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From: kfl%mx.lcs.mit.edu@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
Newsgroups: mod.politics
Subject: Bias
Message-ID: <12233233314.16.MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Sat, 23-Aug-86 21:57:37 EDT
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Posted: Sat Aug 23 21:57:37 1986
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    [ Well, I have noticed that people think print is biased, I've
    seen the letters.

  Certainly print is biased.  The Bible doesn't give equal time to
Darwin.  The Communist Manifesto gives short shrift to Adam Smith.
Ayn Rand clearly disagrees with Karl Marx. :-)

    I guess you don't read the same newspapers I do.

  The only newspaper I read on a regular basis is the Washington Post.
For the most part it seems to be pretty balanced, except for a clear
editorial bias in favor of gun control legislation.
  Books, magazines, newsletters, and newspapers vary all over the
political map.
  One of my main complaints about TV is that it has a bland sameness.
There is no diversity at all.  In fact there doesn't seem to be any
intellectual content whatsoever.  This, I believe, is partly due to
the notorious so called 'fairness' doctrine.  And it is partly due to
the very nature of the medium.  Words are much more capable of
conveying meaning than images.  And people can READ words much more
rapidly than they can HEAR them.
  Ayn Rand makes the point that the majority choose not to use their
minds.  These are the people who choose to spend more time watching TV
than reading.  People with their minds in neutral seem to become
liberals by default.  Probably because liberal politics can be well
presented in colorful 30 second spots and in short vehement speeches.

       The original point was that giving guns to everyone would be
    dangerous for a lot of reasons ...

  I don't advocate GIVING guns to anyone.  I advocate letting
individual adults choose for themselves whether or not to be armed.

    - one of which is that most people don't know how or when to use
    them.

  Probably because they aren't armed and don't need to know.  Before
most people had cars, most people didn't know how to drive.  Was this
an good argument against letting people have cars?
  I would support warning labels for guns, pointing out how often
untrained gun ownership ends in disaster.  I would support similar
labels for cars.

    ... There are a lot incredibly complex of reasons we lost in
    Vietnam.

  Complexity is the last refuge of someone losing an argument.

    That the Cong and the NVA had guns was the reason there was a war
    at all, not the reason we lost.

  Well, if they were unarmed, I suppose it wouldn't have been called a
war, nor would France and the US have gotten involved.  It WAS the
reason we lost, if only in the sense that we would not have lost had
they not been armed.

    In general, guns in the hands of the people will not deter a
    government ...

  Of course, whoever wins retroactively calls themselves the
legitimate government of the time, so there is a lot of bias there.
Like the tales of stranded sailors who were pushed to shore by
dolphins - obvious proof of dolphin intelligence, right?  After all,
there are no tales of stranded sailors being pushed AWAY from shore by
dolphins!

    ... Dozens of governments are currently fighting wars with
    internal dissenters.  Does the fact that the anti-government
    forces have guns stop the governments?

  No.  Did the fact that George Washington's troops have guns stop the
British?  Not at first.  Was he an internal dissenter, or a great
hero?  The latter, of course.  Mainly because he won.
                                                              ...Keith

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