From: HADCRJAM@admin.uh.edu (MILLER, JIMMY A.)
Subject: Re: Am I "exploiting" this woman?
Organization: University of Houston Administrative Computing
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 19:02:22 GMT
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.20

In <Bx9L3x.HDn@news.cso.uiuc.edu> parker@ehsn17.cen.uiuc.edu writes:

> HADCRJAM@admin.uh.edu (MILLER, JIMMY A.) writes:
> 
> >In <1992Nov5.153742.20271@cbnews.cb.att.com> lib@cbnews.cb.att.com writes:
> 
> >> In article <Bx80u8.4zK@ccu.umanitoba.ca> kaarts@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Kenneth John Aarts) writes:
> >> >
> >> >What a person reads, wherever they read it, should be their own business.  I
> >> >still don't understand why someone should be upset with that woman for
> >> >reading an erotic magazine.  Granted, it is easy to come up with specific
> >> >incidences, but I don't think it is valid as a general rule.
> >>    
> >> Not at work. You're on private property with other people and
> >> those other people have rights.
> 
> >  So, whose rights have precedence?  The write of an individual to read/look
> >at whatever they like (like Plaboy/Girl, Mein Kampf, the Koran, etc.), or
> >the individual(s) "bothered" by the presence of the "offensive" material?
> >So long as it isn't on "company time", of course...
> 
> Not being allowed to read such things at work does not stop you from reading
> them at home (where there *is* noone else to consider.  If you have a wife 
> and/or kids, you can always lock yourself in the bathroom...  ;)  but your 
> reading such things at work *does* stop those others from being able to 
> avoid them. *That* is how you know.

  I find this more than a little ridiculous.  What you are describing sounds
like a courtesy question, not rights.

> Simply stated:  passive rights have precidence over active rights.
> The right *not* to have something happen to you is more important than the
> right of you to cause that something *to* happen to someone.

  Horse shit.  We are exposed to offensive things every day in public places
that we simply cannot avoid.  The nativity scene in Foleys might offend me. 
The KKK parades DO offend me.  The notion that we must coddle and pander
(legally) to people with no stomach for the unpleasant things in life simply
because it offends their delicate sensibilities is nauseating to me.  If
someone were to ask me politely to remove a calendar, I might do so.  But this
notion of "right not to be exposed to unpleasant things out in the wide world"
is utterly asinine. 

  Your passive rights do not extend to preventing someone from reading Playgirl
on a park bench, IMO, regardless of what the local prudes think.  Not
courteous?  Perhaps.  A right to not have to see it?  I think not.  Shall we ban
political rallies on the basis that someone of another view could stroll by and
be offended? 


semper fi,

Jammer Jim Miller 
Texas A&M University '89 and '91
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