HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: zeleny@husc9.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny)
Newsgroups: misc.legal,rec.arts.books,talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Right to Kill (was re: Anti-Arab racism on the net)
Keywords: Equality, Fairness, Same Standards?
Date: 6 Oct 92 02:48:38 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1992Oct5.224839.16108
Organization: Harvard University Science Center

In article <1992Oct5.203712.28805@blaze.cs.jhu.edu>
arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee) writes:

>In article <1992Oct5.120317.16094@husc3.harvard.edu>
>zeleny@husc9.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:

>>I don't recall having appointed you my spokesman, so kindly abstain from
>>making sweeping claims on behalf of "Jews".  Incidentally, should the
>>charming fellows in the ex-East Germany happen to come up with an updated
>>edition of "Mein Kampf", I would gladly put up another $100 towards the
>>goal of conclusive and irreversible reeducation of its author.

>If, as it appears, you've indicated you'd want to pay to have someone who
>writes an anti-Semitic book killed, then I will have to say right now: I
>unequivocally condemn such actions, and state for the record that Michael
>Zeleny does not speak for me.  We have no right to kill people for publishing
>books.

You might take the trouble of reading "Mein Kampf", and then re-reading my
message; finally you might even consider dropping the habit of speaking so
authoritatively on behalf of the mute multitudes.  Then you could consult
the classics of political philosophy (e.g. John Locke) who give well-known
arguments to the effect that anyone has a right to destroy any individual
presenting clear and imminent danger to his life and well-being, in virtue
of his freely chosen, deliberative action.

>--
>"the bogosity in a field equals the bogosity imported from related areas, plus
>the bogosity generated internally, minus the bogosity expelled or otherwise
>disposed of."  -- K. Eric Drexler
>
>Ken Arromdee (UUCP: ....!jhunix!arromdee; BITNET: arromdee@jhuvm;
>     INTERNET: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu)

cordially,
mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
"Nous donnons la mort, nous saurons la subir."
From: matt@smoke.brl.mil (Matthew Rosenblatt)
Newsgroups: misc.legal
Subject: Re: "Multiculturalism and the First Amendment"
Summary: Good for Nat Hentoff!
Keywords: Warm my heart
Date: 30 Sep 92 17:28:38 GMT
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Lab, APG MD.

In article <1992Sep28.155350.835@Princeton.EDU> 
egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Edward G. Nilges) writes:

>Nat's anti-choice stance is part of a deep opposition to feminism that
>first surfaced inside the Village Voice (with which Hentoff has been
>associated for thirty years.)  [Ed Nilges]

Well, good for Nat Hentoff!  We need more "deep opposition to feminism."

>A number of women staffers began to
>question the serious exploitation that took place at the Voice and to
>ask why (given its committment to freedom) this exploitation was
>permitted to continue.  This resulted in a pogrom in which the most
>outspoken women were harassed and fired.  [Ed Nilges]

A "pogrom" is a riot in which people are beaten up or killed.  It
is hyperbole, and insulting to the victims of *real* pogroms, to
use the word "pogrom" in connection with a management decision 
to fire dissident workers.

I believe it was in the late '60's that a few alumni of Harvard's
Radio Station WHRB went to work for Pacifica's WBAI-FM in New York,
"Sixties Marxist Radio for the Metropolitan Area."  All but one of
them (Whit; he was the Chief Engineer, and he had more sense) went 
to management and told them that they were managing the station wrong,
and that they ought to do things the way the WHRB alumni wanted.
They were promptly fired.  Was that a "pogrom"?

>Hentoff favors pornography, which is most often the literal record of a
>woman being coerced into having sex, . . .  [Ed Nilges]

How about, "pornography, which is *sometimes* the literal record of a
woman being coerced into having sex," as well as a desecration of the
Divine Image?  I'll accept "sometimes," but I won't accept "most often"
without a lot more evidence than Linda Lovelace's mere say-so in _Out
of Bondage_.

>. . .  but opposes abortion...he has more
>care for the rights of potential human beings than the rights of real
>human beings.   [Ed Nilges]

Is it true that someone who opposes the legal banning of pornography
_ipso facto_ "favors pornography"?  By the same reasoning, someone
who opposes the legal banning of abortion may be said to "favor 
abortion."  Yet those who oppose the legal banning of abortion
protest vigorously when their opponents say they "favor abortion."
It would warm my heart if Mr. Nilges would agree that those who
oppose laws against abortion in fact favor abortion.

					-- Matt Rosenblatt
                                        (matt@amsaa.brl.mil)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
TRUTH     JUSTICE     FREEDOM     YIDDISHKEIT     IVY     THE AMERICAN WAY
Newsgroups: misc.legal,rec.arts.books
From: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig)
Subject: The Iron Dream (was: Anti-Arab racism on the net)
Keywords: Equality, Fairness, Same Standards?
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 17:20:54 GMT

ia4@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Imran Anwar):
>>Actually, I don't know of anyone, Jewish or otherwise, who found THE IRON
>>DREAM offensive.
>
>Since I never heard of nor saw the book Iron Dream I do not know what 
>Jewish or other people's response was but if what I see THESE days is 
>anything to go by I would have a hard time believing that.

So easy to make judgments about a book you haven't read?  "The Iron Dream"
is a book with a remarkable lesson to teach, and far from being offended,
I'm grateful that it can be taught so cheaply.  

It's a science fiction novel, in one of the trashiest traditions of that
genre, chronicling the triumph of a thinly-disguised Nazi leader and state.
Just substitute 'human' for 'aryan', 'mutant' for 'non-aryan', 'dominator'
for 'Jew', etc.  It's as one-dimensional as the rawest propaganda you can
imagine.  But it *works*, and therein lies the lesson.

We like to think we're wiser than those who got suckered by Nazism, and
other isms, or at least that we've learned the lesson of history.  What
this book shows us is that we've just been sensitized to certain words
and symbols:  Tell the same stories without pressing those red buttons,
and the old appeals work as well as ever.

Spinrad makes no attempt to be subtle; the reader *knows* what's being done.
But even so, for two hours, that reader is seduced by hate literature in a 
gift wrapping of adrenaline, wish fulfillment, patriotism, and sublimated sex.

It's a well-crafted book, and it works *as* a book of its subgenre.  It
isn't until you've finished it that you really appreciate what you've 
just been reading and what you've just been cheering.

-----
Dani Zweig
dani@netcom.com

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
 Are full of passionate intensity." -- W.B. Yeats
From: rc@depsych.Gwinnett.COM (Richard Carlson)
Newsgroups: misc.legal
Subject: Fightin' Words
Date: 27 Sep 92 18:45:39 GMT
Article-I.D.: depsych.smwRRB1w164w

Well, the e-mail route to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
works.  (I don't have ftp capabilities.)  I got a nice little text
on Fighting Words -- cohen-v-california.1, which looks to be the
text of the court's decision but also contains some quotations
from books on the subject.

Apparently the focus was more on the first amendment issues than
on the relation to Fighting Words as a defense against damages or
charges of battery.  It's a different focus than what interests
me.  The text reads:

>"The Court has since [_Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire_] defined
>'fighting words' narrowly. It is not enough that speech be
>offensive, or invite dispute, or provoke hostility among
>listeners: only fact-to-face person insults raise no First
>Amendment issues. Yet the difficulty of designing a statute
>confined to such insults has lead the Court to overturn convicts
>on overbreadth or vagueness grounds even when the speech at issue
>clearly constituted 'fighting words'"
>
>In _Cohen v. California_, 1971 the Supreme Court restated the
>description of fighting words as "those personally abusive
>epithets which, when addressed to the ordinary citizen, are, as a
>matter of common knowledge, inherently likely to provoke violent
>action.

I didn't even know that the person who _says_ the fighting words
was guilty of a crime.  I have followed that cross-burning case --
even saw the principals on a talk show: Phil or Oprah or Montell,
I can't recall which -- but that seems different from the
face-to-face use of an obscenity or an ethnic epithet.

Suppose I call you a "dumb m*ther-f*cker."  What crime have I
committed?  What latitude do you have in hitting me?  (I recently
talked to an attorney here in Georgia who says that both mutual
combat and non-ethnic fighting words have just about been thrown
out of the court system and if you hit me after I've said fighting
words the case will _not_ now be dismissed but will go on and be
decided by a judge and you will probably be found guilty of
battery.)

Suppose I call you a [ethnic epithet].  Leaving aside specific laws
like the ones at issue in that cross-burning case, what crime have
I committed?

Are you more justified under any legal doctrine in punching me if
I call you a [ethnic epithet] than if I call you a "dumb
m*ther-f*cker"?  Does "common sense" enter into it at all?  Does
it make a difference if I call you either of these terms in a
school cafeteria, a country club (where you are a guest because no
members of your ethnic group are admitted to membership) or your
neighborhood where no members of my ethnic group reside and you
are surrounded by your friends?

--
Richard Carlson
Internet:              rc@depsych.gwinnett.COM
Bangpath:              {rutgers,ogicse,gatech}!emory!gwinnett!depsych!rc
CompuServe:            76605,470
Voice:                 (404) 881-6877
From:  (J Klein)
Newsgroups: misc.legal
Subject: Re: the MIT anti-trust case
Date: 28 Sep 92 18:45:59 GMT
Followup-To: misc.legal,alt.politics.correct,soc.college,sci.econ
Organization: Public Macs, Academic Computing, Yale University

> The Overlap Group was a way to keep its members from breaking ranks.
> 
> >Furthermore, I doubt that the consent agreement will change the total
> >amount of financial aid that any school grants; rather, it will
> >slightly change the distribution, in a semi-random manner.  
> 
> There's financial aid, and there's financial aid.  Much of the financial
> aid granted by the Overlap Group was faux financial aid that reduced
> the monopoly price to a level closer to a competitive level.  

Two things: 1.  Universities outside the overlap group were increasing
costs at approximately the same rates as those inside the group.
												2.  Besides economic efficiency, there are other issues to
consider.  The notion of "need-based" financial aid disappears with this
decision.  Schools will simply now offer the most they can to the best
students.  Since before the decision no money was going to rich students,
and since now universities must compete for rich students too, a
substantial portion of the money that used to go to poor students who
couldn't afford to go to an Ivy, now will go to richer students, thus
potentially eliminating a class of brilliant but poorer students from
accessing the benefits of an Ivy.  Indeed, since poorer students often have
lower SATs and no prep education, the problem of access is exacerbated.
Newsgroups: misc.legal,rec.arts.books
From: afadel@nyx.cs.du.edu (Ayman Fadel)
Subject: Point of Technicality (Was Re: Anti-Arab racism on the net)
Organization: University of Denver, Dept. of Math & Comp. Sci.
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 92 14:57:02 GMT

I've heard the use of the work death sentence or death threat.

The technical legal term for what Ayatullah al-khomayni
did is called fatwa, which is the response of a scholar to
a question.  Someone asked him whether it was permissible
to kill Salman Rushdy, and his answer was yes.  I haven't seen
a text of this response (fatwa), so I don't know exactly
what his evidence was.

So actually what he said was that it was permissible to kill
him.  He didn't say it was a good thing to kill him no matter
what consequences resulted from such an action.  Nor did
he say it was obligatory for Salman to be killed.

I'm sure from the Liberal's perspective this distinction is
meaningless, but it does make a difference for people who
know about these things.  And for the sake of accuracy, I would
hope people would begin referring to al-khomayni's ruling on
the permissibility of killing Salman, not "Death Sentence" or
"order to kill Salman."


ayman

Newsgroups: misc.legal
From: press2@cbnewsd.cb.att.com (barry.o.olson)
Subject: Question: police authority on the road
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: usa
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 02:02:56 GMT
Keywords: laws, abuse of authority, where's the line drawn


Let's say you are driving in a 40mph zone doing 46. Cop radar detects
infraction, proceeds to follow. Cop follows five miles through winding
country road(which offender had turned on to). Cop turns on emergency
lights to apprehend after five mile tail. Cop never mentions previous
speed infraction, but comes up with something different as cause. Cop
smells beer, proceeds to question and arrests for dui. 
Question: Is this excessive or unreasonable use of police authority?
And is there a law which defines excessive use of authority in vehicular
cases?
Thanks!

barry--
Newsgroups: misc.legal
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Jury Nullification -- The Power is a Right
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 19:57:23 GMT

In article <1992Oct5.072153.24660@cs.brown.edu> ted@cs.brown.edu (Tony Davis) writes:

>|>    = Tony Davis
>|>Obviously some people think you did.  Tell us what you really said so that
>|>we can all play the same game.
>
>|     = Mike Godwin
>|Tony, what I really said is in the passage you quote. 
>
>No.  The words you wrote are in the passage I quote.  I asked nothing about
>the words you wrote.  What you said is clearer below.

Maybe it's clearer to you now. But what I "really said" is identical to what I
wrote. 
 
>Given the now long past context of this discussion, I believe some people
>have been and still are interpreting 'claims a moral right to nullify' as
>'takes a moral right to nullify' or 'uses a moral right to nullify'.  With
>such an interpretation it would be easier to misunderstand what you said.

If in fact they misunderstood what I said, this tends to undercut your
implicit assertion that I was playing any kind of game with them.

It should be clear to anyone who talks to jurors that few think of their
work as a function of some kind of set of moral rights that they may or
may not claim. Jury-nullification enthusiasts like to characterize
instances of nullification as instances in which jurors have "claimed a
right." But there is little evidence that any juror thought of it that
way.


--Mike



-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"Liberty resides in the rights of that person
mnemonic@eff.org| whose views you find most odious."
(617) 864-0665  | 
EFF, Cambridge  |                           --John Stuart Mill
Newsgroups: misc.legal
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Fightin' Words
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 18:21:42 GMT

In article <6DBTRB5w164w@depsych.Gwinnett.COM> rc@depsych.Gwinnett.COM (Richard Carlson) writes:

>OK.  But it'll probably be a few days until I can get to the Emory
>law library.  And is that the book I want?  It sounds as if it
>approaches it from the first amendment point of view -- how
>protected is the speech of the person uttering the fighting words.

"Fighting words" is a term of art in First Amendment jurisprudence; it's
used to refer to a certain (and, as it turns out, very narrow) category of
speech that can be Constitutionally prohibited or regulated. You can't
ask about the "fighting words" doctrine without asking a First Amendment
question.

>I'm more interested in fighting words as a _defense_ against
>damages in empowerment-type  civil suits (where you sue me for
>medical and dental bills when I punch you after you called me a
>"dumb m*therf*cker) and as a mitigating factor in my felony
>battery prosecution when I tell the judge, "I hit the b*astard
>because he called me a 'dumb m*therf*cker.'

What you're interested in is not the "fighting words" doctrine, but
the doctrine of provocation as a defense. For that, see LaFave and Scott's
two-volume treatise, SUBSTANTIVE CRIMINAL LAW.

>But you agree with the lawyer who told me that that's now all
>moot.

More or less. "Fighting words" is a vestigial Constitutional doctrine, for
the most part; Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire continues to be cited in
Supreme Court caes, but never to *uphold* a fighting-words conviction.

>If this is all true isn't it a new doctrine?  Haven't fighting
>words until recently been a mitigating factor, almost amounting to
>a license for me to hit you if I can get you mad enough to call me
>something society agrees is offensive?

You've conflated the "fighting words" doctrine with the criminal-law
treatment of provocation. The two are not the same.

>Btw, didn't we discuss this issue on RIME or FidoNet?  Your name is
>familiar.  I went over these issues on those networks about a year
>or so ago, but I never got it ironed out.  I never understood what
>the law actually was.

I'm not online on any RIME node. I may appear on FidoNet to the extent
that some nodes carry Usenet discussions.


--Mike




-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact 
mnemonic@eff.org| of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, 
(617) 864-0665  | both are transformed."
EFF, Cambridge  |                           --Carl Jung
From: alpert@rambler.UUCP (Tuna Palace Systems)
Newsgroups: misc.legal
Subject: Re: Online Legal
Date: 30 Sep 92 03:46:36 GMT
Article-I.D.: rambler.D1awRB4w165w
Distribution: usa
Organization: Tuna Palace Systems, Camden NJ 609-854-5297


> >srm@world.std.com (Stevens R Miller) writes:
> >Aside from the American Bar Association's _You and the Law_, there
> >aren't many books by lawyers "giving away the law" to laypersons.

Check out "The Underground Lawyer" by attorney Michael Louis Minns, 
great book!


==============================================================================
Bob Alpert : Tuna Palace Systems : Camden, NJ : alpert%rambler@kb2ear.ampr.org
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*   Government agents are swine. |   Smash the State before it's too late!   *
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*   Heroin Crack Kill Bush Death Quayle AK-47 CIA Destroy NSA Anarchy LSD    *
*   Death IRS Government Overthrow Sell Cocaine Marijuana Buy Destroy FBI    *
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Newsgroups: misc.legal,talk.environment,tx.general,alt.activism
From: ia4@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Imran Anwar)
Subject: Re: Anti-Arab racism on the net
Keywords: Equality, Fairness, Same Standards?
Reply-To: ia4@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Imran Anwar)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 23:11:21 GMT

In response to Mike Godwin, I appreciate the information about Iron Dream
but must beg to differ on the pont that Rushdie was not trying to be
offensive.

As aatter of fact that is exactly the reason I do not like his book, it
was a deliberate attempt to malign and upset Muslims.

Imran

Newsgroups: misc.legal,rec.arts.books
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Anti-Arab racism on the net
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Keywords: Equality, Fairness, Same Standards?
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1992 16:29:01 GMT

In article <1992Sep26.015238.15292@news.columbia.edu> ia4@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Imran Anwar) writes:

>Also, one of the reasons many Americans (Westerners) may not understand the
>Muslims' strong reaction is that Rushdie very cleverly used words that 
>may sound like fictional names or ideas but are CLOSELY related to 
>specific concepts, names, events, etc in Islam or Islamic history. That
>may be part of most non Muslims not understanding the Muslim's reactions.

Imran, you may be sure that just about *every* American who read Rushdie's
THE SATANIC VERSES knew that he was drawing upon Islam and the history of
Islam.

It seems less likely, however, that every Muslim who read the excerpted
passages from the book knew that story of Mahound was being presented as
part of the feverish dreams of an insane person.

>For example, if someone wrote a book in which a nice great leader called
>Hister ruling a great European empire decided to do away with abominable
>despicable people of a race called Chews it would be easy for many (if not
>all ) Jewish people to jump upon it as an anti-Semitic book.

A similar book has been written. It's called THE IRON DREAM, and author
Norman Spinrad's purpose was to show how well Hitler's racialism fit with
certain genres of science fiction. It was not jumped upon as
"anti-Semitic" because most readers were sufficiently familiar with the
conventions of Western fiction and parody to figure out what Spinrad was
up to.

Those who see Rushdie's book as an attack on Islam are, for the most
part, unfamiliar with the conventions of the novel in Western culture.
Other Western writers often draw upon other religious traditions for their
work (see, e.g., the works of Philip Roth, Joseph Heller, Norman Mailer,
and Bernard Malamud), but it is just as much a mistake to interpret those
as attempts to offend Jews and Christians as it is to interpret Rushdie's
book as an attempt to offend Muslims or attack Islam.


--Mike



-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact 
mnemonic@eff.org| of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, 
(617) 864-0665  | both are transformed."
EFF, Cambridge  |                           --Carl Jung
From: ges@stiatl.salestech.com (Gerald Sullivan)
Newsgroups: misc.legal
Subject: Re: Skinhead speech protected, Supreme Court says
Keywords: In brightest day, in blackest night
Date: 30 Sep 92 16:29:53 GMT
Organization: Sales Technologies, Inc.

sethb@fid.morgan.com (Seth Breidbart) writes:

>Free speech is available to everybody.  Part of the price of freedom
>is having to put up with stuff that pisses you off.  Do you propose we
>outlaw any speech that is against liberals?
>
>Seth		sethb@fid.morgan.com

That is what many people want. They are just clever enough to use doublespeak
so that is sounds somthing like:
"Banning hate speech"
So that your typical unthinking person will say:
"Gee, thats good, I'm against hate too"

When I was attending the University of Leeds in the UK (84-85), the local
NUS (national union of students) chapter passed a resolution "supporting
free speech except for fascists". Of course, they defined "fascists" to
include anyone who supported Thatcher. It was quite commical to watch
them dismiss anyone nonsocialist as fascists while defining groups such 
as the Revolutionary Communist Party as "nonfascist".

It seems that leftists are more guilty of this because they have more
opportunity to do so . University faculty tend to be leftist and
Universities are where these things seem to occur. I am sure rightists
would do the same if they had the chance. 

Unfortunately, Americans seem to be becoming less able to care and think
for themselves. They seem to want Big Brother to protect them from thinking
or making mistakes. I hear clammoring for a Canadian health care system.
Maybe we also need Canadian style restrictions of free speech. Eventually,
we will have a full blown welfare state like the UK.


-- 
___________________________________________________________________
Jerry Sullivan, Sales Technologies, Inc.  Atlanta,GA 
ges@salestech.com,...uupsi!stiatl!ges I don't speak for my employer.
Just say no to Republicrats, vote Libertarian.
Newsgroups: misc.legal,alt.politics.correct