Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!tektronix!psueea!parsely!bucket!whizz!bbh
From: bbh@whizz.uucp (Bud Hovell)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: USENET site admin responsibilities (was: Re: Censorship is for Wusses)
Message-ID: <814@whizz.uucp>
Date: 9 Sep 89 04:23:31 GMT
References: <13316@nsc.nsc.com> <3988@buengc.BU.EDU> <1989Sep3.043558.9447@xenitec.uucp> <4030@buengc.BU.EDU>
Reply-To: bbh@whizz.UUCP (Bud Hovell)
Distribution: na
Organization: McCormick & Hovell, Inc.
Lines: 77

In article <89250.001226HERSCHEL@AUVM> you write:

>What really pisses me off in this discussion is the introduction of

The list of what pisses you off is probably rather extensive - will you
please forbear of giving us detail on the rest of it? At least not in
news.admin.

>"property rights" considerations....So and so may have a right to say
>anything he likes, but the university of such and such doesn't have
>a duty to subsidize it; now THAT is crap. A university really DOES
>have a duty to make possible unfettered communication. Perhaps a
        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Where, exactly, do you find that such an agreement has been struck - or
even been proposed, particularly in regard to communications by way of
computer network? Is this something you read in your student handbook?

Please cite a reference, since your learned opinion clearly fails to
constitute compelling proof. And please don't cite the U. S. Constitution:
all of usenet isn't in the U.S., nor (believe it or not) are all the
universities. What we Americans (claim to) believe in is not necessarily
endorsed without reservation by all thinking people in the rest of the free
world. Understandably.

Now, arguably, the *real* function of the typical U.S. university is to provide
to dreebs of truncated perspective the opportunity to review rather over-
whelming evidence which suggests that the issues which confront mankind are
not nearly so simple as they may appear upon superficial examination by
truants (i.e., "What every schoolboy *knows* is most usually wrong").

This function, alas, is not always successful, since the dreebs themselves
must extend some effort toward the same goal. The taxpayers, of course, must
subsidize the main costs of this process, even when the dreebs are not so
inclined. Such dreebs consider that their participation in this process is
(along with "free speech", presumably) one of their inalienable rights based
upon their most-tangible contribution back to the community in the form of
converting air to carbon-dioxide and water vapor. (The effect they have on
the ozone layer is under study).

>for-profit corporation doesn't, but I wish they would all go away
>anyway. I don't mean away from this network, I mean away from the
>face of the earth.

Fortunately for you, they do not feel the same way about you - given that
without such for-profit institutions, it is probable that the computer
lab from which your enlightened views flow (nay, gush) forth upon the
usenet community would be unlikely to exist, absent the forced confiscation
by taxes of the wealth of such corporations (and many private individuals,
to boot) to support your "right" to an education (well, training, anyhow).
Often, the equipment and facilities are transferred to universities at no
profit from those sources which you so revile.

Such advanced facilities as those provided in the typical university computer
lab do not exist in any comparable quantity in any other part of the present
world absent widespread (sometimes rampant) free enterprise, which, in turn,
depends for its very survival upon solid protection of private property rights.

As another poster points out, that part of the world not having the feature of 
free enterprise (= private property) cannot even feed its own folks. Buying
computer facilities for dreebs isn't even on their LIST. I'll bet you'ld be
shocked to see some of the other items missing that you assume have nothing
to do with "property rights" at all. Ignorance of reality (the law is a
subset) will not excuse one from the consequences.

A trip outside the Beltway may suggest to you that "gummint" and other publicly-
funded institutions are not the primary engine of the U.S. economy, from which
most of your goodies flow. Many are pure net consumers, with no realization
of how the wealth is created to pay their upkeep.

Not unlike yourself and your visceral bretheren, it would seem.
 

                                 Bud Hovell

USENET: ...!{tektronix|sun}!nosun!whizz!bbh
USPO:   McCormick & Hovell, Inc., PO Box 1812, Lake Oswego, OR   USA 97O35
"Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man. Communism is just the opposite."