HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: visser@convex.com (Lance Visser)
Subject: Re: [ACLU] Guardian of Liberty: American Civil Liberties Union
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 21:59:31 GMT
Organization: Engineering, CONVEX Computer Corp., Richardson, Tx., USA
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
              Corp. The opinions expressed are those of the user and
              not necessarily those of CONVEX.

In <1992Nov16.211433.19464@sei.cmu.edu> rsd@sei.cmu.edu (Richard S D'Ippolito) writes:


>In article <BxtFLA.6oD@cs.uiuc.edu>, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) writes:


|>      1987: Block Bork
|>        The ACLU, changing a 51-year-old policy of
|>        neutrality on Supreme Court candidates, mounted
|>        a national campaign to defeat the nomination of
|>        Judge Robert Bork.  Bork, the ACLU said, posed
|>        an extraordinary threat to fundamental liberties
|>        guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, and to the role
|>        of the Supreme Court as the guardian of those
|>        rights.  A majority of Senators agreed and rejected
|>        his nomination.


+>This alone is enough to keep me from ever entertaining membership -- Bork
+>knows more Constitutional Law than the ACLU's 2000 attorneys put together.

	Just in general, the reasons bork was not put on the Supreme 
Court had little to do with Consitutional law or his views on the subject. 
Despite what the media and the politicians say, the thing that killed bork
was his actions during watergate years before.   His blind willingness
to obey nixon did more damage to him than the ACLU could ever have
dreamed of doing.
From: jfh@reef.cis.ufl.edu (James F. Hranicky)
Newsgroups: alt.society.civil-liberty
Subject: Re: What is Social Darwinism?
Keywords: Social Darwinism
Date: 20 Nov 92 03:49:14 GMT
Organization: Univ. of Florida CIS Dept.

In article <293@ininx.UUCP> jkreznar@ininx.UUCP (John E. Kreznar) writes:
>What is Social Darwinism?
>
>What sort of person considers description of another as a "Social Darwinist" to
>be an accusation?
>
>What did John Kenneth Galbraith mean when he accused _Losing Ground_ author
>Charles Murray of being a "Social Darwinist"?


Social Darwinism is the adjective mistakenly used to describe capitalism. 
Social Darwinism states that the most powerful members of society should
do away with the least powerful--"survival of the fittest." Those
who advocate lassiez faire (like me) consider this to be an insult. Capitalism
is founded on the principle of individual rights--that no one man has the
right to initiate force against another--completely the opposite of Social
Darwinism. Capitalism is social cooperation, where people attain wealth
under the principle of "do ut des" and "quid pro quo." To characterize 
capitalism as Social Darwinism, or as exploitation al la Marx, is to overlook
Say's Law, on one hand, and to think so little of humanity (other than 
oneself, *of course*) that if people are given freedom those of lesser ability
will be allowed to die miserable deaths by those with greater ability. Yet
it seems that the freer the economy, the higher the standard of living for
all classes. Hmm, could the opponents of capitalism be wrong?  

Galbraith, a notorious (IMO) anti-capitalist, is trying to characterize Murray
as a hateful bastard who would throw all those on welfare out into the streets
to die a miserable death. Bleh. Typical emotionalism from the left. It seems
that most A-C's think that individuals will only help others at gunpoint.
How insulting! Galbraith is the type of A-C who thinks that capitalism is
an efficient mode of production, but that it produces the wrong things--
air conditioning, cars,etc.; any luxury is "waste" when someone could have
been producing food for the world, etc. So, the government should take over
and force (ha!) the market to produce the "right" things, i.e., what Galbraith
wants it to. Von Mises called this *self-deification*--those who are "enlight-
ened" will stand up and save us all. Fools, they.
 
Galbraith looked pretty comfortable in his three peice suit when I saw him on 
"Firing Line." Hypocrite, he.

Jim Hranicky (jfh@reef.cis.ufl.edu)
Xref: sparky alt.society.civil-liberty:6681 alt.activism:19103 alt.politics.usa.constitution:1182 soc.history:9665 talk.politics.theory:5083 talk.origins:14638
From: throopw@sheol.UUCP (Wayne Throop)
Newsgroups: alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.activism,alt.politics.usa.constitution,soc.history,talk.politics.theory,talk.origins
Subject: Re: [ACLU] Guardian of Liberty: American Civil Liberties Union
Summary: mangled equivalence
Date: 22 Nov 92 22:39:22 GMT

:: "Creationism" is a religious dogma that, unlike scientific theories, is
:: not subject to scientific verification or revision based on new data.
: From: fcrary@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Frank Crary)
: Message-ID: <1992Nov22.040533.28473@ucsu.Colorado.EDU>
: However, these same means of "scientific verification or revision"
: are based on unproveable assumptions about the nature of the 
: universe (e.g. religious articles of faith.) It is therefore
: not a valid means of applying the First Amendment.

A problem with Frank's presentation above is that, while both
"scientific" and "religious" models of the world involve "unproveable
assumptions", under the scientific method these assumptions are allowed
to change to meet new data or to better account for old data, while the
same is not true of assumptions under the religious method of thought.

Thus, it is indeed true that "religious articles of faith" are indeed
examples of "unproveable assumptions about the nature of the universe",
it is NOT true that "religious articles of faith" are equivalent
to "assumptions of scientific theories".

Finally, it is interesting to note that the sciences of geology and
biology *started* *out* with assumptions very much like the religious
assumptions of Western Christianity.  They were only discarded by the
scientific community when it turned out that they didn't model the real
word successfully. 
--
Wayne Throop  ...!mcnc!dg-rtp!sheol!throopw
Newsgroups: alt.society.civil-liberty,soc.history,alt.politics.usa.constitution
From: fcrary@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Frank Crary)
Subject: Re: First Amendment and Private Schools
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 06:02:41 GMT

In article <92321.105502MCARTWR@auvm.american.edu> Martina Cartwright <MCARTWR@auvm.american.edu> writes:
>I am not exactly sure but if I remember correctly from my Constitutional law
>class, private institutions can censor the work of their student newspapers and
>to a certain extent, lectures of professors, without violating the first amend-
>ment of the U.S. Constitution.
>I believe this is so because there is little to no state action and if you
>cannot find state action, it is difficult-if not impossible-to raise the
>issue of consitutional guarantees. Any response?

Correct, for the most part: The First Amendment applies to the federal
government and (by implication of the Fourteenth Amendment) to the 
state governments. It has no direct relevance to private citizens or
ogranizations. I _think_, however, that there are some exceptions for
private organizations that receive government funds.

                                                    Frank Crary
                                                    CU Boulder

Newsgroups: alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.politics.usa.constitution,talk.politics.theory
From: pauld@cs.washington.edu (Paul Barton-Davis)
Subject: So what's a religion ?
Organization: Precipitating Pendulums Postal Party Poopers
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 92 18:24:09 GMT

Frank Crary and others have been discussing/debating conflicts over
religious freedom vis-a-vis scientific versus religious explanations
of the state of the world.

In the process, they touch on another question which occured to me a
week or so ago. Just what is a "religion" ?

Some context - in Florida recently, there was a case concerning ritual
slaughter of animals by practitioners of a religion with historical
roots in Africa. The outcome and the the specific religion is
irrelevant; what's relevant here is the claim that such slaughter is
protected by the Constitution. Similar claims are made for use of
peyote by various native American religions.

Lets move to the abstract, and ask just what it is about any given
group of people and their behaviour that could possibly qualify them
as a religion, at least in the context of the US Constitution.

Clearly, a group claiming to be a religion that also demanded to be
able to slaughter a dozen blonde virgins each solstice would not find
the courts particularly disposed to their beliefs, Constitution or or
otherwise. However, the court could not legally claim to be
discriminating against particular religious practices, and is much
more likely to claim instead that this particular group is *not* a
religion in any accepted sense.

So what is a religion ? And what practices can it follow under
constitutional protection ?

-- paul

-- 
hybrid rather than pure; compromising rather than clean; distorted
rather than straightforward; ambiguous rather than articulated;
both-and rather than either-or; the difficult unity of inclusion
rather than the easy unity of exclusion.
Newsgroups: alt.society.civil-liberty,sci.crypt
From: dsg@impmh.uucp (Dave Gordon)
Subject: Re: Limits on the Use of Cryptography?
Organization: Integrated Micro Products Ltd
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 14:08:20 GMT

In article <1992Nov11.061210.9933@cactus.org>, ritter@cactus (Terry Ritter) writes:
>    The police bust an alleged child molester, and take possession
>    of his PC.  They believe that the hard drive contains a full
>    database of young kids who have been *or may be* assaulted.
>    That database is enciphered.
>
> Now, your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to defend
> cryptography to ordinary voters, congress people and newspaper
> reporters.

The question may be not so much one of whether cryptography should
be legal as whether any attempt to make it illegal could *ever* be
enforced.  Personally I believe that attempts to suppress it are
doomed to failure.  The reason is this: it is simple to devise a
*code* (not a cipher) in which *any* incrimininating message can
be made to appear as an innocent one.  In the example above, it is
*particularly* easy, because the information does not have to be
transmitted to anyone else; thus the alleged criminal can use a
keyword encoding scheme which will be meaningful *only* to him;
and the key associations will exist *only* in his mind.

For example, I can display my things-to-do list:
	Buy 2lb of carrots at Safeway on the way home
	Wash car
	Send card to Auntie Elsie
	Service bicycle
and *only* I know that this can be decoded:
	Buy     2lb of carrots  at Safeway         on the way home
	Collect 2kg of cannabis at London Heathrow car park 2
	Wash      car
	Wednesday afternoon
	Send card to Auntie Elsie
	Meet         usual contact
	Service bicycle
	Sunday  morning

I just made this up on the spur of the moment, so it's a very simple-
minded example.  If I really had something to hide, I might put a lot
more effort into it.

Some of simple tricks I have used:
	Plausible local places map to signicant locations;
		Safeway -> LHR, Tesco -> LGW, etc
	Mention of mode of transport -> when event will happen;
		the initial letter of the verb gives day-of-week,
		bicycle -> morning, car -> afternoon, etc
	Many-to-many mappings; e.g. any aunt (I have six, so I
		won't use the same one too often) -> the usual
		contact *for this activity* (NOT Elsie->John
		Smith, Edna->Fred Bloggs, etc).

So key registration is utterly irrelevant; if I were hiding information
for my own use only from the police, they wouldn't even realise that
there *was* hidden information; and if they did they could never *prove*
that they had correctly cracked my code.
-- 

===============================================================================
Dave | dsg@imp.co.uk | +44 753 516599 | "C^i tio ne estas .subskribo"
===============================================================================
From: yee@mipg.upenn.edu (Conway Yee)
Newsgroups: alt.society.civil-liberty
Subject: A British attack on civil liberties
Date: 19 Nov 92 15:53:34 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

Here is an article from the Nov. 14, 1992 final edition of London's
"The Daily Telegraph".  It was on the front page, right hand column.
All typographical errors are mine.

I find that even the idea that there should be a central database of
this sort incredibly offensive.  Given the nature of the proposed 
database, I also note that it is incredibly sexist.

While I can not in good conscience join the ACLU due to its opposition
to my 2nd amendment rights, I would certainly hope that the ACLU shows 
a bit more courage than to suggest strict controls upon access if such
a travesty were to ever to be proposed on this side of the puddle; the 
very existance of such a database should be vigorously opposed.

=======================================

DNA log urged to fight sex crimes

by Nell Darbyshire
   Crime Correspondent.

	EVERY male's DNA profile should be logged in a national
register to help combat the growing number of sexual attacks on women,
Sir Peter Imbert, Metropolitan Police Commisioner, said yesterday.
	Sir Peter conceded the serious implications for civil liberty
in taking the genetic "fingerprints" of every male, but said these had
to be balanced against women's safety.  "It is time to ask ourselves,
as a society, whose liberty and lives we are trying to protect," he
said.
	But Mr John Wadham, legal officer of Liberty, the civil rights
group, said yesterday that the proposed DNA index would be open to
abuse unless strict controls on access were imposed.
	He also questioned present knowledge on the accuracy of DNA
profiling and whether the small number of crimes in which it could be
used as evidence justified such a measure.
	However, Sir Peter said that an index would enable police to
identify blood or semen samples taken from victims or the scenes of
sex crimes at the push of a button.
	The computer could be held and operated by an agency
independent of the police, and access would be severely restricted.
	"I would prefer that my son and grandson should give up a
little bit of their liberty to protect the lives of females in
society," he said.
	In his first interview since announcing he would retire in
January, Sir Peter also questioned whether the public still regarded
the possession of cannabis as a crime.
	Given the "derisory" sentences handed down by courts, changing
public attitudes and the fact that the police now merely cautioned
most offenders, possession of small amounts of cannabis had
effectively been decriminalised.
	Sir Peter, 59, who has recovered from a heart attack two years
ago, will be succeeded by Mr Paul Condon, Chief Constable of Kent.



-- 
411 Blockley Hall      |                    Conway Yee, N2JWQ
418 Service Drive      | yee@ming.mipg.upenn.edu    (preferred)
Philadelphia, PA 19104 | cy5@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (forwarded to above)
(215) 662-6780         |
Organization: University of Maine System
Date: Monday, 16 Nov 1992 13:39:24 EST
From: scott borchelt <IO92516@MAINE.MAINE.EDU>
Newsgroups: alt.society.civil-liberty
Subject: Re: What is Social Darwinism?

Social Darwinism is directly linked to the theories
of Charles Darwin.  As you probably know, Darwins theories
of NATURAL SELECTION help to explain why some species
survive better in nature and why others become extinct.
The term "survival of the fittest" helps to summarize his
theories on evolution of life (A social darwinist coined this term!
and is often used in refernce to Darwin)He asserts that those species
who, for whatever reason, are better adapted to the environment
will outlive others of the species.  In the competition for limited
resouces like food and shelter, those that are BETTER
equiped will win over those that are less able.  Thus, propagating
their species and having less desirable members of the species die.
   Biologists and the like may have problems with my description
of Darwins theory but its close enough to understand Social Darwinsim.
Social Darwinists apply the same theory of natural selection in
nature to the social environment of people.  They believe that
competition in the business world will allow only those with advanced
traits to do well, and the people with out the traits will go
bankrupt.  Taken further, social darwinsim justifies the presence of
poor.  The poor are biologically and socially inferior to those that
are more "successful".
   Some of the more notorious social darwinists are Hitler and the KKK.
The way HItler addresses the Jews and non-Aryan people are demonstra-
tions of social darwinism.
   I think it is easy to recognize where this argument can be applied.
It simply comes down to a brutal and naive JUSTIFICATION FOR INEQUALITY.

Scott io92516 @ Maine.maine.edu
Xref: sparky alt.society.civil-liberty:6656 alt.activism:19052 alt.politics.usa.constitution:1160 soc.history:9615 talk.politics.theory:5046
From: dsg@impmh.uucp (Dave Gordon)
Subject: Re: A Copper Balloon
Organization: Integrated Micro Products Ltd
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 12:04:53 GMT

In <1992Nov14.120421.15100@nntp.hut.fi> jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala) writes:
>
>PS. I thought the "two mandatory death sentences" would give it away
>if nothing else..

It did ... but you had me seriously worried with the first
paragraph or two ... then I caught on.  But a smiley at the
bottom (for those who hadn't spotted the clues) probably
wouldn't have gone amiss!

BTW, the other giveaway was that it was (almost) all
correctly spelt, and the sentences *made sense*.
Real right-wing rants are never so coherent!
-- 

===============================================================================
Dave | dsg@imp.co.uk | +44 753 516599 | "C^i tio ne estas .subskribo"
===============================================================================

Newsgroups: alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.activism,alt.politics.usa.constitution,soc.history,talk.politics.theory
From: fcrary@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Frank Crary)
Subject: Re: [ACLU] Guardian of Liberty: American Civil Liberties Union
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 03:44:55 GMT

In article <1992Nov20.204238.25352@Princeton.EDU> niepornt@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (David Marc Nieporent) writes:
>>I'm afraid evolution, as they teach it in public schools, is quite
>>a bit more absolute that that: It states that this is the correct 
>>explanation of how life reached its present form (and if the teacher
>>is unusually good) a few bits of evideince to demonstrate that
>>this is clearly the correct explanation. I don't know of any
>>teachers that risk confusing students with "we aren't sure, but 
>>this seems to be a good explanation..." lectures. As presented,

>All my teachers (and all my textbooks) explained that this theory best
>fits the evidence we currently have, not that it was the Ultimate Answer
>to Life,the Universe, and Everything.  (42)

I remember a few weasle-words, this wasn't presented in a way most
students would catch. I'm concerned mostly with the impact of the
teaching on the students.

>>that seems to be in conflict with the First Amendment's
>>"free exercise" clause: It disagrees with a widespread religious
>>teaching, so it is, essentially, publicly-funded indoctronation
>>that a specific religious view is wrong. If the schools simply

>No; it says nothing about any religious views.  It just ignores myths 
>that have no bearing on reality...

That statement is self-contradictory: By asserting that certain "myths
have no bearing on reality" you are making a statement about religious
views.

                                             Frank Crary
                                             CU Boulder

Newsgroups: alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.activism,alt.politics.usa.constitution,talk.politics.theory
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Subject: Re: [ACLU] Guardian of Liberty: American Civil Liberties Union
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 07:04:04 GMT
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences

In <visser.721951171@convex.convex.com> visser@convex.com (Lance
Visser) writes

>Despite what the media and the politicians say, the thing that killed bork
>was his actions during watergate years before.   His blind willingness
>to obey nixon did more damage to him than the ACLU could ever have
>dreamed of doing.

If no-one had fired Archie Cox we would have ended up with a Justice
Department with no-one in it.  Why would that have been better?
-- 
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence."  (Blake)
From: pajerek@telstar.kodak.com (Don Pajerek)
Subject: Re: [ACLU] Guardian of Liberty: American Civil Liberties Union
Reply-To: pajerek@telstar.kodak.com (Don Pajerek)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corp. - Telstar
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 16:19:20 GMT

In article <1992Nov19.070028.27622@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> fcrary@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Frank Crary) writes:

>However, the "scientific" view is _also_ a religion: It is based on
>unproven (and unproveable) articles of faith. That the universe
>and everything in it obeys physical laws; that these laws are
>logical and understandable; that these laws are the same everywhere
>in the universe; etc...
>
>                                          Frank Crary
>                                          CU Boulder

Science doesn't rest on 'unprovable' articles of faith. It rests on
*falsifiable propositions*. This is the crux of the difference between
science and religion. Every truly scientific proposition can be
tested and (quite likely) falsified. Religious dogmas can't be.

Note that no scientific hypothesis can be *proven*, but all scientific
hypotheses can be *tested*.

I definitely *do* put this system 'ahead' of less rigorous ones.


Don Pajerek

Standard disclaimers apply.
Newsgroups: alt.society.civil-liberty,soc.history,alt.politics.usa.constitution
From: fcrary@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Frank Crary)
Subject: Re: [ACLU] A History of the Bill of Rights
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 03:38:52 GMT

In article <92326.175901BRYAN@wvnvm.wvnet.edu> BRYAN@wvnvm.wvnet.edu (Jerry Bryan) writes:
>>And the 10th? All powers not explicitly given to the federal
>>government are reserved to the states; all powers prohibited to the
>>states are reserved to the people.

>Not to be overly picky, but here is the text of the 10th amendment.
>   The powers not delegated to the United States by the Consititution,
>   nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States
>   respectively, or to the people.
>I am not convinced that the paraphrase above means quite the same thing
>as the amendment itself.

From the debates over ratification (both of the Constitution and of
the Tenth Amendment) the paraphrase is accurate, with the exception 
of the word "explicitly." The federal government has only those
powers granted to it by the Constitution (explicitly or by implication).
Actions in conflict with these (limited) powers are prohibited to States
and individuals. All other powers are left to the States or to the local
people, as specified by state Constitution.
 
                                                   Frank Crary
                                                   CU Boulder

Xref: sparky alt.society.civil-liberty:6627 alt.activism:18971 alt.politics.usa.constitution:1132 soc.history:9553 talk.politics.theory:4987