From: emamid@athena.ecs.csus.edu (David Emami)
Subject: Re: Larry Agran IS being denied "free speech"
Organization: California State University, Sacramento
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 92 08:22:50 GMT

In article <1992Apr13.060221.6581@usenet.ins.cwru.edu> aq817@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Steve Crocker) writes:
>
>In a post on this thread, David Emami suggests that if I want to hear
>Larry Agran , et. al. I should go do it. He does not appear to think
>that the fact that some other people have quasi-monopolisitc control
>over the most effecient menas of mass communication places any

If you find this objectionable, go build your own network. The stockholders,
et. al., invested huge sums of THEIR money in these companies; who are you
or Agran to have some causeless say in the matter? If you don't like it,
your only civilized recourse would be a sponsor boycott or something of
that nature.

>responsibility on them to assist in disseminating the views of
>someone like Agran. He mentions "compulsion" which I did not

In other words, if you invest your time and money in something that the
"public" find useful, you are obligated to hook yourself up to their yoke?

>advocate (although I wouldn't necessarily rule it out - my mind
>is not made up on that point).

You didn't need to spell out your advocation of it. Whenever your kind
starts shouting about someone not "acting in the public interest", threat
of force is implicit.

>
>In typical libertarian fashion, he seems to be saying that
>if the laws of property allow a certain behavior, it must be
>OK. That is nonsense. When a relatively small number of people

Well, I'm not a libertarian (Bush has almost convinced me, though), but
what I am saying is that, if the RIGHT (not LAW) of property allows
someone to follow a certain course, you may not use force to alter it.
If you believe that you can be justified in violating that right, you belong
on a longship collecting Danegeld, not here.

>are able under whatever pretext to determine who is or is not 
>able to reach large numbers of people with a political message,

They are not determining whom will reach whom. They are determining
whom they will help reach whom.

>then a key assumption necessary for the success of a democratic
>republic has failed. To be a party to the establishment or 
>perpetuation of this condition is in fact treason. The fact
>that law, custom, and libertarian principles all allow such
>treason does not alter this.
> 
>-Steve

Hear, hear! To ensure that everyone receives unbiased, truthful information
from the media, let's have government put a gun to their heads and tell them
what to say!!!!

As to principles, this argument (and the related ones in this group) all come
down to that old truism: "The end cannot be used to justify the means."
One ideology holds that human beings have rights which you may not violate,
come hell or high water. The other holds that the state has certain goals,
and it may do whatever is necessary to reach them.

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"The doctrine that 'human rights' are superior to 'property rights' simply
 means that some humans have the right to make property out of others...
 Whoever regards this as human and right, has no right to the title 'human.'"
   -- John Galt, in Ayn Rand's ATLAS SHRUGGED
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