Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site decwrl.DEC.COM Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!bellcore!decvax!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-elwood!simon From: simon@elwood.DEC (Product Safety 237-3521) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Reply to Sevener on Property Rights Message-ID: <1274@decwrl.DEC.COM> Date: Fri, 21-Feb-86 13:30:31 EST Article-I.D.: decwrl.1274 Posted: Fri Feb 21 13:30:31 1986 Date-Received: Sun, 23-Feb-86 04:01:19 EST Sender: daemon@decwrl.DEC.COM Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation Lines: 56 Once again I feel I have to apply my experience of living in the Soviet Union. Some of you may think that my views are biased, that I am a "hardliner", but here it goes. Some of you mentioned that in the USSR all property belongs to the State and this is the reason why the State "has the right to prevent people from exercising their democratic rights". By the Soviet law, everything in the USSR belongs to the people, including the State itself! Preventing people from distributing any kind of literature is a violation of this law. But this is on a side note. The main issue is, of course, the absolute irrelevance of comparison between a shopping mall and the Soviet state. I came to the USA with the only purpose: to be free. Free from the government intervention in my business, whether commercial or political. So, if I buy or lease a store at a mall, I expect that nobody tells me what to do there. Including my right to set the rules in the store. And if I don't anybody distributing literature there, I have a right to have the police to protect my property because all I want is profit. If I own a mall or a corporation, I should expect to have similar rights. IT IS PRIVATE PROPERTY. I may exaggerate a little, but that is my way of thinking. But it is way overboard to say that in order to have a right to free speech Tim Sevener has to own a mall... What many of you didn't realize about distributing literature on Red Square is the following: The authorities are not concerned about distributing Soviet literature. They are afraid of distributing "non-approved" literature, "samisdat" or something smuggled from the West. That's why they first grab the people there and then see who they got and for what. The authorities are really scared of this kind of literature, because it may contain the facts that are kept secret for the Soviet public. Do you know, for instance, that in order to make a Photostat copy of any document one has to get to authorizing signatures? And this is at work, there are no copiers in libraries, post offices and such. As far as American media's interpretation of the Soviet life is concerned, after living in Moscow for 30 years, I know and said it many times that life there is worse then you see it on TV here. Leo B. Simon Digital Equipment Corp. 333 South St. Shrewsbury MA, 01545 (617)841-3521 DTN 237-3521 Mail Stop SHR-4/D26 UUCP ...decvax!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-elwood!simon ARPA simon%elwood.DEC@decwrl.ARPA You realize of course that all of the above does not have anything to do with my employer.