HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: borden@head-cfa.harvard.edu (Dave Borden)
Newsgroups: ne.politics,ne.general,talk.politics.misc
Subject: VOICE-MAIL FOR THE HOMELESS AND POOR
Date: 2 Sep 92 21:20:51 GMT
Reply-To: borden@m5.harvard.edu
Distribution: usa
Organization: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, MA,  USA

I had this idea a few weeks ago, of a service that could be made available
to the homeless and very poor, that could be a help to them.  What do other
people think?  Here it is:

Once, near my former graduate school, New England Conservatory, I stopped
to give some change to a man who was asking.  He was young, early twenties
at most and looked healthy.  I gave him my contribution and asked him if
he was looking for a job.  He said that he couldn't because he didn't have
a phone number to give people.  I thought it was a cop-out - he can still
try.  But in any case, not having a phone is definitely a real obstacle to
finding gainful employment.  So this is my idea:
why not set up some kind of message or voice-mail service that homeless
and very poor people could use for free?  It won't help everybody but it
will help those who have enough will to use it.  And it would probably be
inexpensive and easy to provide - my voice-mail is only $6 a month, and
some of that is the phone company's profit.  This wouldn't by any means
solve the homelessness problem, but it could help a significant number of
people, and it's feasible with or without government funding.  What do you
all think?

   - Dave Borden
     borden@m5.harvard.edu
From: usenet@transfer.stratus.com (Mr. Network News)
Newsgroups: ne.politics
Subject: Re: Bearing arms: our first line of defense
Date: 31 Aug 92 17:44:35 GMT
Reply-To: Dave_Wetzel@vos.stratus.com
Organization: Dave_Wetzel

In article <0105011F.cbfv95@dragon.enigami.mv.com> cory@enigami.mv.com 
writes:

> Nice try.  However, the facts to not support your oppinion.  When
> Washington DC, and New York outlawed handguns the crime rates rose -- 
> dramatically.  They have MUCH higher crime rates that other cities that 
> have no such laws.  But don't take my word for it: dig up some old
> alminacs.

Okay, my last word on this subject (no one seems to be convincing anyone 
of anything here).  These results are rediculous.  As long as gun-control 
laws are local, there can be no effective gun control.  You have to have a 
national resolution.  Outlawing guns in Washington DC means nothing when 
you can drive 10 mins out of the city and buy a gun.  Clearly, if we can't 
get national legislation then we might as well open the floodgates and 
legalize the kind of anarchistic vigilantism that the NRA seems to 
advocate.

--------------
Dave_Wetzel@vos.stratus.com
From: usenet@transfer.stratus.com (Mr. Network News)
Newsgroups: ne.politics
Subject: Re: Bearing arms: our first line of defense
Date: 25 Aug 92 17:50:25 GMT
Reply-To: Dave_Wetzel@vos.stratus.com
Organization: Dave_Wetzel

In article <DRG.92Aug25102906@bubba.ma30.bull.com> drg@bubba.ma30.bull.com 
(Daniel R Guilderson) writes:

> Anyway, I have found that more often than not, gun-phobe type
> people lose their fear of guns once they have had a chance to go to a
> range and actually fire a gun.

Just like misconceptions abound about "the average gun-owner", 
misconceptions abound about the "average gun-control advocate".  All 
gun-control advocates are not gun-phobic.  I took hunter-saftey in high 
school back in Pa.  Back then it was manditory (I don't know if that was 
state-wide or just our school district).  I have fired both .22 
long-rifles and 9mm pistols in safe, monitored target practice.  I'm not 
afraid of firearms used by responsible adults who have been properly 
trained.

Now by properly trained I don't just mean target practice either.  There's 
a philosophy that has to be taught too.  Guns are serious stuff.  I was 
taught that you never draw a gun without intending to use it and you never 
use a gun without intending to kill.  That's part of what worries me about 
people who buy guns for "self-protection" without the proper respect for 
the weapon (and I've known more than a few first-hand!).  If there was an 
insurance that this attitude was adopted by all "self-protection" users 
and if guns were taken from the ya-hoos (see earlier post; that may have 
been a poor choice of words btw) then I might feel a bit better about all 
this.  

But my main concern is about the level of violence and the numbers of 
fatalities by firearms.  My position is that our society is too violent 
(anyone wanna' take a crack at solving that without violating the 
constituation?); it's far too easy to kill (accidentally or on purpose) 
with a firearm; and there are far too many firearms in this country (I had 
heard that there are about 2 firearms per citizen in the US; can anyone 
verify or refute that?  I found that a bit hard to believe, frankly).  
Thow in the concealablity of many of those firearms and you have a receipe 
for exactly the kind of anarchy going on in many of the cities in this 
country.

--------------
Dave_Wetzel@vos.stratus.com
Newsgroups: ne.politics
From: rdonahue@spdcc.com (Bob Donahue)
Subject: Re: Hypocrasy test: (was Re: Abortion: What does God say?)
Organization: insert anything here
Distribution: ne
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1992 02:54:53 GMT

cmr@world.std.com (Charles M Richmond) writes:
>rdonahue@spdcc.com (Bob Donahue) writes:

>The law here depends on the individual to make their will (and will)
>known. Unless their has been a legal tie (marriage) or a legal 
>document (a will) then the state justifiably rules that the individual
>has through their failure to establish a legal dispensation (?term?)
>established de facto and de jure the lack of one. This is not discrimination
>by sexual preference since it applies regardless of the sexual preferences
>or relationships of the individuals. (except in as much as the right to
>marry is restricted) Your will , if it is written properly, can leave
>everthing to a complete stranger and withstand any effort to contest.

	Can.  Not "will".  I have already documented that there have
been several cases where the orientation of the surviving partner
and the relationship to the surviving partner meant nothing when the
will was contested.  Sometimes the system works.  Sometimes it doesn't.
I would like to see the times that it doesn't because the particular
judge/family/court/state/etc. is homophobic not occur.  Why is this
so difficult for you to grasp?

>If there is no will then the rules are the same for any SO regardless of
>preference.

	Oh... So what you are saying now is that you promote
same-sex marriages?  Well, that's a different story.  IF you
had said this from the beginning, things would have been a lot
more clear.  Like I said earlier - if the laws treated things
equally these problems would mostly go away.

	IT isn't a case of "special rights".  That's where this all
started - and that's where my beef is.  As it stands I have talked
to an attorney about this topic and the best steps will be taken to make
sure that things are carried out.  Fortunately, in my case I don't think
that my family would raise a stink - mostly because they respect me and
like my partner, but partly because my "estate" consists of virtually
zilch.

BBC
From: usenet@transfer.stratus.com (Mr. Network News)
Newsgroups: ne.politics
Subject: Re: Smaller government means MORE money for the poor
Date: 27 Aug 92 22:39:29 GMT
Reply-To: Dave_Wetzel@vos.stratus.com
Organization: Dave_Wetzel

Though I must agree there is shameless waste in governmental spend, I'd 
like to counter this argument with two points:

1) Though people would certainly be able to give and even assuming that 
they'd be willing to give, it strikes me as unlikely that this hodge-podge 
of giving would be as efficent as collecting the total monies to be 
distributed and then passing out according to need sometimes is.  There 
are some causes that don't advertize well.  And if you felt your cause was 
important enough, you'd spend some of the money coming in on adverts to 
encourage more giving.  All in all I suspect it would break even in most 
cases; some very fashionable things (cancer research?) would benefit; and 
some less visible things would suffer (vacinations for the poor?).

2) One more time (you folks tired of this rap yet?), if you want to reduce 
the tax burden on the majority (middle-class) *START MAKING THE WEALTHY 
PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE*!!!  If everyone paid a flat rate, the rate needed to 
achieve parity with the current gross taxes collected would be 10-15%!  
The problem is we give all these breaks (mostly to those who least *NEED* 
them) and so the average citizen has to pick up the burden.

--------------
Dave_Wetzel@vos.stratus.com
From: borden@head-cfa.harvard.edu (Dave Borden)
Newsgroups: ne.politics
Subject: Re: Sex ed in school
Date: 31 Aug 92 14:28:13 GMT
Reply-To: borden@m5.harvard.edu
Organization: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, MA,  USA

In article <D1JPPB1w165w@buscard.fidonet.org> murph@buscard.fidonet.org (Brian Murphy) writes:
>
>You don't think a compromise on our positions can be reached by simply keeping
>sex ed out of school and in the home?  If not, why is it a bad idea to pray in
>school?
>
The problem with prayer in school is that it tends to bring about situations
in which a student feels pressure to join in.  Most children don't have the
assertiveness to abstain from such activity while others are joining in.  Kids
can pray on their own in school or wherever they happen to be, at least in my
opinion.  My objection is to organized prayer in schools.

As for sex-education, I can only speak from the experience which I had in my
school system.  No one told us it was fine to have sex whenever we liked, and
no one told us that it wasn't.  But we did get a lot of valuable information,
as well as the mature perspective of an adult.  It did not encourage
promiscuity or anything of the sort.  In fact, it discouraged it by providing
facts, not value judgements.  Value judgements can easily be disregarded; in
fact authoritarian pronouncements usually are.  But facts are facts.

  - Dave Borden
    borden@m5.harvard.edu
From: drg@bubba.ma30.bull.com (Daniel R Guilderson)
Newsgroups: ne.politics
Subject: Re: Flat taxes
Date: 1 Sep 92 19:31:45 GMT
	<1992Aug29.151020.25820@spdcc.com>
Organization: Bull World Wide Information Systems, Billerica MA USA

In article <1992Aug29.151020.25820@spdcc.com> rdonahue@spdcc.com (Bob Donahue) writes:

	   People who have played with the numbers have also said that such
   a system would add literally hundreds of millions of dollars to the economy.
   The only reason it isn't being done is greed.

I sympathize with your arguments but I think your tax reform proposal
has less political appeal than an outright elimination of the income
tax.  Both reform and elimination proposals face a steep uphill
battle.  For one thing, you'll have to put a digestable spin on
placing thousands if not millions of government and private
accountants on the unemployment line.  You will be wiping out a huge
industry.  Reform proposals face other battles that seem futile (to
me) such as the definition of income, the rate(s), the definition of
high/low income, etc.  I agree, meaningful reform will never happen
because politicians have too much to lose.  However, I do think that
complete elimination will have more of a chance of building grassroots
support.  Why?  Because it is a simple concept that isn't convoluted
by a lot of sticky details.

Some people might be wondering how we would pay for all those
priceless government services we have if the income tax is eliminated.
I personally favor getting rid of the services but for those who can't
stand the thought, what about a comprehensive sales tax on everything
other than food, clothing and shelter?
From: ryba@ll.mit.edu (Marty Ryba)
Subject: Re: VOICE-MAIL FOR THE HOMELESS AND POOR
Originator: ryba@ll.mit.edu (Marty Ryba)
Reply-To: ryba@ll.mit.edu (Marty Ryba)
Organization: Group 101, MIT Lincoln Lab.
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 92 16:32:56 GMT


In article <1992Sep2.212051.29200@m5.harvard.edu>, borden@head-cfa.harvard.edu (Dave Borden) writes:
|> I had this idea a few weeks ago, of a service that could be made available
|> to the homeless and very poor, that could be a help to them.  What do other
|> people think?  Here it is:
|> 
|> Once, near my former graduate school, New England Conservatory, I stopped
|> to give some change to a man who was asking.  He was young, early twenties
|> at most and looked healthy.  I gave him my contribution and asked him if
|> he was looking for a job.  He said that he couldn't because he didn't have
|> a phone number to give people.  I thought it was a cop-out - he can still
|> try.  But in any case, not having a phone is definitely a real obstacle to
|> finding gainful employment.  So this is my idea:
|> why not set up some kind of message or voice-mail service that homeless
|> and very poor people could use for free?  It won't help everybody but it
|> will help those who have enough will to use it.  And it would probably be
|> inexpensive and easy to provide - my voice-mail is only $6 a month, and
|> some of that is the phone company's profit.  This wouldn't by any means
|> solve the homelessness problem, but it could help a significant number of
|> people, and it's feasible with or without government funding.  What do you
|> all think?
|> 
|>    - Dave Borden
|>      borden@m5.harvard.edu

   I heard a report about 2 weeks ago on NPR about such a system being used
in Minnesota I believe.  The results were quite remarkable.  Something like
95% of the people who used it found jobs and apartments!!  They said that it
not only was of great use to job/apt. searches, but facilitated case work
and also allowed people to keep in touch with friends/relatives...a very
important factor in staying sane.  The people in charge of the project were
very excited about it.  Anyone involved with homeless advocacy or with
NET know more about what's involved to bring this to Boston?

-- 
Dr. Marty Ryba             |	Generation X:
Group 101 - Radars 'R Us   |
MIT Lincoln Laboratory     |  Too young to be cynical,
ryba@ll.mit.edu            |		too old to be optimistic.
From: jturner@splinter.coe.northeastern.edu (Jeffrey Turner)
Newsgroups: ne.politics
Subject: Re: Foreign policy musings
Date: 29 Aug 92 16:24:56 GMT
	<BZS.92Aug18194424@ussr.std.com>
	<JTURNER.92Aug21203351@splinter.coe.northeastern.edu>
	<BZS.92Aug21235020@ussr.std.com>
	<JTURNER.92Aug22123754@splinter.coe.northeastern.edu> <BZS.
Organization: College of Engineering, Northeastern University
In-reply-to: bzs@ussr.std.com's message of 24 Aug 92 22:13:18 GMT

In article <BZS.92Aug24171318@ussr.std.com> bzs@ussr.std.com (Barry Shein) writes:

>From: jturner@splinter.coe.northeastern.edu (Jeffrey Turner)
>>>How did Bush manage to pull such a big hoax or whatever it is you
>>>think occurred on virtually every western nation and several third
>>>world nations and get them to act against their own best interests?
>>
>>	Obvious, by offering or holding out the promise of money,
>>trade agreements or whatever he convinced them that it WAS in their
>>best interests.

> Britain? France? JAPAN?
>I think you need to play devil's advocate with yourself a little to
>straighten out all these rather confused ideas you present.

	Japan?  I do not recall Japan being a willing or active
participant in the war with Iraq.  Of course Britain agreed,
they're a colonialist force in the area from way back and needed
something to distract the people from the terrible economic
situation they have there.  In effect their motives were similar
to Bush's.  France probably had their own self-interests in joining
in, I don't know enough about their situation.

				--Jeff Turner
From: murph@buscard.fidonet.org (Brian Murphy)
Newsgroups: ne.politics
Subject: Re: Bearing arms: our first line of defense
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 92 13:47:08 EDT
Reply-To: murph@buscard.fidonet.org (Brian Murphy)
Organization: The Business Card (BBS), Lawrence, MA - Data: 508-682-5329

cory@enigami.mv.com (Cory Kempf) writes:

> In the final analysis, in a free society, governments only exists with 
> the consent of the people being ruled.  Eliminating / reducing
> the rights to keep and bear arms is an attempt remove the right of
> the people to withhold that consent.  Think about it.

Bravo!  Revolution of the citizens is a Constitutional right.

                                      - - - Murph

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
   The Business Card (BBS), Lawrence, Massachusetts - Data: (508) 682-5329
   SysAdmin:  murph@buscard.fidonet.org / ...!ulowell!wizvax!buscard!murph
From: gjc@mitech.com (George J. Carrette)
Newsgroups: ne.politics
Subject: Re: Proposed Massachusetts legislation H.5194
Date: 25 Aug 92 14:19:53 GMT
Organization: Mitech Corporation, Concord MA

In article <1992Aug24.194835.6086@osf.org>, kenny@osf.org (Kenneth Crudup) writes:
> ascend SOAPBOX
> 
>>		 The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
>>	In the Year One Thousand Nine Hundred and Ninety-Two
>>	AN ACT TO PROTECT THE CIVIL RIGHTS OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN
> 
> [... text of a bill that probably started out well meaning,

Probably DID NOT START OUT well-meaning.

In fact it is a bill that was carefully planned from the beginning
to be couched in the "well-meaning" language of protection and
against "sexual discrimination."

There is a large amount of legal theory that goes into the crafting
of a bill like this.

>>  The use of men, children or transsexuals in the place of women
>>shall also be deemed to be pornography for purposes of this
>>definition.
> 
> Which says to me: "Oh yeah, y'all too." Nice afterthought. Thanks. I guess
> a male staff worker snuck that in late one night for completeness.

That was not the purpose. The purpose of that phrase is to get the
main point across. That the bill seeks to CONTROL expression, not behavior.

It is very easy to have a man play the part of a woman!

(Not to mention the fact that modern movie-making technology, 
special effects, etc, are getting less and less expensive to employ).

-gjc
Newsgroups: ne.politics
From: rdonahue@spdcc.com (Bob Donahue)
Subject: Re: Hypocrasy test: (was Re: Abortion: What does God say?)
Organization: insert anything here
Distribution: ne
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1992 17:17:18 GMT

cmr@world.std.com (Charles M Richmond) writes:
>rdonahue@spdcc.com (Bob Donahue) writes:

>>...................................  If I die, no matter what my
>>will says, my family can declare it invalid if it includes my
>>lover because legally he has no relationship to me.  Is this
>>a "special right"?

>Just a nit...   Some of what you have posted is clearly the way it is.
>Some probably is right, but I am not knowegeable enough about the 
>various state laws to evaluate...  The one statement above is however
>an overstatement. If people can leave large estates to pets or in
>Ma. to their legislator , then clearly they can leave their estate
>to their same sex lover. A will is a very powerfull instrument and is
>not easily challanged or set aside.

	It is not an overstatement.  It happens.

	If you are not legally bound to the people in your will, and
do not include your family, your family can contest the will, and
in most cases will win, simply because of the fact that legally,
"gay marriages/union/partnerships/affairs/etc." have no legal basis.

	The more common case is where someone doesn't have a will.
In this case it is very common for the family (if they are not
supportive of the deceased relationship) to completely exclude the
surviving partner from the process.  This has happened in the case
of people who were completely estranged from their families for
several years, owned their own property (not jointly unfortunately),
and then died.  The family came in, took all the belongings, took the
property, and evicted the partner.  

	Bad legal planning on the couple?  You betcha!  On the other
hand, the "special rights" of familes to go thru someone's estate
with no regard to the people closest to the deceased is ridiculous.
	
	It happens. Don't beleve for a second that it doesn't.

	We don't want "special rights".  We want equality.  We want
equal protection under the law.  We want our relationships to be
treated with the same legal respect as everyone elses.  If can't
handle that, I'm sorry, but we're not going away.

BBC
Xref: sparky ne.politics:2231 alt.politics.clinton:3912 alt.politics.bush:3939 talk.politics.misc:43483
From: michaels@m2xenix.psg.com (Michael Sandy)
Newsgroups: ne.politics,alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.bush,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Efficiency
Date: 3 Sep 92 08:48:13 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Pacific Systems Group, Portland Oregon US

Official Sununu Conservatism says that efficiency costs jobs.  (At least
when referring to Clinton's plans)

The Republicans are always bitching about how that the Democrats will
educate people, train people, etc... but pay for it with a payroll tax.
As a result, no business will hire new people, or it will be forced into
bankruptcy, as a result we'll have lots of well-trained people who,
because of the Captiol Gains Tax, can't get the capital to start a new
business.

Sigh.  Someone explain to the conservatives that the most important
capital is educated, motivated, and organized _people_.  It isn't
enough to subsidize grains so they can be exported in the US gov't isn't
opening trade walls and informing farmers of overseas markets.  Not
to mention reducing barriers to _exporting_ products that would sell
well over seas.  Government can and should take an active role in
facillitating _fair_ trade. (I prefer fair trade to free trade mostly)



-- 
Michael Sandy
michaels@m2xenix.psg.com
"No Blood for Oil!" ?  But Blood is a renewable resource, Oil isn't!
Newsgroups: ne.politics
From: rdonahue@spdcc.com (Bob Donahue)
Subject: Re: Hypocrasy test: Rights etc.
Organization: insert anything here
Distribution: ne
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 02:43:06 GMT

In article <2493@mitech.com> gjc@mitech.com (George J. Carrette) writes:
>rdonahue@spdcc.com (Bob Donahue) writes:
>> If I die, no matter what my
>> will says, my family can declare it invalid if it includes my
>> lover because legally he has no relationship to me.

>You better get a better laywer to help you build that will,
>because it is quite common for people to give large sums of
>money to people other than their family.

>One technique is to not leave anybody obviously out of the will.
>So your family cannot say that you "forgot them."
>Make sure that everybody gets something of some value. Say $500. 

	Yes, that's a trick I was told about.  But in the end it
can come down to a judge's "opinion".  And I have seen it go "the
wrong way" for no other reason than it was queers involved.

>Furthermore, it is quite easy in law to enter into all sorts
>of legal relationships with people, especially when it comes to 
>the ownership of property.

	Ummmmmmmm....... yes and no.  One of the documents my
partner has lists me as "partner" - the other lists me as "friend".
Sometimes it depends on what the item is (in this case the "friend"
is on a life insurance policy - he put one thing, they changed it to 
something else per "their policy").  This would never happen with
a heterosexual marriage.

>As for myself, the first house I purchased in Cambridge was with
>an unrelated male. 

	I'm not saying these things can't happen, I am saying that
people/agencies/etc. can throw a lot of obstacles in the way if
they have the mind to.  Changing the law to allow me the same
rights as other people would solve this.

	Let's not concentrate on picky details.  I think I and others
have sufficently made the case that these rights are not "special
rights" as the Republican PArty, and the religious zealots would 
have the public believe.

BBC