From: jacksonk@polaris.cs.rpi.edu (Keith Jackson)
Subject: Re: rmgroup alt.fan.rush-limbaugh
Organization: Rensselaovic Polytechnicov Instituvnech
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 16:48:16 GMT

In article <92317.231441MBS110@psuvm.psu.edu> Mark 'Mark' Sachs <MBS110@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>>>In <rdippold.721181889@qualcom> rdippold@qualcom.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold)
>>writes:
>>>>What do you expect?  Liberals and free speech go together like oil and
>>>>water (respectively).

>Perhaps my memory fails me, but I don't recall too many significant
>instances of "liberals" fighting free speech, beyond a few trivial
>and likely unconstitutional speech codes at universities, and a **JOKE**
>posting proposing the rmgroup of alt.rush-limbaugh. In my experience
>liberals have been quite forthright in defense of the First Amendment.

>Perhaps you can point out a few opposing examples for us?

	Hmmm, perchance you've forgotten the

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	Remember her crusade against those bad bad evil evil  rock  lyr-
	ics?   Or how about the feminazi groups that try to ban porn be-
	cause it's "harmful to women and children" ?  (watch a porn  and
	you become a child molestor and a rapist!)

	Now before you get that knee convulsing, I didn't say  that  li-
	berals  tended  to  oppose individual rights more than conserva-
	tives.  I think you have  two  scales  :  individual  vs.  state
	rights and welfare vs.  laissez faire, i.e. personal liberty and
	economic policy.  The problem with immediately  equating  ultra-
	conservatives  with  Fascists  is  that  you're  mapping  a one-
	dimensional scale to a two-dimensional one.  Simply because Fas-
	cists are more conservative economically (actually, they tend to
	help business directly as opposed to counteracting it) does  not
	make  the  converse  true.   The  whole  idea of the libertarian
	(small "l" -- not the political party in the US, which is  actu-
	ally  more Fascist than libertarian) philosophy is that the less
	the government interferes in things, the better  --  this  holds
	for business and personal life.  Now in the Republican party you
	have the more libertarian Reagan-like factions and the more Fun-
	damentalist  factions (Robertson/Buchanan.) The majority of con-
	servatives tend to be more libertarian.  Those that want to lim-
	it  freedoms are more concerned with things that relate to their
	religion than anything : abortion,  obscenity,  sexuality,  etc.
	While  I  don't agree that the government should be in the busi-
	ness of policing behavior, I at least understand the  motivation
	behind  them.   While  many  use  religion as a means to an end,
	there are many more that actually make an honest attempt at  do-
	ing what they think is right (pardon the pun!)

	Then, of course, you have the extremists who are  often  bigoted
	in  one way or another, but you also have extremists on the con-
	servative side, too. ;^)

	The Democrappers and  "liberals",  love  to  meddle  in  things.
	They're  very  quick  to  stand up for the personal liberties of
	every wacko who wants some obscure  "right"  --  the  only  con-
	sistency seems to be disestablishmentarianism.  There also seems
	to be a plethora of outspoken liberals who try to drown out  op-
	posing  viewpoints  by  the concept of "the loudest is correct."
	The problem is the more recent trends of organizing these  types
	of people more and more -- getting more robots to get a de facto
	suppression of the rights of others.  If  you  have  cable,  try
	watching  MTV  for  a  few  minutes  some  time.  In between the
	talentless screaming moron videos, you get lots of political in-
	doctrination.   It's very scary!  They've made Will-billy into a
	cultural icon.  Even if you tend to favor liberal economic poli-
	cies, you have to admit that Bill Clinton is no model citizen --
	he's simply the anti-Bush,  anti-Republican,  anti-establishment
	choice.

	So in effect, the liberals aren't out to protect your individual
	rights  any  more  than the conservatives and the extremists are
	gathering more and more unsuspecting followers than  the  ultra-
	conservatives  could ever hope to.  Extremism either way is bad,
	but when you get an unquestioning, idolizing following in  popu-
	lar  culture  and  the  media, it's time to start worrying about
	creating a Stalin or a Hitler.  OK, so I've succumbed to the ob-
	ligatory net.hitler.scare.tactic, but you get the idea.

-- 
__ __  ____ ______ ______ __  __ 	Keith Jackson
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