Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!sdd.hp.com!mips!sgi!decwrl!world!bzs From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Censorship on the USENET Message-ID: Date: 4 Nov 90 23:52:33 GMT References: <1990Nov01.064916.19218@looking.on.ca> <1990Nov02.044428.2834@looking.on.ca> <1990Nov05.032855.21385@ddsw1.MCS.COM> Sender: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) Distribution: na Organization: The World Lines: 47 In-Reply-To: zane@ddsw1.MCS.COM's message of 5 Nov 90 03:28:55 GMT >Mr. Templeton says that violence in the extended sense would mean >"don't print it or we will put you in jail" However, if a radio/TV >station airs something that would be found objectionable to the FCC, >they probably would not be jailed, but maybe fined and/or shut down. I can see this is promising to be this month's big boor (tho playing a poor second to the lawsuit threats...) Consider what would happen if you insisted on continuing to broadcast after the FCC objected. Say, you locked your doors, barred the windows, stacked up some canned goods and ran off a generator... I think the next step from da gummint would be properly called "violence". One mainly gives into those fines/shut-downs because they know resisting them at some near point would lead to plenty of violence. So Brad is not far off. Hell, he may even be right. But I may only be saying that because I owe him $148.00. The libertarians, perhaps, would raise the point that witholding public funding might be considered violence. Since the money was taken, ultimately via threat of force, it's not quite logical to say "go pay for it yourself", no one is offering you back the taxes they took from you to pay for it, right? So taking the money, say in the form of taxes, under threat of violence (try not paying your taxes if you doubt me), and then using that money to enforce some sort of repressed expression might be argued is in fact proper censorship (op. cit, q.v, e.g., Jesse Helms & NEA, although as a percentage it's probably not as dramatic as, say, computer network funding.) Although objection to this concept does seem to come mostly from the "right" on this group ("go pay for it yourself"), the same reasoning is used by that side of the room to argue for school voucher programs. I'm sure they're only temporarily confused, as are we all...maybe it's $149. -- -Barry Shein Software Tool & Die | {xylogics,uunet}!world!bzs | bzs@world.std.com Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202 | Login: 617-739-WRLD