HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Date:         Wed, 9 Sep 1992 18:03:09 -0400
From:         SPRG0002@TULSAJC.BITNET
Subject:      re: An easy answer to a little question

 *** Resending note of 09/09/92 16:05


 >This is true *only* if a reasonable case that homosexuality is immoral can
 >be made, a feat *no one* on this list has yet achieved...
 >Hamlett

 A *reasonable case* would be applicable in a situation where the outcome was
 undecided.  In this case, the facts have never been in question, only your
 willingness to accept them.

 ---Robert
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Date:         Fri, 11 Sep 1992 19:55:00 EDT
From:         GRACZ1@ITHACA.BITNET
Subject:      Re: read my lips: I have family values

>It has nothing to /c how things are taught.  No matter how devoted and
>diligent the teachers, the parents are not supporting the education
>system.  Until teachers & parents are on the same wavelength, education
>in this country is doomed to failure.  The parents who really want their
>children to learn have the teachers that can't/won't teach and vice-versa.


    That is a big part of what is wrong, but it is necessary to go
  further.  The fact that parents do not support the educational system
  is due to the fact that the system itself is based on the ridiculous
  notion that children learn only between certain hours, and that
  all experiences are not now incorporated into learning -- basically
  learning is viewed by the system as an activity not integrally related
  to living itself.



>MacPhil / iqti400@indycms.bitnet / iqti400@indycms.iupui.edu

G. Racz
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Date:         Mon, 14 Sep 1992 17:51:00 EDT
From:         CMORRISO@SNYESCVA.BITNET
Subject:      RE: French & EC

As of this morning, it's slightly in favor of yes or even depending on
which poll you want to listen to, but nobody is willing to make any
serious bets.  Does this situation sound familiar to anybody?  I think
a whole lot of people got burned by the British election.

Chris Morrison
8 Renfrewshire Drive
Middletown, NY  10940-1405
(914) 692-2770 (Voice after 2pm Eastern, please!!!)
CMorriso@snyescva.bitnet, 70712,3102 CompuServe, vxpp48a prodigy
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Date:         Wed, 9 Sep 1992 12:50:00 EST
From:         DAZED AND CONFUSED <HARRISR@CERAMICS.BITNET>

Diane asks:

> Does anyone know if Bill Clinton is still planning...

        Well, both Clinton and his people claim that they will be in
        East Lansing on 9/22 ready to debate reagrdless of what GHWB
        decides to do.

> What's GHWB's problem?

        If anyone knew the answer to that, Jim Baker would be out of
        a job.

> Is Baker pulling his (GHWB's) strings...

        I read in the current issue of Newsweek (I think) that this
        stall on the debate is some sort of psychological warfare
        intended to unnerve Clinton and deprive him and his people
        of precious time needed to prepare for the debates.

        Okay, sure, I thought I noticed a haunted look in Bill's eyes
        of late.

        Also heard that GHWB is unhappy with the proposed format, i.e.,
        just the two of them on stage having at it with a single
        moderator.  Seems that Bush (Baker?) would prefer to have a
        a panel of reporters asking predictable questions so the HE
        can be better prepared.

        Yes, he is pulling our chains if he thinks that we believe
        that he believes that he can wiggle out of the debates.


Rich Harris
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Date:         Thu, 10 Sep 1992 10:29:50 -0700
From:         Andy Freeman <andy@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Andy, Leader and maybe Dave on the Environment

>>Yup, and who's to blame for that?  Hunters will happily pay.  Ivory
>>buyers arguably don't care who gets the money, so the environmental
>>activist approach pays poachers, who don't have any long term
>>interest, and not elephant farmers, who do.
>
>I don't think I understand.  It still looks to me like making ivory "legal"
>won't solve the problem (in and of itself) unless there's a "match" between
>sustainable supply and demand.

Suppliers who control the supply can from raise prices beyond
their immediate costs.  They can use this money to protect
their "corn".  Poachers can't; ownership has its privileges.

>The point being that, presumably, market hunters (I'm pretty sure
>that's who was hunting them, but could be wrong) had  a long-term
>interest in maintaining the populations.  But they went for the
>short-term gain.

They couldn't benefit from expressing a long-term interest, so why is
it surprising that they didn't?  (They also had no way to express a
long term interest; they couldn't set up fences so the benefit of
anything they did they went to others.)  If they didn't kill the
golden goose, someone else would.  Owners have other options.  Since
we're talking about ownership....

To put it another way, lots of people will wax their car, but no one
waxes a car they've rented for the weekend, even though the long-term
effect is the same.  Why the difference?  Owners can benefit from
expressing long-term interests.

>>It's rather simple actually.  You can have lots of money to protect
>>elephants, or you can have a little.  If money matters and elephants
>>are worth keeping around, the choice is obvious.  Like I wrote,
>>environmental activists are more interested in purity than elephants.
>
>I agree that limited hunting of elephants can potentially generate revenues
>for increased protection.  And *maybe* we can generate enough money for
>protection to deter poachers -- to the point where illegal ivory is more
>expensive than legal ivory.  Is that what you're getting at?

Even if you believe the "they'll slaughter their own sheep" theory,
they'll do so less quickly than people who know that someone else will
kill the elephant if they don't.  An owner can afford to wait.  Owners
benefit from protecting his elephants from others; are they really
going to ignore their self-interest?

Care to name an owned and in-demand species that has gone extinct?
That's the option we're talking about, not un-owned in-demand species.
Has anyone killed their own flock of golden geese?

-andy
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Date:         Sun, 13 Sep 1992 17:10:41 EST
From:         Kerry Stephenson <KSTE@PURCCVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: what to do in a world that trivializes intelligence

Mark the day:

I agree with anneliese.  In *our* (entirely useless, ego-boosting,
reality-denying) gifted program, we spent our time telling the
teacher what *we* were going to do.  (generally this involved having
some kind of party in the yearbook office, much of the staff of which
were in the program.)

There is *no* reason to assume that some people are "stupid" and some
people are "gifted."  *All* people are more intelligent than they once
were, not as bright as they think they are, and do not have anything
*near* a level of intelligence that gives them permission to think themselves
better than anyone else.

And another thing.  This drivel about self-esteem is just that--drivel.
Criminals, deviants, suicides, etc., do not suffer from a low opinion of
themselves--they suffer from a false sense of superiority.  The California
Task Force on Self-Esteem learned this after spending who knows how much
money to do so.  Inevitably, people rate themselves higher on scales of
worth than others rate them, assume themselves to be in the top few
percentages of intelligence, likeability, and so forth. We think too *much*
of ourselves, people.  That is why we feel free to steal things--because we
deserve them and it is obviously not our fault that we do not have them.
That is why we feel free to engage in immoral behavior--to please ourselves.
That is why people commit suicide--because they believe they deserve *better*
than they've got.  And if they can't get it, to hell with the whole thing.

And what about the nation as a whole?  You people out there who think that
the US is a big bully nation, imposing its will on helpless third-world
nations--why is that?  Is it because we have too *little* regard for
our own power and might?  Or is it because we think so much of our *own*
nation and so little of *other* nations that we think we *deserve* to
have whatever they've got?

Think about it, people.  We are not as hot as we think we are.

--Missy P 2 B
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Date:         Fri, 4 Sep 1992 17:45:49 -0500
From:         "VALENTINE M. SMITH" <CDELL@UMKCVAX1.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: discrimination

I think you look to the broadest standard of acceptance possible, and
legislate aboutr the least number of things - preferably those relating to
national defens, traffic, worst case crimes, zoning, "physical plant" (roads,
bridges and airports, for example) maintenance, those kinds of issues need
government. MY standard would be to protect children, and have law that DOES
defend children against child abuse, pedophilia, murder, rape, or robbery -
but stays out of areas of behavior between "consenting adults" such as drug
use, gambling, pornography, sodomy, abortion, and other behavior basically
non-injurious. My standard further would say that one may NOT do these
things and commit crimes. But, this is just a gut reaction to the morality
legislators, who would have ALL behavior prescribed in law, one way or another.
I AM into minimal government, what Reagan and Bush used to SAY they were for,
but only as relates to issues they want government out of, like business. I
think "anarcho-capitalist" is a fair description. VMS
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Date:         Sat, 5 Sep 1992 10:37:00 EDT
From:         rf35 <Richard_A_FYFE@UMAIL.UMD.EDU>
Subject:      Re: homosexuality
Comments: To: Forum for the Discussion of Politics <POLITICS@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu>

Greetings: To Missy


> The definitions of "morality" that have obtained on this list
> do not define morality, but only individual and corporate self-
> ishness.

> Sex with children?  "If it doesn't harm the child?"  How can
> it not?

        Missy, the following argument is a valid argument:

     1) If sex with a child does not harm the child, then it
                is not wrong.
     2) Sex with a child always harms the child.

     3) Therefore, sex with a child is always wrong.


So, it is no contradiction to hold that if sex with a child does
not harm the child, it is not wrong; and that it is always wrong
for an adult to have sex with a child.

        [Actually, it is not necessary that the activity cause
harm; it is only necessary that the activity creates a risk of
significant harm--so one can actually accept that some sexual ac-
tivity with children is not harmful without abandoning the be-
lief that it is still always wrong.]

> I suppose now we can argue that, if a child doesn't show an
> "aversion" to sex, it must be "good."

        This would be false.  The fact that a person is not
aversive to some situation for its own sake does not imply
that it does not have an indirect relationship to the thwart-
ing of other desires.  This is fairly obvious.


> And I would feel a *lot* safer in a society run by Robert's
> rules of morality than by this laissez-faire, add-up-the-
> aversions-and-see who-wins swamp of immorality and license.

        You may perhaps FEEL safer, and you may BELIEVE that
you would be safer, but the question is whether you would in
fact BE safer.  Remember, when making value judgments (and
judgments of safety contain elements which are value-laden)
there is supposed to be an objective fact of the matter which
is independent of what you feel or believe.  To go by what
you feel in determining what is right and wrong is to actually
appeal to the same type of subjectivism which you often claim
to be condemning.


> Robert is right.  When you abandon the morality of common
> sense and virtue, you will accept anything.

        Again, the morality of 'common sense' is subjective.
They represent only your own particular beliefs, desires,
and response patterns to things you encounter in the universe.
In order to have an objective morality, that morality must
be grounded on facts of the world OUT THERE, not how it feels
to you or how you want the world to be.

                                        Richard A. Fyfe
                                        rf35@umail.umd.edu
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Date:         Sat, 12 Sep 1992 23:30:03 EDT
From:         MMORSE@YORKVM1.BITNET
Subject:      Re: Is homosexuality immoral?

Dear Kerry:
  Can I explain how Franklin insisted on meetings beginning with a prayer?
Of course! He understood the difference between personal & private
religious sentiment, and the power of legally sanctioned institutions
giving support to such sentiments. Which difference, evidently, has
not made its way into your upper chambers. What are you trying to
prove witha turnip-witted "argument" like this? That many Americans,
even those in responsible positions, were Christians? That's not at
issue, and neither is the real or purported omniscience of the Founders.
All I have said is that the First Amendment clearly and unambiguously
rules out the paralegal hooliganism you and Robert wish to perpetrate
with and through the public school system.
Cordially,
Michael
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Date:         Wed, 9 Sep 1992 10:36:18 EST
From:         Kerry Stephenson <KSTE@PURCCVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: The War Between the Jasons

Jamie:

Gender segregated bathrooms do not occur because of (what you think of as)
bigotry?  Why not?

During the ERA debate, Phyllis Schlafly argued that the consequences of
a gender-neutral society included the potential for unisex bathrooms.
The public went mad.  They clearly did not favor such a thing.  Why not?
Don't most people share their bathrooms in their homes with mothers
and fathers, sisters and brothers, friends?  Might it not be assumed that
this fear of sharing restrooms with people of the opposite sex has much
to do with the (possibly unfounded) fear that such might lead to physical
consequences (rape, for example.)  Bathrooms (at least women's bathrooms)
have doors, you know.  There is no need for the users of a public restroom
to have any unpleasant interactions with one another, or any interaction
at all.  Precisely what is the rationale behind gender-segregated
restrooms?  How is such a rationale constitutionally sound?

Many laws are based on what you are calling bigotry.  Others call it
publicly shared moral and cultural values.

--Missy P 2 B
From: andy@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU (Andy Freeman)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Subject: Re: Rights, and other comments ...
Date: 15 Sep 92 18:41:39 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Department,  Stanford University.
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>>        we are?  i'm not forcing the nazi to buy stuff from jews
>>        if he doesn't want to.  what are you talking about?
>
>Sure we are.  Remember the "political beliefs shouldn't be considered
>when jobs are concerned."  The "suppliers" were providing labor....
>
>        ah, labor... i suppose in this culture we have to look at
>        the use of another person's body as a commodity.

Hold it.  Brni doesn't get to complain about that; he advocates it.
He's arguing that political beliefs shouldn't come into hiring
decisions.  I'm just pointing out the effects.

>They are now.  I'm asking why they're any different.  EVERY argument
>for coercing store owners also applies to coercing consumers.

>        please explain to me how the arguments for coercing store owners
>        also apply to consumers.  i really haven't followed your logic
>        here.

It isn't my argument; it's brni's.  I'm just pointing out that it
applies more generally than he'd like.  If s\he doesn't like it, s\he
can abandon it.  Maybe brni will remind us why it is a good thing to
coerce store owners.

Remember, we're trying to protect the Jew's right to work for a Nazi.
Shouldn't we also force the Nazi to buy from the Jew?  After all, the
Jewish store owner suffers just as much from not getting Nazi biz as
the Jewish worker does from not working for the Nazi.

-andy
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Date:         Wed, 9 Sep 1992 13:21:22 -0500
From:         Jason Briggs Cormier <CORJB@RHODES.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: democratic platform/homosexuality

>JB:

>Your attempt at Marxist analysis works rather well,

I thought I made it clear that this was the work of
a fellow classmate?  Anyway, it was.  I just tried
to relay his/her(I really don't remember) words to
the net.

> until we take into
>account that the middle class is a relatively recent invention, and
>morality is not.

How far back are you going for morality?  I wouldn't go past the
Middle Ages on the grounds that the people and times before that
really are too far removed from our society today.

Doing this, the argument still holds.  True, there wasn't much or
any middle class, but still the majority of the upper class and
the majority of the middle class had not the sexual morality that
is advocated by conservatives today.

j.b.
>--Missy P 2 B
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Date:         Sat, 12 Sep 1992 13:06:31 -0700
From:         Andy Freeman <andy@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject:      Re: It's always the money

>>NEA spending on art is a small fraction of total spending on art.  People
>>who think otherwise don't have much appreciation for art.
>
>     Do you know what the fraction is?  Even if it is small, it is very
>  important -- it really does help provide services for the community.

Notice how the argument is changing.  Racz insisted that the NEA is
important because the fraction was large, but now insists that its
important even though it isn't.  The position is one of faith, not of
reason.

>  For example, I doubt a museum in my home town would be able to have
>  free admission on Tuesdays if it weren't for its government funding.

So?  If that's all your town would lose, it wouldn't even notice.

If the people in that community don't value that museum, why should I?
Why can't I spend that $0.64 on my art?

Racz should the $0.64/person-year to figure out how much NEA money
that community gets if it is "average".

-andy
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Date:         Fri, 11 Sep 1992 15:28:15 EDT
From:         Tim Johnson <ST402711@BROWNVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: KAT is bad if and only if Jimbo is harmful

>(Isn't it peculiar that MacPhil corrected "doggy dog" but not
>"for all intensive purposes"? What may we properly conclude?)

  /c intensive correction /p erat nyt x-word /c ink, et al.


                           -MacTim
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Date:         Sat, 12 Sep 1992 08:51:06 EDT
From:         Carolyn Robinson <CAROLYNR@BROWNVM.BITNET>
Subject:      RE: Homosexuality: Isn't this where I left?

>From:         Tyrone Slothrop <199561011@VUVAXCOM.BITNET>
         hey carolyn, good to see you back!

Thanks, Mr. Slothrop. Good to be back, even when I'm being discussed as
an abstract, immoral entity.
>
>        that is very cool.  good luck to both of you.
>
>        never claimed that it did.  jason was advocating not
>        allowing people to adopt due to sexual orientation.  i was
>        just asking him if he extended his ban to biological children
>        as well.

Thank you. I know you didn't. I'm sorry that it seemed like I was aiming
at you. I figured that might happen, but I was too lazy to deal with it.



--CAROLYN M. ROBINSON

        CAROLYNR@BROWNVM
        CAROLYNR@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU
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Date:         Sun, 6 Sep 1992 15:44:47 CDT
From:         There is No Answer <T9AA@SDSUMUS.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Rights, and other comments ...

>>Well, I know that as for "mudslinging," Val can probably remember
>>campaigns with more mud slung than even the 1988 campaign which
>>was supposed to be so dirty. I sort of think that there used to

>Some of it is also relative, as in some of our Founding Fathers, later
>Presidents,who were slave owners and that was considered standard practice
>for that time.  Some of the others' "downfalls" have been a little more
>universal taboos throughout the entire timeline (e.g. illegitimate
>children).

Agreed. Jefferson and Washington grew hemp (and not just for rope)
and the Book of Lists said JFK smoked it (unfortunately, it just
puts him on a list. Mondo 2000 says he did acid...), and these were
not made into campaign issues, but now, if you smoked you cannot
be president, or supreme court justice. VP is alright, if you can
keep the dealer in solitary...

>"Ma! Ma! Where's my Pa?"

He's in the White House - Ha Ha Ha!

Dave
t9aa@sdsumus.bitnet
People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions
and have a tremendous impact on history.
              --Vice President Dan Quayle

Disclaimer: The opinions contained in this post are insightful
and brilliant. Obviously, these are not those of the Computer
Department, Administration, Faculty or Student Body of South
Dakota State University.
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