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From: crm@duke.UUCP (Charlie Martin)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.misc,net.motss
Subject: Corrupting youth con't
Message-ID: <4953@duke.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 23-Oct-84 17:18:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: duke.4953
Posted: Tue Oct 23 17:18:32 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 26-Oct-84 03:07:37 EDT
Organization: Duke University
Lines: 258

Well, I didn't mean to get into a flaming contest, but what-the-hell...
I never have figured out how to do the fancy indent tricks everyone else
uses, so I'll just try and make my replies clear...

	( from Ron Rizzo's reply (he said alliterately))
	
Charlie Martin says:

> 1) no matter WHO funded them, and no matter WHAT they're saying
>    these newpapers have the right to publish ANYTHING THEY DAMNED
>    WELL PLEASE!

Says who?  Jefferson, Paine, Mill ("On Liberty"), the Federalist Papers,
(small "l") libertarians, the Constitution, the US Code?  
	... Says me. (:-))
	Seriously, says the US Constitution. Also, see some of the
	original defense and arguments involved in the Alien & Sedition
	Acts (or similar name) which were one of the first Supreme Court
	tests of the 1st Amendment.
	... don't see the US Code -- it's full of violations of this
	principal.  Just 'cause it's a law doesn't make it right.

Newspapers have no "right" to libel or slander,
	... The Supreme Court has held otherwise -- specifically,
	newspapers (and other press) have the right to publish anything,
	but may be liable for damages caused by publishing false
	information.  That is, the Daily Planetoid may publish something
	that I believe is damaging -- say that I am a "Mondale Liberal",
	which is becoming a favorite slur against Democrats around here
	-- and I cannot prevent it.  However, if I lose my job because
	of it, and can prove it isn't true, they are liable for my
	damages.
	... Interestingly, even this rule is weakened in the case of
	public figures.  There, not only must the information be untrue,
	but the intent of the publication MUST BE TO CAUSE DAMAGE.  This
	rule is the center of the Westmoreland case.
	... Unfortunately, this rule is not held to in the case of National
	Security Information.  I see this as an aberration that I hope is
	temporary.

or to publish evidence 
	... what evidence?  Evidence is presented in court, during a
	trial or hearing.  (Small semantic quibble).

illegally obtained by wiretapping (a felony), or fraud -- 
	... well, the particular case that I was talking about involved
	no wiretapping, so I won't even cover the "felony" straw-man in
	this sentance.
	... in any case, they DO have the right to publish.  They may be
	prosecuted for the fraud, but they can't be prosecuted for the
	fact of publication.

impersonating a lesbian (no sniggering, please) & breaking an implicit 
promise 
	... where do you intend a person to be certified a "real"
	lesbian?  This was apparently a "public" meeting -- must one
	have permission to attend?  Whose permission?  What if, rather
	than taping the meeting, the reporter had only used notes?
	... by going onto the net, you've broken an implicit promise
	never to disagree with me.  Who decides?  I don't at all like
	this "implicit promise" idea.

of confidentiality (thus, invasion of privacy as well, a misdemeanor).
	... if I had some reason to believe that there were an EXPLICIT
	promise of confidentiality, I might almost agree with you.  In
	any case, the press has before and continues to violate EXPLICIT
	promises of confidentiality for the sake of a sensational story
	-- consider the "bombing Russia in five minutes" business.  In
	that case, there was an existing (and to that moment honored)
	agreement that anything said before the adresses began was off-
	the-record.  If "off-the-record" means anything at all, it
	implies confidentiality.  Were those reporters arrested or
	charged?

>  2) the reporterial (sp?) tactics you mention (concealed tapes 
>     -- consider "60 Minute's" concealed cameras) have been used at 
>    some length by liberal (statist-on-the-left) press, and I've
>    not heard of any trials against them...

To my knowledge, only rightwing groups, including quite a few campus
tabloids, have indulged in political or journalistic "dirty tricks"
that repeatedly, even insistently, involved persecution (that, simply,
is what it amounts to) of minorities already facing discrimination &
prejudice.  
	... You're wrong.  If you look for evidence, you can find it
	yourself, but I'll put out a couple examples.
	... Example 1: Dick Tuck vs. the Repulicans
	Dick Tuck, a famous "campaign trickster" -- so famous that his
	name no longer gets capital letters in some dictionaries --
	became well known for such things as making hotel reservations
	and speaking arrangements for Republican candidates in towns
	without letting the candidate's staff know.  (Fraud, no?)
	The perfect source on these things would be an article that
	Tuck himself wrote, in which he took a high moral tone and
	asserted that a Nixon person had suggested that Tuck had started
	the watergate thing.  He of course disagreed, and mentioned a
	number of these sorts of pranks, claiming that they were not
	that same sort of thing.
	... Example 2:  The very incident we are talking about, in which it
	has been suggested that a certain newspaper be suppressed or
	harrassed by legal action for taking a position far to the right.
	Show me the essential difference between this and the attempt to
	suppress the Pentagon Papers.
	(Aside:  I believe that the publication of the Pentagon Papers was
	completely within the rights of those involved.  Ellsberg may have
	completely dishonored himself by doing so, and should have been
	convicted of theft (to which he adimitted) but the publication
	itself should be inviolate.)

It's not "dirty politics as usual", but involves civil
rights and other violations (see above).  It's targeted at specific
groups or individuals with little power or status, unlike military
brass (Al Haig), or politicians (Democrats).  It's not "politics/
journalism" of any kind, but criminal conduct enhanced by bigotry.
	... This whole paragraph is morally reprehensible.  individuals
	with "power or status" have the same civil rights as others.
	Dirty politics usually involves violation of civil
	rights anyway, and is equally reprehensible whether done by
	people on the right or on the left.

Dartmouth is one of the most conservative schools in the ivy league;
the ivy league has never been exactly a "hotbed" of liberalism.  (The
word "liberal" seems to have lost all content.)  Both Democrats & Re-
publicans, liberals & conservatives, at Dartmouth were apalled by the 
Review's antics.
	... So what?  I didn't ask if they were apalling.  I like apalling
	newspapers anyway.  That the paper apalled people has not a small
	little bit to do with whether they may exercize their rights or
	not.
	... I agree that "liberal" has lost its meaning -- that is why I
	qualified the word with the parenthesis.
	... I persist in the belief that, no matter what their "antics",
	they have the absolute right to publish a paper based on their
	beliefs.
	... A number of people were "apalled" by the Washington Post's
	"antics" at the beginning of watergate -- should they have been
	supressed or harassed with lawsuits?

> 3) Anyone on the net advocating ANY form of censorship or punishment
>    or harassment (a class-action suit sounds pretty close to that,
>    no?) should --
>    a) get someone to post them the hassles Tim Moroney had with
>       net censors, and
>    b) remember that, if you can do it to them, they can do it to
>       you.

Cutting off external funding (& maybe services, too) isn't censorship
	... maybe not -- I'm not sure I know really what "censorship"
	means any more than I know what "liberal" means. (I always
	thought I was a real liberal, and that Mondale and Reagan were
	both breeds of conservative.) In any case, whether or not it is
	censorship, it IS pretty clearly harrassment and/or punishment
	for their beliefs.

(tho' maybe it's ill-conceived: as one respondent pointed out, should
campus ski clubs be denied free equipment from manufacturers, etc?  &
don't schools depend in many ways on donations?).  
	... should external advertisements be cut off too?  We've all
	heard about the power some advertizers have exerted over the
	papers in which they advertize.
	... in any case, ISN'T cutting off external funding BECAUSE OF
	THE POLITICAL VIEWS EXPRESSED BY THE PEOPLE PROVIDING THE
	FUNDING OR BECAUSE THESE VIEWS ARE SHARED IN THE EDITORIAL
	MATTER OF THE PUBLICATION a form of censorship?  Would you
	advocate that the ACLU not be allowed to fund a school paper
	based on the ACLU's positions (assuming the ACLU had the money)?
	If a private school has a divinity school (as does Duke -- and
	Dartmouth too, I think), should the divinity school be forbidden
	to accept money from a church for the support of the schoool, or
	for support of a newspaper if they choose to publish one?

The tabloids are
approved student publications, getting funding from student activities
budgets as well.  
	... then the students should organize and vote to cut this
	funding, if they object.  Its their money. (not yours and not
	mine, and certainly not to be controlled or modified by our
	wishes.)  How did the money get allocated in the first place,
	if they are such rotten SOBs?
	... Approved by whom?

They also borrow the prestige, & sometimes the name
(DARTMOUTH Review), of the school itself.  They're part of the university
and fall under its rules & regulations, which proscribe criminal conduct.
	... attempting to remove from them their civil rights is itself
	criminal conduct.  Should the people trying to silence them be
	expelled?
	... The Supreme Court has held a number of times that a school
	may not modify the content of a school paper, citing the 1st
	amendment.

Perhaps this ought to affect how they put out their papers, if not what they
express in them.  So what?  A cutoff of external funding for student publi-
cations would mean they could either go offcampus, retaining access to &
distribution on campus, typically like many external publications, and
having no administration except the cops & courts to deal with, or they
could be content with their campus funding & the administration's presence,
and compete on an equal footing with other student publications.
	... I don't believe in any campus-fee-supported paper very
	strongly, so I could care less about the cutting off of external
	funding itself.  My objection was to the idea that the external
	funding should be cut off because the political beliefs
	expressed don't agree with someone else's and that there was
	some justification for this cutting off in some mentioned
	"unethical" behaviour on the part of the particular paper.
	However, the proposal wasn't that THIS paper should not be
	supported by DARTMOUTH, but that ALL these papers should be
	harassed in a class-action suit.

(All that follows is mine...)

This whole article has centered around one difference of opinion: does
there ever exist a time when it is proper for one person or group of
people to suppress the free expression of the ideas of another person or
group of people?  In addition, there is a secondary theme:  what may a
reporter do to collect a story?

As far as the secondary theme goes, I don't think that any of the
arguments presented have any merit.  Contrary to the assertion above,
there have been many attempts by those on the "left" to suppress the
beliefs of those on the "right", including dirty tricks and political
harrassment.  In fact, I think that the very suggestion that started
this is a clear example.

Certainly, that a person being harrassed has power or influence does not
change the morality of the harrassment.  (if you believe otherwise, it
reveals an axiomatic difference which I cannot argue, or an irregularity
in your thinking.)  But in our system as described by the constitution,
I believe that "what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander" and
tactics which are accepted by liberals for liberal newspapers must be
accepted by liberals for conservative newspapers.

The primary difference of opinion I think is more important.  Does
anyone have the right to suppress the publication of ideas solely for
the reason that they don't agree with those ideas?

I think not.  They have the right not to read the publication, to try to
convince others not to read it, or to try to avoid having to pay for the
publication (viz. student fee cutoffs), but they do not have the right
to attempt to prevent those views being aired.  That is what the
original suggestion entailed, and is the point to which I strongly
object.

"...I have sworn eternal hostility to all forms of tyranny over the mind
of man."


                        I am not a Conservative! I am a free man!

                                Charlie Martin
                                (...mcnc!duke!crm)
-- 


			I am not a Conservative! I am a free man!

				Charlie Martin
				(...mcnc!duke!crm)