HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: BASGD@RHODES.BITNET (GAYLA BASSHAM)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Subject: Re: Is homosexuality immoral?
Date: 13 Sep 92 14:58:35 GMT
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>Michael:

>I give you the words of Benjamin Franklin to the convention:

>  "We have been assured...in the sacred writings that except the Lord
>build the house, they labor in vain that build it.  I firmly believe
>this.  I also believe that, without His concurring aid, we shall succeed
>in this political building no better than the builders of Babel; we
>shall be divided by our little, partial, local interests; our projects
>will be confounded; and we ourselves shall become a reproach and a
>byword down to future ages.  And what is worse, mankind may hereafter,
>from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing government by
>human wisdom and leave it to chance, war, or conquest...I therefore
>beg leave to move that, henceforth, prayers imploring the assistance
>of Heaven and its blessing on our deliberations, be held in this
>assembly every morning before we proceed to business."  (quoted
>by Norman Cousins, in In God We Trust.)

Well, yes, he *said* that.  How much he meant it is open to debate.  Franklin
thought that religion was a powerful unifying device, but if you've ever read
his Autobiography, you'll know that he himself was something of a freethinker.
He did not attend church; even his friend George Whitefield despaired of
converting him.  (I don't mean to suggest that Franklin was an atheist, just
that he did not make church and religion the center of his life.  His interest
was primarily in morality, not spirituality.)

>Franklin was right.  When the nation forgets the God who gave it
>birth, it becomes divided by the petty concerns of individual
>selfishness.  Today we are seeing the result of 30 years of denial
>and rebellion.  We cannot unite because we have no basis on which
>to do so.  We are a factionalized people with no foundation.  And it
>is time to second Franklin's modest proposal.

Do you really think that we've only been "factionalized" for the last 30 years?
And that America's problems stem only from the rejection of the Fifties?  The
United States is not very united, that is undeniably true.  But the fact is,
even in its earliest days, the U.S. has been fighting with itself.  The only
part of America that truly had its basis in God was Puritan Massachusetts; this
is not a time I want to return to.

>--Missy P 2 B

-----Gayla
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Date:         Fri, 11 Sep 1992 19:48:00 EDT
From:         GRACZ1@ITHACA.BITNET
Subject:      Re: read my lips: I have family values

>Kerry:
>
>Oh, yeah.  One more thing.  Children who attend private schools
>average 100 points higher on the SATs than those who attend public
>schools.  And they do so at 1/3 the cost on a per-pupil basis.

    Is that the nature of the education or the nature of the test?????

>--Missy P 2 B

G. Racz
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Date:         Sun, 6 Sep 1992 17:23:23 EST
From:         macphil <IQTI400@INDYCMS.IUPUI.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Observations on "mudslinging" ...
Comments: To: Forum for the Discussion of Politics <POLITICS@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu>

On Sun, 6 Sep 1992 16:06:25 -0500 VALENTINE M. SMITH said:
>elections. Unlike the GOP, I do not agree that Congress and the
>Presidency need be controlled by the same party, historically this

Unlike whom ?????????????????????????????????

Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't the Democrats the ones campaigning
on the basis of a "same party creates unity and mobilizes change"
philosophy just a few weeks/months ago?

------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The lesser of two evils is still evil." - Winston Churchill

MacPhil / iqti400@indycms.bitnet / iqti400@indycms.iupui.edu
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Date:         Sat, 5 Sep 1992 00:43:00 EST
From:         Tyrone Slothrop <199561011@VUVAXCOM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: homosexuality

missy:

i think that sex with children is ok as long as the child is
not hurt.

you say that sex with children is wrong (by appeal to some absolute?)
and then say 'and its harmful, too'.

i think that a good case can be made that the child *would* be
hurt in every case of such relations (and i think you made the case
quite well), and can say that sex with children is bad, while still
standing by the original statement.

in other words, it is not that sex is bad, but that when an activity
is harmful, it is bad.

brni
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Date:         Thu, 10 Sep 1992 21:17:00 EDT
From:         CMORRISO@SNYESCVA.BITNET
Subject:      Re: Bosnia conflict

I guess you all heard that the Iranians are starting to send arms into
Bosnia.  They are starting slowly, I guess as a sort of wake-up call to
the West, telling them "if you don't do something we will."  I have been
hearing a lot about Bosnia on Radio Kuwait, Voice of Turkey, etc.

Chris Morrison
CMorriso@snyescva.bitnet
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Date:         Fri, 4 Sep 1992 22:30:00 EST
From:         Tyrone Slothrop <199561011@VUVAXCOM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Andy, Leader and maybe Dave on the Environment

"elephant producers"?

so andy is suggesting that hunters should pay adult elephants to  have
more children so that the hunters have more to shoot at?

suddenly it all makes sense.
sorta like abortion, but different.

brni
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Date:         Mon, 14 Sep 1992 11:19:00 EST
From:         linda <SABOE@VUVAXCOM.BITNET>
Subject: Re: getting blood from a turnip: an answer to kerry s.

>Guess you never tried to sneak them back onto the library shelves and
>suggest someone must have forgotten to "check them in" ???        :)

>Just a thought after having seen _Sneakers_ this afternoon...

aaaaach! macp.! how could you?
but, do you really think you've pulled the wool over our eyes? no, but
unfortunately, we can do nothing abt. such underhanded behavior.
i betcha you hide books in other areas of the library, just so no one else
can find them except you. then we have to look for them, mark them missing,
re-order, pay for it, just to find it later.

and you guys wonder why librarians all have that same sharp, but somehow
haunted look in their eyes.

barbarians! :)

-linda  (trying to wade my way through a pile of work and mail-don't you guys
take a break on wkends? go out on dates? hang out? get drunk? play w/local
barbarians?)
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Date:         Thu, 10 Sep 1992 08:44:36 EDT
From:         jcs <GE777009@BROWNVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: NEA

>Posted on 9 Sep 1992 at 20:57:06 by TKIDD@CLEMSON.BITNET
>
>NEA
>
>From:         TKIDD@CLEMSON.BITNET
>
>I don't think there should even BE an NEA.  Government should
>keep its nose out of the arts.
>-Travis

So, what should the government fund? if not the NEA?
lets see a Travis the Kidd Budget Plan.  If it is well
received, maybe one of the Virtual Tickets will
pick you up.

jEnna
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Organization: Computer Science Department,  Stanford University.
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Date:         Wed, 9 Sep 1992 14:41:45 -0700
From:         Andy Freeman <andy@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Bosnia conflict

>     Don't you think that the US has some responsibilities in the
>   world simply because we are capable of doing something?

No, and even if I did, why is Bosnia more important than other
things that we could do with the required resources?

>   The US is the only country left with a military force capable of exerting
>   powerful force on its own anywhere in the world.

But Bosnia isn't "anywhere in the world"; it is in Europe's backyard.
There are at least TWO european powers that could "do something"
without any help, and several others that could cooperate.

>   If the US (with the UN) had gone in a long time ago,
>   the Serbians could have been discouraged from invading Bosnia and
>   Croatia.

How?  By threatening to nuke Croatia?  Be precise - what is the "or
else"?  (Has the "we could easily beat the warring parties" argument
disappeared?)

>    That thinking brought the Lincoln Brigade during the Spanish
>   Revolution, which, by the way, was Hitler's  (and Mussolini's)
>   test of the rest of the world's resolve to oppose him.  Need I say
>   what happened after that?

No, you need to explain how that's relevant.  (I know a dancing,
vegetarian, dog-loving German male with a mustache, but I'm not well
placed for the start of a fourth reich.)  Who's playing Germany and do
they get Italy this time?

-andy
--
UUCP:    {arpa gateways, sun, decwrl, uunet, rutgers}!cs.stanford.edu!andy
ARPA:    andy@cs.stanford.edu
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Date:         Sat, 5 Sep 1992 02:38:12 EDT
From:         Brandon Magee <cuz@CHAOS.CS.BRANDEIS.EDU>
Subject:      Re: who do you trust
Comments: To: POLITICS@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu
              Sep 4, 92 7:57 pm

A person going by the name of The Truth forged:
|
| >Why is our government providing price supports for tobacco which is
| >recognized by the medical establishment as one of the most potent and
| >addictive drugs available? For those of you predisposed to the word of
| >god approach, isn't there something about all the herbs being created
| >for the use of man? For those of you worried about your children, they
| >are statistically far more likely to die from alcohol related accidents
| >than from aids or using any illegal drugs. Same goes for tobacco.
|
| Right now, Tobacco is the only COMMERCIALLY VIABLE (or LEGAL AND
| COMMERCIALLY VIABLE - Marijuana will grow anywhere) crop that can
| be grown in the area in question. I've seen corn grown there, and
| if I was the farmer, I'd be ashamed to feed it to my pigs. A large
| amount of the land there was taken off cotton production before the
| war because cotton would't grow there, either. At least after two or
| three years of planting.  Wendell Berry has a good article about that
| in the most recent Utne.

	Yes, Buit the question begs to be asked. Why are we
subsidizing a drug which kills more people yearly than any narcotic,
while making another plant (hemp), which is a VERY SAFE drug, and
useful in many other ways? Why is hemp bad and tobacco good? Before we
forget our history, Most of the Virginian Presidents grew hemp, and
most probably used it in "illegal" ways as well. Whether or not it's
commercially viable really shouldn't be THE issue. The issue SHOULD be
whether or not the goverment is being hypocritical. IMO, The answer is
obviously YES.

--
 Cousin It                                    cuz@cs.brandeis.edu
    I have opinions of my own - strong opinions - but I don't
         always agree with them    -President George Bush
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Date:         Wed, 9 Sep 1992 16:25:47 -0700
From:         Andy Freeman <andy@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Andy, Leader and maybe Dave on the Environment

>>Why are we assuming that the producers will neither raise the price
>>nor increase production?  (While the demand for $10k Jaguars is much
>>larger than the supply, Jaguars are sold for $35k; the demand at $35k
>>does match the supply.  Sure, as a result I drive a Datsun, but ....)
>
>Well, the legal producers might raise the price and they might try to
>increase production.  But another short-term possibility is for poachers to
>make up some of the difference in supply (see, your analogy doesn't quite
>work -- no one can provide a 10K Jaguar; poachers can quite readily provide
>ivory).

Huh?  "Poachers" can provide a $10k Jaguar.  (Think "car theft".)
Some of the $25k goes to increasing the cost of those poached Jaguars.

>Well, elephant producers might well be more starving right now than corn
>producers.

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.

>white-tailed deer in CA, passenger pigeons, Stellars sea cow, fossil fuels,

White-tailed deer populations in CA are determined by water (we're
still in drought) and habitat size (hunters increase it while the rest
of it decrease it).  Their eventual fate will be determined by who
wins the water wars.  If the cities do, the deer are gone, but
nation-wide, there are more white-tails now than there were 20 years
ago, let alone than there were 200 years ago.

Passenger pigeons are a great example of the tragedy of the commons.
No one owned them, so no one cared to keep them around, and market
hunting wiped them out.  The same is happening with elephants.

>etc.).  So, although I agree that making resource preservation an
>economically valuable activity, I don't see how a simple market model will
>necessarily solve the problem.  We still need to address the question of
>sustainability in those cases for which a sustainable harvest (1) does not
>meet current demand and (2) can be readily circumvented by simply speeding
>up the harvest rate.

I'd buy elephant futures, even if a significant fraction of the money
goes into security measures, because I have faith that the demand
won't go away so I'd make money on the deal.  I'm fairly uninterested
in making expenditures that only profit poachers.

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.

-andy
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Date:         Wed, 9 Sep 1992 09:47:37 -0400
From:         KILBURN@WVSVAX.WVNET.EDU
Subject:      Re: democratic platform/homosexuality

Hi, j.b.:
>Reading the comments on sexual morality, made me remember
>something that someone said in one of my classes.  They
>said that sexual morality was a purely bourgeois fiction.
>The upper classes(traditionally and otherwise) have always
>had affairs, liasons, etc and the lower classes have always
>screwed whomever they wished.
>
>It is only the middle-class people who ever took the Bible
>literally when it came to sex.  I believe that this friend
>suggested that it had something to do with the necessity
>of maintaining a family unit or something in a society(industrial),
>where the family unit was becoming less and less utilitarian.

Well, if we look to the work that's been done on non-human animals, we see
two things that might bear on this issue.  First, for the vast majority of
species, sex serves only one function -- reproduction.  In a few, sex
serves as a mechanism promting social bonds.  In humans, of course, sex has
become increasingly divorced from reproduction (and maybe even from social
bonding), so we're much more complicated :)

Second, if we look at reproductive systems (polygyny, monogamy, polyandry,
etc.), we find that the type of system employed has much to do with the
amounts and kinds of resources necessary to produce and rear viable
offspring, and the ability of a single individual to provide those
resources.  Monogamy is often (but not always) found in situations in which
the full efforts of two parents are required to obtain the necessary
resources.

Limited evidence (and I stress *limited*) suggests that this pattern
obtains in humans.  An interesting question to explore is where and when do
we find monogamy in human societies?  Here, we need to distinguish between
socially-imposed monogamy and *true* monogamy.  I kind of doubt it's all
that common.

Kerry
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Date:         Thu, 10 Sep 1992 11:31:40 -0400
From:         Rick George <RIGEORGE@VASSAR.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: ERA

>
> "...on account of sex".  Let me refresh your memory.  There was a great
> debate over the interpretation of the word sex.  Many claimed that *sex*
> meant gender only while many others read it as the *act* of sex.
>
> The sponsor(s) of the ERA denied that the sex act was in any way the
> intent of their amendment.  However, they were *LYING*.  They flatly
> refused to substitute the word *gender* which would have narrowed any
> possible future court interpretations.  Instead, they took the typical
> approach of the *caught in the act* crowd and simply claimed it was
> not necessary.  Their refusal to allow the change proved without a doubt
> that their real intent was indeed the *sex act*.  The ERA was not about
> equal rights for women.  It was about equal rights for gays, lesbians and
> pedophiles.  WAKE UP!
>
> ---Robert

I don't mean to be Mr. Semantic, but "gender" is a grammatical term and,
while popular use may be to the contrary, is not a synonym for "sex",
which has to do with male and female division of a species.  It would
have been incorrect to replace "sex" with "gender" in the ERA.

...Rick
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Date:         Tue, 8 Sep 1992 16:39:10 EDT
From:         Jamie <PL436000@BROWNVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re:War Between the Jasons

>From:         Sue Clark <SACLARK@UNMCVM.BITNET>

>Concerning the 'marriage' between homosexuals...
>
>Are there not homosexual marriages already?  There are actual homosexual
>unions complete with wedding and reception activities that have been shown
>on videos.  It seemed that these homosexual marriages were performed by
>a minister.

You'll have to argue with Kerry S. about that. She says that it is
by definition impossible for two men or two women to marry.

>While I also agree that a homosexual marriage is wrong morally and Biblically,
>they are performed, and are not restricted.  I have even heard the term
>'partnership' instead of the word 'marriage' applied to homosexual unions.
>This term I just heard the past week.

Can it be that Sue really does not understand what is at issue?

Homosexual marriage is not recognized by the state. Marriage laws
discriminate against homosexual marriage. This discrimination results
in substantial disadvantages for homosexual couples.

Jamie
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Date:         Fri, 11 Sep 1992 11:44:13 EDT
From:         Jamie <PL436000@BROWNVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Interest Rates

>From:         macphil <IQTI400@INDYCMS.IUPUI.EDU>

>But while interest rates might help the economy, wouldn't they
>weaken the dollar on the international market even more than
>current rates?

Almost certainly. I hope none of those pushy finance students
will start getting all uppity about this....

>Mac "Sitting on a 10.5%/30-year mortgage, drooling @ the
>     Fannie Mae rates of 6.85%/15 and 7.35%/30" Phil

So, refinance, you knucklehead.
I happen to know of a good consultant....

Jamie
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Date:         Mon, 7 Sep 1992 13:23:42 -0500
From:         Jason Briggs Cormier <CORJB@RHODES.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Rights, and other comments ...

On civic responsibility:

It was something we were drilled in my Civics class,
sophomore year in high school.  This was when I was still
at my small rural public high school.

For some reason, which is really not clear to me, most
people in my town don't take this to heart.  Some time
ago(a year or so) some taxes failed to pass by a very slight
margin.  The "crime" here however, was that only about 400
out of 10,000 people showed up to vote on this tax increase.
It was the only thing on the ballot.  Because there was no
sensationalist election involving heated personalities,
less than 10% of the town showed up for the vote.

In the same town, there is a woman who is the owner, publisher
and editor of the only independantly-owned and operated
newspaper in Louisiana.  She attends all meetings of the school
board(which is arguably the most corrupt governing body
in south Louisiana) and holds them accountable for their
actions.  She has faced some heavy opposition, but she stands
by her guns.

That is what I consider a responsible citizen.  One who may not
run for office, but votes and makes sure that the elected
officials know where the line is.

j.b.
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Date:         Mon, 14 Sep 1992 12:54:00 EST
From:         linda <SABOE@VUVAXCOM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: KAT is bad if and only if Jimbo is harmful

chris, don't pee in the pool. dunstan says we have to use the lavatory.
-linda
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Date:         Thu, 10 Sep 1992 21:09:00 EDT
From:         CMORRISO@SNYESCVA.BITNET
Subject:      Re: read my lips: I have family values

Does having more material goods mean a higher family quality?  Maybe not,
but it does make having one a bit easier.  Ask any poor family.

Chris Morrison
CMorriso@snyescva.bitnet
PS--  did you guys know there is a noble savage list that was just started?
I wish I could give you the node -- it should be good for some laughs.
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Date:         Tue, 15 Sep 1992 13:11:54 EST
From:         macphil <IQTI400@INDYCMS.IUPUI.EDU>
Subject: re: real solutions for real problems
Comments: To: Forum for the Discussion of Politics <POLITICS@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu>

On Tue, 15 Sep 1992 13:02:00 EDT <CMORRISO@SNYESCVA> said:
>I was supposed to pay $5,000 to get invited to lunch with Bush, and that was
>just to get on to the grandly-named committee that had the lunches, the
>cost of the lunches was extra.

Just to give equal time (in the interest of fairness), what was the
cost to see Clinton?

------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The lesser of two evils is still evil." - Winston Churchill

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