HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: hallam@zeus02.desy.de (Phill Hallam-Baker)
Subject: Re: Libertarian heaven
Reply-To: Hallam@zeus02.desy.de
Organization: Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron, Experiment ZEUS bei HERA
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 00:06:57 GMT

In article <1993Jan6.040100.20448@informix.com>, proberts@informix.com (Paul
Roberts) writes:

|>In article <CB.93Jan5142112@tamarack13.timbuk> cb@tamarack13.timbuk (Chris
|>Brewster) writes:
|>>
|>>There's a country that fulfills the dearest dreams of Libertarians: it
|>>has no government and its populace is armed.  Until the recent intrusion
|>>of some outsiders, no external force impinged on that country's freedom.
|>>When these outsiders leave, that country's citizens will again be free
|>>to pursue their individual destinies.  I invite all Libertarians to move
|>>to that country: Somalia.
|>
|>
|>Doubtless it will all be ruined if these outsiders infringe
|>on the peoples right to keep and bear arms ...

Watch any of the footage of Somalia and you will see that the Somali forces
carry Heckler and Kosh weaponry.

Strange how the Somali situation is always portrayed as exclusively "ther"
fault. Somali culture did not invent gun powder, nor the machine gun. We
produced them, we sold them to them, we fought a proxy war with Russia using
them.

The starvation in Somailia is not due to a failure of the agricultural system
but the effects of a civil war which was financed by Russia and the West.


As a simple rule of thumb, if a reporter makes a point of the origin of weaponry
it is most probably eastern block. If the origin of the weapons is not mentioned
they came from the West.


Perhaps the Somalia operation could be financed by taxing the activities of the
global arms trade? 


--

Phill Hallam-Baker
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
From: rwojcik@atc.boeing.com (Richard Wojcik,snake)
Subject: Re: Weinberger's Pardon
Reply-To: rwojcik@atc.boeing.com
Organization: Research & Technology
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 20:37:21 GMT

In article 93Jan2112524@world.std.com, art@world.std.com (Al Thompson) writes:
>In article <1hqqbuINN5qa@spim.mti.sgi.com> mpolen@suntory.mti.sgi.com (Mike Polen) writes:
>
>[...]
>
>   When Republicans break the law, you call it a "liberal-sponsored" witch
>   hunt.  So when the cops come after you, they will probably be liberals?
>
>   So far, it is only Republican adminstrations that show a disdain
>   for the law and a contempt for the public.
>
>It has come out that the Tonkin Gulf incident was cooked up.  This
>incident was used by LBJ to get from congress the authorization to
>conduct war in Viet Nam without a formal declaration.  This lie lead to
>the deaths of over 50,000 Americans and countless Viet Namese.  Somehow
>the Iran-Contra hanky panky pales in comparison.  LBJ was a Democrat,
>remember?

That's very true, Al.  Johnson committed a real atrocity with that one, and
I do agree that the Iran-Contra hanky panky pales in comparison.  The problem
is that you can't blame the entire Vietnam fiasco on Democrats, since there were
two Republican administrations--Eisenhower's and Nixon's--that played more than
their share of Vietnam hanky panky.  

What I find particularly irksome about your point is that it was basically the
liberals who undermined the Democrats on the Vietnam war.  They were the ones
who played up the Gulf of Tonkin scam--when conservatives treated the theory
as liberal BS.  Liberal Hubert Humphrey could have walked away with the election,
had the naive anti-Vietnam liberals not turned their backs on him, hounding him on
the war even as he tried to backpedal away from it.  So the liberals are not being
hypocritical on the Iran-Contra scam.  They quite consistently oppose it and the
LBJ-inspired Democratic hanky panky.  It was the conservatives who historically 
backed LBJ's bad policy and now wish to sweep the Bush-Reagan one under the rug.

In conservative circles, it is now "politically correct" to grumble about the
Gulf of Tonkin.  It used to be quite the opposite.

-----
Disclaimer:  Opinions expressed above are not those of my employer.

    Rick Wojcik   (rwojcik@boeing.com)   Seattle, WA

Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.current-events.somalia,alt.politics.bush,alt.president.clinton
From: mjones@fenway.aix.kingston.ibm.com (Mike Jones)
Subject: Re: Your own words, of course != bigot
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 93 06:54:48 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: IBM T. J. Watson Research
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL3

rsrodger@wam.umd.edu (Yamanari) writes:
: In article <C0JJ56.69n@unix.amherst.edu> twpierce@unix.amherst.edu (Tim Pierce) writes:
: >In article <1993Jan8.021811.5057@wam.umd.edu> rsrodger@wam.umd.edu (Yamanari) writes:
: >>>It boggles my mind that in this world filled with hatred, people would
: >>>actually become indignant about the way two people express love for
: >>>one another.
: >>	Love or perversion?  Who makes the call?
: >Do you think you can make that call, with respect to your own self?
: 	Any decision that an individual makes that is out of line
: 	with the general populous is suspect unless there's a lot
: 	of evidence or logic on the side of that decision.

It's 1:51 am, and I'm watching "1984" on the late movie as I read this. It
seems eerily appropriate.
Don't you find that this statement has fascist overtones? And I don't throw
the term about loosely.

: >How about at the age of, say, twenty-five?  Then you'd damn well
: >better be ready to say than a gay man who's twenty-five could make
: >that call.
: 	I don't think most people are competent to control their 
: 	credit card spending, let alone interpersonal acts like
: 	sexuality.  

But, of course, you are. And to pontificate about it on Usenet. We should
all get down on our knees and give thanks for your guidance.

   Mike Jones  |  AIX/ESA Development  |  mjones@donald.aix.kingston.ibm.com

Wash a pig as much as you like, it'll go right back into the mud puddle.
	- Russian proverb
Xref: sparky talk.politics.misc:66284 alt.sex:40973
From: kane@buast7.bu.edu (Hot Young Star)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.sex
Subject: Re: pounding the "10%" figure into the ground: Nature, 12/3/92
Date: 5 Jan 93 17:57:25 GMT
Followup-To: talk.politics.misc
Organization: Astronomy Department, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA


In article <13722@optilink.COM>, cramer@optilink.COM (Clayton Cramer) writes...

>I've already posted, repeatedly, a number of sources that show
>that men molesting boys are somewhere between 20% and 26% of
>child molestation.  That's about 5x the number of homosexuals
>in the population.

He's also repeatedly neglected in the same data the parts which say that
men who molest boys do so at roughly ten times the frequency of
men who molest girls.

As an analogy, say that there are two groups of people that eat apples. One
group prefers yellow apples, the other, red. The yellow apple eaters consume
10 apples per day on average, while their red-apple-eating counterparts
consume only one per day. Demographics have shown that a large majority
of people of people prefer red apples, let's say 19:1 in favor of red.

However, from purchases of produce at a certain supermarket, we find
that consistently 30% of the apples sold are yellow ones.

Do we then conclude that yellow-apple eaters shop at this market six
times more frequently than normal, simply because they constitute 5% of
the population, but 30% of the purchases at this supermarket?

No, we also have to include their eating habits. One yellow apple eater
will purchase ten apples on a given day, while the other nineteen apple
eaters will buy one red apple each. Thus twenty-nine apples have been
bought on a given day, and 10/29, or about 30% are yellow, all given
the demonstrated demographic averages.
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
From: jmk@cbnews.cb.att.com (joseph.m.knapp)
Subject: Re: Man of the Year (was Re: Is the media liberal-biased)
Organization: AT&T
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 22:02:33 GMT

Mark 'Mark' Sachs <MBS110@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>visser@convex.com (Lance Visser) says:
>
>>        I stopped believing in ABC as an unbiased source when they had
>>Ted Koppel read the ROTC letter on niteline in its entirty.  I could
>>have seen quoting parts of the letter on television, but doing the
>>whole thing it looked like they were flat-out trying to help him.
>
>Think about what you're saying. You don't think the media should give us all
>the information and let us decide? You think the media should instead
>selectively quote, to give the impression *they* want us to have?
>I thought that was everything you crusaders were fighting AGAINST. I
>suppose biased media is OK when it favors the "correct" side, ne?

Not only that, this was perhaps the ONLY time that the letter was quoted
in full context. Thereafter, we only heard that young Clinton wanted to
"preserve his political viability" and that he "loathed the military"
ad nauseum from every media outlet. Both of these statements sounded
much better in context, and in fact the second one was quoted incorrectly,
when Clinton actually referred to *other* "people finding themselves
loathing the military" and stated his own admiration for people in the
service. This part was never quoted (except by Koppel, I guess)! I might
say that "the media" were attempting to sabotage Clinton's campaign if
I was in the habit of coming up with ad hoc conspiracy theories to cover
my candidate's inadequacies.

---
Joe Knapp   jmk@cbvox.att.com
this 
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,misc.legal
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: George Bush pardons criminals
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 16:04:41 GMT

In article <1993Jan4.081741.27819@Princeton.EDU> niepornt@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (David Marc Nieporent) writes:

>What was novel about it was the placement of the burden of proof on the
>prosecution to show that the testimony wasn't tainted, rather than the 
>defense having to show that the testimony was.

Just so. By requiring the prosecution to "prove a negative," the appellate
court guaranteed that there would be no new trial.


--Mike




-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"I'm waiting for the one-man revolution
mnemonic@eff.org| The only one that's coming."
(617) 864-0665  |                           
EFF, Cambridge  |                   --Robert Frost 
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,alt.politics.homosexuality
From: gsmith@polyhymnia.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de (Gene W. Smith)
Subject: Re: Your own words, of course != bigot
Organization: IWR, University of Heidelberg, Germany
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 19:30:22 GMT

In article <1993Jan11.150423.16224@wam.umd.edu> rsrodger@wam.umd.edu
(Yamanari) writes:

>>It is possible that homosexuality is caused by heterosexual teachers
>>and role models.  Therefore, by your reasoning, no heterosexuals 
>>should be allowed to teach.

>
>	Now we get into the argument of "minimal risk" because
>	it is obvious that if we rule out homosexuals, and heterosexuals,
>	we havenothing left (except Toby).  Given this, we choose the least
>	risky proposition--heterosexuals.

Absent any evidence that it is "less risky", why do we?

And why are you singling out homosexuality if the point is to stamp
out deviance in general?  Shouldn't we just relentlessly expose their
little minds to endless propaganda about what the State wants and must
have, and hope they grow up thoroughly brainwashed?  Or is
homosexuality an especially bad kind of deviance--even worse than
being left-handed, for instance?

>	(in other words, why bother bring up such useless points?)

This is a damned good question, which you should immediately apply to
most of what you've been saying.


-- 
     Gene Ward Smith/Brahms Gang/IWR/Ruprecht-Karls University 
               gsmith@kalliope.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
From: leecr@microsoft.com (Lee Crocker)
Subject: Re: One Simple Question for the Libertarians...
Date: 05 Jan 93 20:54:28 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation
Distribution: na

In article <1993Jan4.201735.18614@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> prs9k@brain.med.virginia.edu (Phil Scarr) writes:
>One simple question.  No embelishments, no rhetoric.  I just want a
>clear, concise answer to this question:
>Where does individualism come from (and as a corrolary, where do
>individuals come from)?
>Now, to clarify, I am not talking about basic reproductive biology here.
>I think we can all agree on THAT process.  What I want to know is where
>does this amorphous entity called "the individual" come from?
>Let's work this one over for awhile.

Let's not.  What you ask for is an answer to a meaningless rhetorical
question without using meaningless rhetoric.  No such beast.  Too much
political thought is wasted on amorphous, ambiguous, meaningless,
non-objective questions like this.

Biology is real.  The need for food is real.  The need for shelter
and protection is real.  The facts of history are real.  Political
ideologies are not.  Extrapolations of what the world would be like
under different political systems are not.

My personal political beliefs (Libertarianism) are, in my case, based
solely upon the evidence of my own senses, my own understanding of
history and my own conclusions about the best way to secure physical
food and shelter to biological humans.  If new evidence leads me to
a different conclusion, then so be it.  I am an ideologue only so far
as my ideology stands up to my own reasoning.  Political ideologies
based on anything but hard facts and reasoning are worthless.
-- 
Lee Daniel Crocker    | Free minds; free bodies; free trade.
leecr@microsoft.com   | Libertarian Party  1-800-682-1776
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
From: ae642@yfn.ysu.edu (Kelley Miller)
Subject: Re: Execute Amy Fisher!!!
Reply-To: ae642@yfn.ysu.edu (Kelley Miller)
Organization: St. Elizabeth Hospital, Youngstown, OH
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 23:41:21 GMT


In a previous article, sbooth@lonestar.utsa.edu (Simon E. Booth) says:

>
>
>
>
>Need I say more?  We've got to do something about murderers!

Er...who, exactly did Amy Fisher murder?



>
>Simon
>
>
-- 
*...your Friendly Neighborhood Atheist  /\/\   These are the REAL  *         
*  ae642@yfn.ysu.edu/Kelley L. Miller  / /__\      Gay 90's!!      *           
*-------------------------------------/____\-----------------------*  
***************** Oxymoron: Freewill Christianity ******************
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
From: markp@joplin.wri.com (Mark Pundurs)
Subject: Re: Discrimination!
Organization: Wolfram Research, Inc.
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 15:53:31 GMT

In <9301090737.AA32689@localhost> buckmr@rpi.edu (Ron Buckmire) writes:



>mrl28033@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Michael R Linksvayer) writes:

>>I agree wholeheartedly. Discrimination is one area where
>>government can govern not at all.

>Do you have any suggestion for ending discrimination or do you think that
>discrimination does not occur?

Minimize discrimination by letting bigots suffer the free-market 
consequences of their idiocy. If this doesn't end discrimination,
nothing will. (And it may well be that nothing will; Utopia
may not be realizable.)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
From: rwojcik@atc.boeing.com (Richard Wojcik,snake)
Subject: Re: The New Education President
Reply-To: rwojcik@atc.boeing.com
Organization: Research & Technology
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 21:02:23 GMT

In article 1it2lmINN6fi@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu, bu008@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Brandon D. Ray) writes:
>... Since Bill Clinton has implicitly recognized that the
>public school system does not always meet a family's needs (to put it
>charitably) it is morally incumbent on him, since he is a very influential
>public official, to do what he can to make alternatives available to the
>rest of us.

No, it is only incumbent on him that he do what he can, as President, to render
the public school system effective for those who lack the means to buy a private
education.  Some liberals fear that Clinton's choice undermines the perception that
everyone has a stake in improving public education.  The "voucher" people, generally
conservatives, seem to want to turn their backs entirely on public education, hoping
that public money dumped into private hands will drive up the level of education
through competition.  (Look at what Medicare and Medicaid have done for the
healthcare delivery system.  ;-)  Even if we buy your claim that Clinton has some
moral obligation to reform the educational system, we don't have to buy your claim
that he use your pet method of doing so.

-----
Disclaimer:  Opinions expressed above are not those of my employer.

    Rick Wojcik   (rwojcik@boeing.com)   Seattle, WA

Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
From: ipser@solomon.technet.sg (Ed Ipser)
Subject: Facts? We don't need no stinkin' facts! (Re: Why can't the liberals)
Organization: TECHNET, Singapore
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 02:13:25 GMT

In article <1993Jan7.202545.6717@bronte.boeing.com> rwojcik@atc.boeing.com writes:
>I would attribute at least some of the mess to a public that
>has undervalued and underfunded education.  Stingy taxpayers and stingy
>politicians. 

It has always been a favorite pastime of liberals, everywhere, to
blame the failure of socialzed public institutions on the stinginess
of taxpayers (or politicians) as if just one more tax increase would
do the trick, as if just one more pilaging of the taxpayers pockets
could undo all the graft, corruption, and sheer incompetence that is
endemic to the welfare state.

The facts, as usual, are otherwise. The 80s represented an
unprecedented increase in public spending on socialized education, at
no time in history has the typical American student received more
public support for education and in no other country, Japan and Europe
included, is so much money, both in absolute terms, and relative to
GNP, been spent on socialized eduction per student.

The 80s spending spree on socialized education demonstrated, quite
clearly, that simply spending more money on the same failed
institutions will not undo the gross failure of those instituions. So
you'll just have to pardon the American taxpayer if he has become more
than just a little cynical about the whole arrangement.

And THAT, is why Clinton's choice is so freightening to the liberal
establishment. THAT is why opponents of socialized education are having
such a field day on this issue.






Xref: sparky talk.politics.misc:66637 alt.fan.rush-limbaugh:11880 alt.politics.homosexuality:9173
From: PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu (David Veal)
Subject: Re: Bush really IS a wimp
Summary: Turn it around
Organization: University of Tennessee Division of Continuing Education
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 18:31:37 GMT

In article <1993Jan7.180144.28524@cbfsb.cb.att.com> colten@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (marc.colten) writes:

>In article <markp.725932134@dragonfly.wri.com>, markp@dragonfly.wri.com (Mark Pundurs) writes:
>> In <1993Jan1.015738.25289@netcom.com> nbh@netcom.com (N.B. Hedd) writes:
>> 
>> I think he wished to avoid (though not "afraid of") years and megabucks 
>> wasted fighting a witchhunt, while the media and other leftists dragged 
>> his name through the mud, with the best possible conclusion being "not
>> proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt." I think he did the best thing 
>> for himself, his fellow patriots --and the country.
>
>Please!  Turn it around and let a Democratic president decide,
>for the judge, the jury and the country that a trial was a 
>witchhunt and let the person go, and see the Republican's howl.

       Of course.  Both parties are usually only peripherally interested
in what's actually going on.  If the one party does something, the other
party screams.  Doesn't matter what it is, what it does, or whether it's a
good idea.
       That's politics.


------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Veal               University of Tennessee Div. of Cont. Education
                         Information Services Group
PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu  (Mail to VEAL@utkvm1.utk.edu will bounce.)
Xref: sparky talk.politics.misc:66929 alt.activism:20268
From: L-Bueno@cup.portal.com (Louis Alberto Bueno)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.activism
Subject: Communism is SO hideous that we must shudder with dread...
Date: Sat,  9 Jan 93 14:40:56 PST
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Distribution: world
  <1993Jan9.040753.3016@cis.ohio-state.edu>
  <1993Jan9.052510.20330@Princeton.EDU>
  <1993Jan9.142340.1076@cis.ohio-state.edu>

csmith@tortoise.cis.ohio-state.edu (craig edward smith) writes:

[incorrect assumptions of the role of the executive branch omitted]

>Congress had not forbidden the sale of arms to Iran (which I
>do not totally agree with either), but the sale was done through an
>intermediary. The profits from the intermediary went to the contras.
>I was in favor of funding the contras, since the Sandinistas were as much,
>if not more, terrorist as the contras. Were you aware that the Sandanistas
>where carrying out Genocide on the Mosquito Indians? No, not many did, since
>the liberals who control the media did not consider it important.

	Your memory of Congress forbidding sales of arms to a known
terrorist nation at the time is, at best, skewed, but that's not the
troublesome part of your statement.  You are actually sitting there and
stating your support of the Contras, an organization of former Somoza
thugs (as well as various convicts and soldiers of fortune) propped up by
Reagan, the CIA, and other secret agencies, who have committed well
documented atrocities against the civilian population of Nicaragua... 
then you bring forth the old allegation of the "genocide" against the
indigenous folk by the Sandinistas.  Since you seem to be better
informed than those of us who are fooled by the liberal-controlled
media, can you please elaborate on just HOW this genocide has been
proven, and what other sources other than the U.S. State Department
(an un-biased source, fer shur :-) ) can anyone one of us liberal-
net.idiots use for verification/research?  I'd truly appreciate it...

	BTW: Am I correct in assuming that since you supported the
Contras and are so against the Sandinistas, that you feel that the
Somoza dicatorship was unjustly dethroned?

>My feeling is that the world SHOULD faint in shock at the word "Communist"
>since it is an ideology born of resentment and has violence as it's
>means of spreading. Thank God it's dying of its own contraditions!

	You're right... those who were suffering under the yoke of
cruel labor and unfair wages, as well the countless minions who were
denied education and opportunity should have been content to remain that
way prior to the Russian Revolution.  Since "Communism" is so truly an
evil thing that one's heart can only fill with dread and despair at the
mere mention of it, can you please indicate how the situation in
Russia could have been otherwise rectified?  I will be the last person
to say that there was no other way, as so many possibilities can exist
in a given circumstance.  Therefore, taking into consideration the
general conditions on the Russian population under the Czar, specify
a non-communist solution (or two).

Regards,

--Louis
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.activism