From: anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson)
Subject: Re: A Strand of Bigotry
Organization: Madison Academic Computing Center, UW-Madison
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 92 04:07:18 GMT


In article <19921121013659ECL4JN2@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU>
ECL4JN2@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU (Jack B. Nimble) writes:

>Edgar J Lawrence II asserts the following:

>>For far too long, people on this group having been taking
>>this Gary Strand character more seriously than he deserves.
>>He has repeatedly claimed that he has the right to practice
>>bigotry.  He calls it "discrimination," but it should be
>>obvious to everyone that he is a particularly vicous bigot
>>who uses half-baked Libertarian rhetoric to rationalize his
>>bigotry.

>You've totally mischaracterized what Gary Strand actually
>wrote, which is actually fairly typical of totalitarian
>tinkerbell thinking.

I qualify my own remarks by saying that I read very little
of what Gary Strand actually said, though my impression was
also that he was a vicious bigot.

Perhaps we can retire this not very productive "tinkerbell"
rhetoric, too?  It's more an obstacle to useful debate than
anything else.

>What he claimed was that neither individuals nor the
>government have the right to forcibly prevent other people
>from discriminating.

I don't believe he made any distinction between the thought
and the act, and it looks like you're doing it too.  What's
your real intent here?

For the purpose of discussion, I would say that
discrimination has not occurred unless there *is* an act, as
opposed to an expression of belief or principle, and the
extent to which, and in what manner, such acts are
actionable is a separate issue from the balance of your
argument.

>This no more makes one a bigot than does supporting the
>right of Nazis to march in Skokie make one a Nazi or does
>upholding the right of fundamentalist Christian churches to
>preach that homosexuality is a sin make one a fundy.

Supporting the right of the Nazis to march (anywhere,
including Skokie) does not, I would agree, make one a bigot,
although I believe this is a minority view in our society
and getting more so.  Same for your fundy point.  Such
things are, I think, an expression of principle, and even if
the principle disgusts me personally (as those certainly
do), I think the expression is protected by the First
Amendment.

>This so-called "half-baked libertarian rhetoric" about the
>basic right to be left alone protects not only the bigot but
>gays as well from the oppressive and overbearing power of
>majoritarian government that would overreach its domain and
>extend itself into everyone's private life.

My problem here is that too many things have been run
uncritically together.  What we're dealing with is fairly an
excess of rhetoric.  Your basic point, that the government
has no business criminalizing beliefs (if that *was* your
point, I mean), I certainly agree with.

Many additional implications of your remark are, I think, a
somewhat separate set of topics, to be debated on another
occasion, perhaps.

Is that acceptable?

<> Well, I learned a lot.  You'd be surprised.  They're all
<> individual countries. -- Ronald Reagan, after a tour of
<> South America
-- 
[Jess Anderson <> Madison Academic Computing Center <> University of Wisconsin]
[Internet: anderson@macc.wisc.edu <-best, UUCP:{}!uwvax!macc.wisc.edu!anderson]
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[---------> Discrimination, Bigotry, and Hate are not Family Values <---------]