From: jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca (John Paul Morrison)
Subject: Re: Virginie's TV violence petition
Organization: University of BC, Electrical Engineering
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 07:45:39 GMT

In article <By0w44.6xp@DMI.USherb.CA> paien00@DMI.USherb.CA (Nick) writes:
>4224_5201@uwovax.uwo.ca (John LaRocque) a ecrit:
>>> In article <Bxz3xn.1zu@DMI.USherb.CA>, paien00@DMI.USherb.CA (Nick) writes:
>>
>>No, you have not read this correctly at all. Lance et Compte did not cause
>>the rape of women any more than the A-Team or Wile E Coyte is responsible for
>>the death of Virginie's sister.
>>
>
>How do you know??? You're probably right but are you sure???
>
>>
>>> It's not because you don't have any effects on violence that everybody
>>> is like you! Face it there's a lot of weirdos out there and God knows
>>> what they can do when they see images of an heros who's shooting
>>> everybody???? 
>>
>>Yeah, there are "weirdos" everywhere and TV caused all of them to go and rape
>>and kill, right? That's like Hitler blaming Jews for Germany's economic woes!
>>(ou Duplessis et les communistes!)
>
>No but just if it would be to save ten or one it would worth it! You
>could live without A-Team or Wile E Coyte and there's is probably many
>shows that are not on the air beause they're judged too violent! Are
>you upset by them??? No because you don't know they exist... it would
>be the same...

No it wouldn't be worth it to save ten people or one person. It would involve
needless restrictions on liberty and choice. Whenever you want to save
lives or whatever, you have to consider the cost, and also the opportunity
cost. Ie how many MORE lives could be saved if you diverted those resources
(ie scarce time and money, enless legal challenges in court etc.) to
something that would turn out to be more prodcutive (like saving hundreds, or
thousands of lives or assault victims)

Your kind of thinking is irrational ie "even if it saves 1 person" because
it would actually cause more harm than good, because the time, money and
energy you propose to spend tilting at this windmill, could be better
spent on something that would do more good, and without the unjustifiable
restriction on liberty.

An outright ban would require endless commissions and studies by royal
commissions, it would face legal challenges that would drag things on
for years, and this would cost more time and money. All of this, as well
as an unjustifiable restriction on liberty, and this would be based 
on questionable evidence. Just think how the civil service would mushroom
if they had to pay people to watch TV, and sort out the "violence", and
it would have to go on forever. HOw would you enforce it? What about
bootleg copies of A-Tean and the Roadrunner cartoon?

Now compare how much more good you would achieve if you spent the same
money on public service announcements, or counselling for violence prone
people, etc. And thsoe programs wouldn't have the negative of infringing 
on other people's liberty.

>
>>Upbringing, violent homes, poverty...... stuff that has been around a LOT 
>longer than TV (TV didn't start World War I either).
>
>So if we have some problems we should not be able to solve some
>others???
>
>But anyways... I mean and you know it there's nothing that will change
>for a long time... The Governement will not do anything anyways. So
>you'Re going to be able to watch whatever you want and the weirdos who
>REALLY get upset by the TV will continue doing what they do...

AS long as simplistic suggestions are put forth, we will always have this
mess. it may appear obvious that banning will solve things, but it won't.

The weirdos are the ones to blame, and your kind of ideas can be turned
around to ban anything that superficially offends public's morality.
You haven't taken the time to think through the logic of your argument,
and if you do think it through, you'll see that fascism is essentially
the end result (although it will be masked in socially correct attempts
to do the "right" thing).

>
>
>-- 
>						Nick
>  - Ce n'est pas parce qu'une rumeur ne tient   
>     pas debout... qu'elle ne peut courir !    


-- 
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 John Paul Morrison                     |  
 University of British Columbia, Canada |  
 Electrical Engineering                 |   .sig file without a cause
 jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca              VE7JPM |  
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Newsgroups: can.politics