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From: cramer@kontron.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: net.legal
Subject: Re: Are PIRG Fees Legal?
Message-ID: <544@kontron.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 28-Feb-86 12:27:40 EST
Article-I.D.: kontron.544
Posted: Fri Feb 28 12:27:40 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 2-Mar-86 00:07:42 EST
References: <272@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU>
Organization: Kontron Electronics, Irvine, CA
Lines: 36

> With respect to required "political" student fees -
> 
> A quick opposing viewpoint: I have myself paid the U of Oregon PIRG
> fee.  PIRG seems very politically innocuous, the student body as a 
> group is pleased to spend money on it, and it appeared to be my duty
> to lend token support too since I did voluntarily join that body. Same
> principal as Homecoming fees.
> 

If they are so pleased to spend money on it, why not make the contribution
voluntary?  Or are you afraid they wouldn't be able to get any money from
anyone.

> I'd really rather not have the government, in the form of the university
> administration or the courts, messing around with and second-guessing 
> student assembly decisions for a matter as picayune as this. There is
> already a political method for redress - get the student assembly to
> change its mind.  
> 

Like you don't want the courts second-guessing a state legislature on
something as picayune as segregation?  (And by the way, there are few
elections in the United States that get the level of voter participation
that a student assembly election gets.)

> Courts are cruel weapons. Large numbers of human beings and large amounts
> of human effort are required to feed them. Are you really so self-righteous?
> 
> garry wiegand
> garry%geology@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu
> RD 1, Trumansburg NY 14886

The courts and the Constitution have frequently been the only protection
for our civil liberties when the majority turned oppressive.  (Remember
the Oregon Schools Initiative of 1921?)  Of course, if you believe in
democracy, I doubt you believe in majority oppression.