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From: tan@ihlpg.UUCP (Bill Tanenbaum)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Reply to Sevener on Property Rights
Message-ID: <1641@ihlpg.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 18-Feb-86 19:28:33 EST
Article-I.D.: ihlpg.1641
Posted: Tue Feb 18 19:28:33 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 19-Feb-86 04:58:22 EST
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Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
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> > [Me]
> > There you go again, Tim.  There is absolutely no relation between the
> > situations in the U. S. and the Soviet Union.  Neither the U. S.
> > government, nor state or local governments, have attempted to curtail
> > your rights to distribute literature.  The only question is whether
> > the owner of private property should be able to outlaw the distribution of
> > literature (political or otherwise) on their property.  My opinion is that,
> > with only a few exceptions, they can.  
--------
> [Tim Sevener] 
> The US government most certainly *is* curtailing my right to distribute
> literature when its police authority is used to prevent my
> exercise of that right.
--------
NO! NO! NO!  The local police are acting on a complaint of the owner
of the private property.  What does this have to do with the US govt?
Also, the police do not have the power to decide the mall is a public
thoroughfare.  Only the legislatures or courts can do that.  Prior to
the court ruling, the police would be remiss in not arresting you for
tresspass on complaint of the mall owner.
--------
> Just as the governmental authorities in the
> past used their authority to shoot and kill strikers.  Just as ........
> [Many more irrelevencies omitted]
--------
Gee Tim, once you get going, you can't stop, even if you stray from
what we were talking about.  You are an inveterate polemicist.
--------
> In the Soviet Union the argument is that all property, including Red Square,
> is "owned by the State".  Since the State owns the property it has the
> right to prevent people from exercising their democratic rights.
> Tell me how this is any different than saying that simply because
> a public shopping mall which holds community events such as
> "Crime Prevention Day" or "Picatiny Arsenal Day" is privately owned,
> that therefore citizens lose all democratic rights.
> Moreover imagine what happens when there *is no town square* or
> public place except for the mall - what freedoms are left?
-------
It's very different, because there is only one state, but many mall owners.
Or are you imagining one big dome over the whole country.-)
Moral: Stay out of countries where the state owns all the property!
However, I agree that a mall is like a public thoroughfare.  

	It's not your position on the public's right to dispense
literature in malls that bothers me.  I agree with it.   It is simply your
mentioning the failed attempt of one company to try and prevent distributing
literature in their mall in the same breath as the Soviet Union's all too
successful attempt to do the same in the entire country.  That trivializes
the desparate situation of dissidents and others in the Soviet Union, and
makes it look like the U. S. and U. S. S. R. have similar human rights
situations, except for degree.   That's a big lie.
-- 
Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL  ihnp4!ihlpg!tan