HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson)
Subject: Re: What sorts of entities have rights?
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 13:58:04 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

In article <1992Aug12.022121.7277@panix.com> gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>feld@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Michael Feld) writes:
>| >|                        ... widely respected Holfeldian analysis ...
>
>gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>| >Could you expand on this a little?  I have no access to books
>| >of Holdfeldian analysis, and am curious about the "all of us
>| >have a duty..." part.  How is this derived?  I assume it is
>| >not given as an axiom.
>
>nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson) writes:
>|   . . .  Why does this duty have to be "derived"?   Social consensus
>|   may be "derived" the same way the particular mix of weeds and grass
>|   and oak-tree wannabees, and moss and ferns and toadstools in back
>|   of my yard is "derived", i.e., as a result of all the antecedent
>|   events and circumstances. 
>| 
>|   Maybe this duty is just observed;  merely (or should I say "merely")
>|   the result of all the cultural, social, memetic, etc histories and
>|   interactions of the individuals which comprise society.  How do we
>|   "derive" that Beethoven was a great composer?   That Beethoven was a
>|   great composer, IMO, is no different than that we have a duty to 
>|   rescue a toddler we happen to find lost in a blizzard.   It is a 
>|   conclusion that most people in our society reach.  Why?  I don't
>|   know and I don't think we have the tools to know.   
>
>Then you seem to be suggesting that Holfeldian analysis is
>axiomatic.  I reasoned that it was derived, because it was
>an analysis, a breaking up of something into parts, and if so
>I wanted to know from what axioms it was derived, and how far
>off they were.  Perhaps my approach is too analytical.

  Well, as I said (and you deleted), I don't know what Holfeldian
  Analysis is;  I was just spouting my own thoughts on the subject.
  It is true (as per the previous poster) that my model as well
  would result in inanimate objects potentially having "rights".


---peter
From: rachel@phsbbs.princeton.nj.us (Rachel M. Kadel)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: US Public Schools: Get Rid of All the Bureaucrats!
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 92 17:07:52 EDT
Organization: Princeton High School, Princeton, New Jersey

joec@fid.morgan.com (Joe Collins) writes:

> In article <l9050rINNm9m@spim.mips.com> mpolen@gelato.mips.com (Michael Polen
>  # of Administrators, etc
> 
> If I recall correctly, Private schools (i.e. Catholic) send 85% of their
> students onto College but do it with far less overhead. For example,
> In Washington DC, there is one adminstrator for every 54 kids in their
> public schools. In the Catholic schools in the same city, there is
> one administrator for every 2500 kids. 
> 
> I think about 45-48% of public schools kids go onto College, nationwide.
> 
> The best schools are independent schools (i.e. neither public or religious).
> They send close to 99% of their students onto College. 
Keep in mind that Catholic and independent schools have the option of 
pre-selecting students on such bases as performance on standardized tests 
or behaviour record.  Thus, almost all of their graduates go to college 
because the ones who wouldn't have gone to college aren't admitted.  This 
also accounts for better performance from independent schools than from 
religious schools, since religious schools have more qualms about 
rejecting below average students.
                                   Rachel M. Kadel
> 
> Interestingly, public school teachers make significantly more (on average) 
> than non-public schools teachers.
> 
> Again, I support school choice - only then will the public schools
> feel the pressure to improve (from outside competition). And its only
> fair - right now the wealthier folks have school choice since they can afford
> to send their kids to tuition-based, nonpublic schools. What about the rest 
> of Americans?
> 
> Joe Collins
> joec@morgan.com
> Usual disclaimers apply...
> 
> 


There's an infinite number of monkeys at the door wanting to show us the 
script to Hamlet they've worked out...The school won't even LISTEN to me 
, much less let me speak for it...rachel@phsbbs.princeton.nj.us
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,misc.legal,alt.postmodern
From: gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch)
Subject: Re: Abortion Rights = Self Determination
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 11:42:49 GMT
Distribution: ba
Organization: mydog in exile

[ anti-anti-abortion arguments ]
gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch):
| > This sort of argument will not convince those who believe that
| > rights are given by God or Nature, or are absolute for some 
| > other reason.  The real difficulty for the anti-abortionists is
| > not their assertion of a right to life for the fetus -- one
| > could assert a right to life for almost anything -- but that
| > they believe that the fetus, or the government on its own
| > initiative as the fetus's unbidden agent, has a right to
| > seize control of another's body.  This point is so difficult
| > for anti-abortionists to make that they will almost always
| > draw attention to irrelevancies such as the nature of the
| > fetus.

athos@apple.com (Rick Eames) writes:
| I would probably agree with you were it also true that the fetus "invaded"
| the woman's body.  Since we all understand the basic concepts of
| reproductive biology, we know that it takes an act of two people to start
| the fetus going on it's development.  It is "created"; it does not
| "invade."

I don't see how the route by which the fetus arrives in someone's
body makes the slightest difference to my argument.
-- 
 )*(    Gordon Fitch    )*(    gcf@panix.com    )*(
( 1238 Blg. Grn. Sta.,  NY NY 10274 * 718.273.5556 )
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,misc.legal
From: gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch)
Subject: Re: What sorts of entities have rights?
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 02:21:21 GMT
Organization: mydog in exile

feld@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Michael Feld) writes:
| >|                        ... widely respected Holfeldian analysis ...

gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
| >Could you expand on this a little?  I have no access to books
| >of Holdfeldian analysis, and am curious about the "all of us
| >have a duty..." part.  How is this derived?  I assume it is
| >not given as an axiom.

nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson) writes:
|   . . .  Why does this duty have to be "derived"?   Social consensus
|   may be "derived" the same way the particular mix of weeds and grass
|   and oak-tree wannabees, and moss and ferns and toadstools in back
|   of my yard is "derived", i.e., as a result of all the antecedent
|   events and circumstances. 
| 
|   Maybe this duty is just observed;  merely (or should I say "merely")
|   the result of all the cultural, social, memetic, etc histories and
|   interactions of the individuals which comprise society.  How do we
|   "derive" that Beethoven was a great composer?   That Beethoven was a
|   great composer, IMO, is no different than that we have a duty to 
|   rescue a toddler we happen to find lost in a blizzard.   It is a 
|   conclusion that most people in our society reach.  Why?  I don't
|   know and I don't think we have the tools to know.   

Then you seem to be suggesting that Holfeldian analysis is
axiomatic.  I reasoned that it was derived, because it was
an analysis, a breaking up of something into parts, and if so
I wanted to know from what axioms it was derived, and how far
off they were.  Perhaps my approach is too analytical.
-- 
Gordon Fitch | gcf@panix.com | uunet!cmcl2!panix!gcf 
*       1238 Blg. Grn. Sta., N.Y., N.Y. 10274      *
Xref: sparky talk.politics.theory:3790 misc.legal:16268
From: gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch)
Subject: Re: Kulturkampf
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 16:10:42 GMT
Organization: mydog in exile

In article <2A92F431.22667@orion.oac.uci.edu> cedman@golem.ps.uci.edu (Carl Edman) writes:
| Gordon Fitch writes
| > This proposal is clearly akin to  the fascist, Communist,
| > and Nazi programs of subordinating culture to political
| > -- governmental -- control, and of eliminating free
| > expression.  The Nazis called the program
| > _Kulturkampf_.  Is there any way in which the Buchanan
| > proposal differs from the _Kulturkampf_?  Or are there
| > defenders of Buchanan who would like to explain his
| > statement otherwise? 
| 
| May I respectfully suggest that however erudite Mr Fitch may be, his knowledge  
| of Imperial and Weimar Germanys history unfortunately has at least one gap  
| concerning the origin and meaning of the term "Kulturkampf" ?

I'm not erudite.  I _am_ aware that the term _Kulturkampf_ goes
back way before the Nazis.  However, it is my very strong impression
that the Nazis used the term in their own special way.  They 
certainly believed in conducting a warfare of cultures, which
included the use of force (rather than the free marketplace of
ideas) to ensure things came out their way.

Got anything to say about the point of the article, or are you
just interested in allusions?
-- 
 )*(    Gordon Fitch    )*(    gcf@panix.com    )*(
( 1238 Blg. Grn. Sta.,  NY NY 10274 * 718.273.5556 )
From: gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch)
Subject: Re: Abortion Rights = Self Determination
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1992 14:17:01 GMT
Distribution: ba
Organization: mydog in exile

| >(Al Date) wrote:
| >> How can you consider, for example, something without a brain to be fully 
| human?

athos@apple.com (Rick Eames) writes:
| >Because I know of people who do nothing but stare out windows all day in
| >old folks homes, their brains not quite as quick as they used to be.  These
| >people have rights, although they are not quite like you and I.  So, when
| >do we consider the brain to be fully formed and how do we base the handing
| >out of human rights to that thing?

ald@clipper.ingr.com (Al Date) writes:
| My point is that human rights are 
| social conventions which primarily allow responsible adults to 
| interact in society. ...

This sort of argument will not convince those who believe that
rights are given by God or Nature, or are absolute for some 
other reason.  The real difficulty for the anti-abortionists is
not their assertion of a right to life for the fetus -- one
could assert a right to life for almost anything -- but that
they believe that the fetus, or the government on its own
initiative as the fetus's unbidden agent, has a right to
seize control of another's body.  This point is so difficult
for anti-abortionists to make that they will almost always
draw attention to irrelevancies such as the nature of the
fetus.

If we may digress a bit -- maybe this ought to be another
thread -- it seems to me that if people want to grant the
fetus a right to life in spite of any disadvantage or
injury towards the person who happens to be carrying it,
that the fetus (or its agent, the government) might also
claim rights against the other members of the community.
Thus, it would have a right to food, clothing, and medi-
cal care for itself and its enslaved carrier.  I have not
heard much about this from the advocates of compulsory
pregnancy, although jokes have been made about Republicans
who "believe that life begins at conception and ends at
birth."
-- 
Gordon Fitch | gcf@panix.com | uunet!cmcl2!panix!gcf 
*       1238 Blg. Grn. Sta., N.Y., N.Y. 10274      *
Xref: sparky talk.politics.theory:3622 misc.legal:15953 alt.postmodern:2316
From: Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk (Chris Holt)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,misc.legal,alt.postmodern
Subject: Re: Exploitation by Playboy and Hustler (was: Re: <None>)
Date: 5 Aug 92 13:53:29 GMT
Organization: University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, NE1 7RU


        [alt.censorship deleted from Newsgroups line]

gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>cp: [in response to GF]
>| You stated, as a premise, that pictures of naked women stunt a man's
>| emotional growth. The picture you presented was that of a man trying to
>| relate sexually with a picture. Can men not tell fantasy from reality?
>| Can men not tell the difference between a picture and a woman? You have
>| not demonstrated the "exploitation of men" to my satisfaction.

>I've done about as well as I can.  People can tell fantasy from
>reality in a cognitive way, but that's not the whole of human
>mentation by a long shot, and I'm speaking mainly of affective
>and intuitive, rather than rational, processes.  And it's not
>pictures of naked women per se that are damaging but the
>peculiar system of repressions which Playboy and Hustler
>utilize, which involves certain _kinds_ of pictures.  Maybe
>someone else can explain it better; I'm certainly not the only
>person to have come to this conclusion.  I was hoping to get
>Ed back, but it looks like he's given up on this one.

A good approach, I think, is to examine the way that women are
exploited by the advertising industry when they absorb the
beauty myth.  Girls can tell the difference between fantasy
(all those ideal faces and figures, that are overwhelmingly
popular) and reality (the people they see around them in school).
But women still absorb the desperate insecurity that makes them
go out and buy unnecessary "beauty products" and uncomfortable
clothes, and they're afraid of acting too clever, for fear of
alienating the males around them.  So far, so uncontentious (I hope).

The male side of this is to buy into the beauty myth as well.
Boys invite girls who are "pretty" out to the movies, and ignore
those who are less so, or who seem too bright.  They learn to
judge the value of a woman by her appearance.  The role of
pornographic magazines is that they tie this skin-deep kind of
evaluation in with the full-blooded sex drive.  Men have to
accept the reality that most of them cannot sleep with these
visions of loveliness; but they are left feeling that the best
lays are with the most beautiful women.  Thus, they are often
vaguely unhappy that their (admittedly fantastic) ideal cannot
be satisfied.

It doesn't have to be this way; there is nothing inherent in
the depiction of unclad bodies that makes people absorb the
insecurities that are so dear to the heart of advertisers.  But
that is how they spin it now, and it works.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk      Computing Lab, U of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
     "NP-complete do you call it, Sir?  I wish it were undecidable."
From: rachel@phsbbs.princeton.nj.us (Rachel M. Kadel)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Is this a socialist county?
Date: 18 Aug 92 21:06:03 GMT
Organization: Princeton High School, Princeton, New Jersey

carroll@cs.uiuc.edu (Alan M. Carroll) writes:

> In article <1992Aug15.171753.1021@mksol.dseg.ti.com>, mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.co
> > It is 'different' because in the situation we have right now you are
> > not faced with having to send your child to a school with mandatory
> > classes in a religion which potentially conflicts with yours.
> 
> This is simply not true. If one is religious, then the instruction
> received (specifically excluding religion) in most public schools is
> in conflict. If your religion believes that education should be
> religiously based, then the public schools represent a constraint on
> the free exercise of your religion.
> 
> -- 
> Alan M. Carroll          "Weren't there yams involved, too?" - J. Ockerbloom
> Epoch Development Team   
> Urbana Il.               "I hate shopping with the reality-impaired" - Susan

When a public school is working as it is supposed to, it does not 
preclude the learning of any religion.  It simply dictates that, _for the 
students of that school_, learning of religious matters is to take place 
outside of school hours.  It is perfectly possible for a major portion of 
a child's organized learning to take place outside school hours.  
(Witness the great skill many children attain on musical instruments 
despite not learning them in school, but from a private teacher outside 
school.)  One is perfectly free to exercize one's religious convictions 
by sending one's children to a private school or educating them at home, 
rather than availing oneself of the service provided by the government to 
provide education in certain limited areas deemed important to the local, 
state, and federal government.  People who believe strongly that their 
children should get, say, instrumental or dance instruction as part of 
their schooling get the same deal as the religious.  They can find 
someone in the private sector to provide those services that the 
government does not.  This does not violate anyone's rights, in my view.
                                          Rachel M. Kadel

There's an infinite number of monkeys at the door wanting to show us the 
script to Hamlet they've worked out...The school won't even LISTEN to me 
, much less let me speak for it...rachel@phsbbs.princeton.nj.us
From: athos@apple.com (Rick Eames)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Abortion Rights = Self Determination
Date: 17 Aug 92 17:23:58 GMT
Followup-To: talk.politics.theory
Distribution: ba
Organization: Apple Computer, Inc.

In article <1992Aug15.141701.24501@panix.com>, gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch)
wrote:

> This sort of argument will not convince those who believe that
> rights are given by God or Nature, or are absolute for some 
> other reason.  The real difficulty for the anti-abortionists is
> not their assertion of a right to life for the fetus -- one
> could assert a right to life for almost anything -- but that
> they believe that the fetus, or the government on its own
> initiative as the fetus's unbidden agent, has a right to
> seize control of another's body.  This point is so difficult
> for anti-abortionists to make that they will almost always
> draw attention to irrelevancies such as the nature of the
> fetus.

I would probably agree with you were it also true that the fetus "invaded"
the woman's body.  Since we all understand the basic concepts of
reproductive biology, we know that it takes an act of two people to start
the fetus going on it's development.  It is "created"; it does not
"invade."

--
Rick Eames
athos@apple.com
My opinions are my own, thank you very much!
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
From: "tom betz" <tom.betz@execnet.com>
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: us public schools: get ri
Date: 23 Aug 92 03:12:53 EST
Reply-To: "tom betz" <tom.betz@execnet.com>
Distribution: talk
Organization: Executive Networks Information

Quoth Ralph Clark concerning US PUBLIC SCHOOLS: GET RI on 08-20-92:

RC>Every church-related school I have ever seen is *subsidized* by its
RC>congregation. The idea of raising money through operating a church
RC>school is preposterous.

No, what is preposterous is the proposition that church schools, through 
constant indoctrination of impressionable children with the dogmas of the 
church, are intended to do anyth but produce adults fully primed to 
promote and finance the church's ongoing operations.

Which pope was it who said, "Give me a child when he is five and I'll have 
a Catholic for life"?

MacDonald's has learned this lesson well.

---
  WinQwk 2.0 a#299  A myth is a religion in which no one believes any more.
--
Executive Network Information System  (914) 667-4567
International ILink Host
Xref: sparky talk.politics.theory:3741 soc.culture.usa:6676 alt.conspiracy:10151 talk.politics.misc:40688
From: cedman@714-725-3165.nts.uci.edu (Carl Edman)
Subject: Re: Kulturkampf
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,soc.culture.usa,alt.conspiracy,talk.politics.misc
Reply-To: cedman@golem.ps.uci.edu (Carl Edman)
Date: 20 Aug 92 01:24:01 GMT

Gordon Fitch writes
> This proposal is clearly akin to  the fascist, Communist,
> and Nazi programs of subordinating culture to political
> -- governmental -- control, and of eliminating free
> expression.  The Nazis called the program
> _Kulturkampf_.  Is there any way in which the Buchanan
> proposal differs from the _Kulturkampf_?  Or are there
> defenders of Buchanan who would like to explain his
> statement otherwise? 

May I respectfully suggest that however erudite Mr Fitch may be, his knowledge  
of Imperial and Weimar Germanys history unfortunately has at least one gap  
concerning the origin and meaning of the term "Kulturkampf" ?

	Carl Edman

Xref: sparky talk.politics.theory:3620 misc.legal:15948
From: nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,misc.legal
Subject: Re: "Full Employment Act" for lawyers? (was: What sorts of entities...)
Date: 12 Aug 92 13:53:13 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA


 (William December Starr) writes:
>A digression: there's a standard piece of "conventional wisdom" going
>around these days that the United States has too many lawyers, is too
>litiginous (is that a word?) a society, etc.  Underlying this is the
>popular view of lawyers as parasites without whom things would be a
>lot better.  I have to question this, though... while the current
>system for delivering legal services may be somewhat less than
>optimal<*>, the more I learn of the law and of our society the more I
>see legal service suppliers as being somewhat analogous to medical
>service suppliers -- just as we will probably always have injuries,
>diseases etc and therefore will always need people who by skill and
>training are specially able to help deal with them, so, I suspect,
>will we always have conflicts between people regarding their rights,
>duties, privileges etc in an organized society and therefore we will
>also always need people who by skill and training are specially able
>to help people deal with those issues. 

  True, but why do we seem to need so much more of this than other 
  prosperous western societies?  There was a well-documented article
  in Forbes last March illustrating that the tort-law costs in the US 
  were *orders of magnitude* more than most of our major economic 
  competitors.   

  Now I might agree that this may really translate into "too much
  litigation" rather than "too many lawyers".  (after all, in a 
  high crime area would we say that there's "too many security 
  companies", or "too much crime"?   On the OTHER hand, lawyers 
  actively encourage litigation (they run TV ads here asking, "Have
  you been injured in an accident?") )


>services," well, so be it.  Obviously, such an institution would knock
>the props right out of any hopes I personally may have about getting
>even mildly rich off the practice of the law, but I still find myself
>sort of leaning in that direction, with the caveat that I believe that
>socialized lawyers, like socialized doctors, should receive
>compensation that reflects their skilled status and the amount of
>effort that they've invested in obtaining those skills.)

  It has been suggested that one reason we have so much litigation is 
  that the US does not have a social safety net.  If you are injured
  so that you cannot work, or work at your trained occupation, then
  you are destitute.   The courts are the only way to seek the means
  to live.   Other societies will provide you with the means to 
  live, or pay for retraining for some new skill.
                                   
---peter
Xref: sparky talk.politics.theory:3791 misc.legal:16269