, and will
therafter be out of town until Saturday. I believe (obviously) that
the subject is deserving of a more-than-casual response, and I'll want
to take the time necessary to be forthcoming. My apologies for the
delay.

I'll also caution any other posters that we expire news after only
three days (the reality of limited disc-space), and I will probably
miss postings that show up here before next Sunday.
-- 
________________________________________________________________
bud@mtek.com ... uunet!m2xenix!mtek!bud ... bud@rigel.cs.pdx.edu
MTEK International, Inc.             Throughput Technology Corp.
Throughput!
Newsgroups: comp.admin.policy