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From: mcgeer@ucbvax.ARPA (Rick McGeer)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Could D. Black have legal problems?
Message-ID: <10652@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 14-Oct-85 16:44:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.10652
Posted: Mon Oct 14 16:44:38 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 15-Oct-85 07:05:58 EDT
References: <195@pyuxh.UUCP> <10451@ucbvax.ARPA> <305@ihnet.UUCP> <10496@ucbvax.ARPA> <1706@dciem.UUCP>
Reply-To: mcgeer@ucbvax.UUCP (Rick McGeer)
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 37

In article <1706@dciem.UUCP> mmt@dciem.UUCP (PUT YOUR NAME HERE) writes:
>
>>The hell it's not.  "You shall know the truth, and the truth will make you
>>free".  In the long run, teaching kids socialism is dangerous, and I can damned
>>well prove it: look how many people on this net believe in socialism.  The
>>
>>                                                Rick.
>
>Some proof!  I guess the underlying assumption is that because many
>people see the benefits of socialism, their understanding must be
>false.  By analogy, because few people believe the benefits of
>libertarianism, their beliefs must be true, eh?  Second underlying
>assumption:  having a false belief is dangerous.  The second
>assumption may be true, and it is possible that belief in the benefits
>of socialism is false, but pointing to the fact that a large number
>of people believe it as a proof of its danger ... Logic, anyone?

Can you say "taken out of context"?  The point of the piece was that once
you decide that spreading one idea (in the case in question, racism) is
dangerous, and hence must be restricted, then you can make that case for
almost any idea.  I lived in British Columbia most of my life, including the
three years it was under the NDP: BC still hasn't fully recovered from the
ravages of the Barrett government.  I know socialism is dangerous, just as
an East European knows it's dangerous.  Should I then be able to restrict
the dissemination of socialist ideas?  You know better.  Should you, or
the Canadian courts, be able to restrict the dissemination of racist ideas?
No.  The key is that the one implies the other.

>
>How do you discover the truth, Rick?  Answer that, and you can have
>the world for your oyster.
>
>(OK, I know.  Just believe -- it's all in the Good Book if you can
>decipher it correctly, and not as those other misguided souls read it.)

I don't know what the hell this means, and I suspect that you don't, either.
Did you read my piece before you decided to flame?