crm@duke.UUCP (Charlie Martin) (10/24/84)
Well, I didn't mean to get into a flaming contest, but what-the-hell... I never have figured out how to do the fancy indent tricks everyone else uses, so I'll just try and make my replies clear... ( from Ron Rizzo's reply (he said alliterately)) Charlie Martin says: > 1) no matter WHO funded them, and no matter WHAT they're saying > these newpapers have the right to publish ANYTHING THEY DAMNED > WELL PLEASE! Says who? Jefferson, Paine, Mill ("On Liberty"), the Federalist Papers, (small "l") libertarians, the Constitution, the US Code? ... Says me. (:-)) Seriously, says the US Constitution. Also, see some of the original defense and arguments involved in the Alien & Sedition Acts (or similar name) which were one of the first Supreme Court tests of the 1st Amendment. ... don't see the US Code -- it's full of violations of this principal. Just 'cause it's a law doesn't make it right. Newspapers have no "right" to libel or slander, ... The Supreme Court has held otherwise -- specifically, newspapers (and other press) have the right to publish anything, but may be liable for damages caused by publishing false information. That is, the Daily Planetoid may publish something that I believe is damaging -- say that I am a "Mondale Liberal", which is becoming a favorite slur against Democrats around here -- and I cannot prevent it. However, if I lose my job because of it, and can prove it isn't true, they are liable for my damages. ... Interestingly, even this rule is weakened in the case of public figures. There, not only must the information be untrue, but the intent of the publication MUST BE TO CAUSE DAMAGE. This rule is the center of the Westmoreland case. ... Unfortunately, this rule is not held to in the case of National Security Information. I see this as an aberration that I hope is temporary. or to publish evidence ... what evidence? Evidence is presented in court, during a trial or hearing. (Small semantic quibble). illegally obtained by wiretapping (a felony), or fraud -- ... well, the particular case that I was talking about involved no wiretapping, so I won't even cover the "felony" straw-man in this sentance. ... in any case, they DO have the right to publish. They may be prosecuted for the fraud, but they can't be prosecuted for the fact of publication. impersonating a lesbian (no sniggering, please) & breaking an implicit promise ... where do you intend a person to be certified a "real" lesbian? This was apparently a "public" meeting -- must one have permission to attend? Whose permission? What if, rather than taping the meeting, the reporter had only used notes? ... by going onto the net, you've broken an implicit promise never to disagree with me. Who decides? I don't at all like this "implicit promise" idea. of confidentiality (thus, invasion of privacy as well, a misdemeanor). ... if I had some reason to believe that there were an EXPLICIT promise of confidentiality, I might almost agree with you. In any case, the press has before and continues to violate EXPLICIT promises of confidentiality for the sake of a sensational story -- consider the "bombing Russia in five minutes" business. In that case, there was an existing (and to that moment honored) agreement that anything said before the adresses began was off- the-record. If "off-the-record" means anything at all, it implies confidentiality. Were those reporters arrested or charged? > 2) the reporterial (sp?) tactics you mention (concealed tapes > -- consider "60 Minute's" concealed cameras) have been used at > some length by liberal (statist-on-the-left) press, and I've > not heard of any trials against them... To my knowledge, only rightwing groups, including quite a few campus tabloids, have indulged in political or journalistic "dirty tricks" that repeatedly, even insistently, involved persecution (that, simply, is what it amounts to) of minorities already facing discrimination & prejudice. ... You're wrong. If you look for evidence, you can find it yourself, but I'll put out a couple examples. ... Example 1: Dick Tuck vs. the Repulicans Dick Tuck, a famous "campaign trickster" -- so famous that his name no longer gets capital letters in some dictionaries -- became well known for such things as making hotel reservations and speaking arrangements for Republican candidates in towns without letting the candidate's staff know. (Fraud, no?) The perfect source on these things would be an article that Tuck himself wrote, in which he took a high moral tone and asserted that a Nixon person had suggested that Tuck had started the watergate thing. He of course disagreed, and mentioned a number of these sorts of pranks, claiming that they were not that same sort of thing. ... Example 2: The very incident we are talking about, in which it has been suggested that a certain newspaper be suppressed or harrassed by legal action for taking a position far to the right. Show me the essential difference between this and the attempt to suppress the Pentagon Papers. (Aside: I believe that the publication of the Pentagon Papers was completely within the rights of those involved. Ellsberg may have completely dishonored himself by doing so, and should have been convicted of theft (to which he adimitted) but the publication itself should be inviolate.) It's not "dirty politics as usual", but involves civil rights and other violations (see above). It's targeted at specific groups or individuals with little power or status, unlike military brass (Al Haig), or politicians (Democrats). It's not "politics/ journalism" of any kind, but criminal conduct enhanced by bigotry. ... This whole paragraph is morally reprehensible. individuals with "power or status" have the same civil rights as others. Dirty politics usually involves violation of civil rights anyway, and is equally reprehensible whether done by people on the right or on the left. Dartmouth is one of the most conservative schools in the ivy league; the ivy league has never been exactly a "hotbed" of liberalism. (The word "liberal" seems to have lost all content.) Both Democrats & Re- publicans, liberals & conservatives, at Dartmouth were apalled by the Review's antics. ... So what? I didn't ask if they were apalling. I like apalling newspapers anyway. That the paper apalled people has not a small little bit to do with whether they may exercize their rights or not. ... I agree that "liberal" has lost its meaning -- that is why I qualified the word with the parenthesis. ... I persist in the belief that, no matter what their "antics", they have the absolute right to publish a paper based on their beliefs. ... A number of people were "apalled" by the Washington Post's "antics" at the beginning of watergate -- should they have been supressed or harassed with lawsuits? > 3) Anyone on the net advocating ANY form of censorship or punishment > or harassment (a class-action suit sounds pretty close to that, > no?) should -- > a) get someone to post them the hassles Tim Moroney had with > net censors, and > b) remember that, if you can do it to them, they can do it to > you. Cutting off external funding (& maybe services, too) isn't censorship ... maybe not -- I'm not sure I know really what "censorship" means any more than I know what "liberal" means. (I always thought I was a real liberal, and that Mondale and Reagan were both breeds of conservative.) In any case, whether or not it is censorship, it IS pretty clearly harrassment and/or punishment for their beliefs. (tho' maybe it's ill-conceived: as one respondent pointed out, should campus ski clubs be denied free equipment from manufacturers, etc? & don't schools depend in many ways on donations?). ... should external advertisements be cut off too? We've all heard about the power some advertizers have exerted over the papers in which they advertize. ... in any case, ISN'T cutting off external funding BECAUSE OF THE POLITICAL VIEWS EXPRESSED BY THE PEOPLE PROVIDING THE FUNDING OR BECAUSE THESE VIEWS ARE SHARED IN THE EDITORIAL MATTER OF THE PUBLICATION a form of censorship? Would you advocate that the ACLU not be allowed to fund a school paper based on the ACLU's positions (assuming the ACLU had the money)? If a private school has a divinity school (as does Duke -- and Dartmouth too, I think), should the divinity school be forbidden to accept money from a church for the support of the schoool, or for support of a newspaper if they choose to publish one? The tabloids are approved student publications, getting funding from student activities budgets as well. ... then the students should organize and vote to cut this funding, if they object. Its their money. (not yours and not mine, and certainly not to be controlled or modified by our wishes.) How did the money get allocated in the first place, if they are such rotten SOBs? ... Approved by whom? They also borrow the prestige, & sometimes the name (DARTMOUTH Review), of the school itself. They're part of the university and fall under its rules & regulations, which proscribe criminal conduct. ... attempting to remove from them their civil rights is itself criminal conduct. Should the people trying to silence them be expelled? ... The Supreme Court has held a number of times that a school may not modify the content of a school paper, citing the 1st amendment. Perhaps this ought to affect how they put out their papers, if not what they express in them. So what? A cutoff of external funding for student publi- cations would mean they could either go offcampus, retaining access to & distribution on campus, typically like many external publications, and having no administration except the cops & courts to deal with, or they could be content with their campus funding & the administration's presence, and compete on an equal footing with other student publications. ... I don't believe in any campus-fee-supported paper very strongly, so I could care less about the cutting off of external funding itself. My objection was to the idea that the external funding should be cut off because the political beliefs expressed don't agree with someone else's and that there was some justification for this cutting off in some mentioned "unethical" behaviour on the part of the particular paper. However, the proposal wasn't that THIS paper should not be supported by DARTMOUTH, but that ALL these papers should be harassed in a class-action suit. (All that follows is mine...) This whole article has centered around one difference of opinion: does there ever exist a time when it is proper for one person or group of people to suppress the free expression of the ideas of another person or group of people? In addition, there is a secondary theme: what may a reporter do to collect a story? As far as the secondary theme goes, I don't think that any of the arguments presented have any merit. Contrary to the assertion above, there have been many attempts by those on the "left" to suppress the beliefs of those on the "right", including dirty tricks and political harrassment. In fact, I think that the very suggestion that started this is a clear example. Certainly, that a person being harrassed has power or influence does not change the morality of the harrassment. (if you believe otherwise, it reveals an axiomatic difference which I cannot argue, or an irregularity in your thinking.) But in our system as described by the constitution, I believe that "what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander" and tactics which are accepted by liberals for liberal newspapers must be accepted by liberals for conservative newspapers. The primary difference of opinion I think is more important. Does anyone have the right to suppress the publication of ideas solely for the reason that they don't agree with those ideas? I think not. They have the right not to read the publication, to try to convince others not to read it, or to try to avoid having to pay for the publication (viz. student fee cutoffs), but they do not have the right to attempt to prevent those views being aired. That is what the original suggestion entailed, and is the point to which I strongly object. "...I have sworn eternal hostility to all forms of tyranny over the mind of man." I am not a Conservative! I am a free man! Charlie Martin (...mcnc!duke!crm) -- I am not a Conservative! I am a free man! Charlie Martin (...mcnc!duke!crm)
rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) (10/25/84)
I don't have time to reply at length until after Nov. 6, but one thing I'd like to point out is that Charlie Martin claims the (far) right isn't unique in employing "dirty tricks" against minorities, not merely other politicians, and proceeds to offer examples illustrating only political crimes by those left-of-center against other politicians. He seems determined to downplay or even ignore the especially virulent methods of the Dartmouth Review. One more thing: most (probably all) of these rags are "approved", certi- fied, or whatever term you prefer, student publications. Perhaps those "SOBs" (Charlie's term) have an interest in free expression stronger even than Charlie Martin's. Why didn't the school administrations, student bodies, aggrieved parties, etc. succeed in cutting their campus funding? Oddly enough, every lawsuit or other legal action (eg, a request for criminal prosecution for wiretap violations) initiated against the Review has failed. Dartmouth College couldn't even force the tabloid to relinquish the word "Dartmouth" in its title. Maybe the issues & how they can be dealt with are not so clear or easy as Charlie's libertarian (small l or big L?) flailing would make them appear to be? "Give me slavery or give me death!" Ron Rizzo
rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) (10/25/84)
[followup of Charlie Martin again] Well, I 've found the time... "Uncle!" Seriously, I grant all of Charlie's points about newspapers etc. having the right to publication itself of anything (except "atomic secrets", etc.? But it isn't clear that "national security" has any standing in the face of the Constitution). His first message seemed to me to say "don't tamper with the press", including taking a very dim view of challenging what's been printed (via fraud or libel laws). So I emphasized the (yet-to-be-legally-proved) crimi- nality/illegality of Dartmouth Review methods. My original article had a number of aims: 1) Raise ethical issues; 2) Raise legal issues; 3) Expose a campus "danger on the right" & emphasize HOW noxious their methods were. 4) Shake New Right complacency by raising the specter of class action suits (maybe that wasn't cricket on my part). But unless the BOSTON PHOENIX article is wildly inaccurate, targets of papers like the Review DO have legitimate legal recourse. If I didn't make clear when I intended to raise a point of law, or of information, or simply criticize Review conduct, the fault is mine. But Charlie was a little impetuous in considering nearly all I said as raising points of law. For example, I stressed the uniqueness of the Review's use of "dirty tricks" toward the relatively powerless not in order to imply that those lacking in "power or status" should have "more rights" than the prominent & powerful (ie, not to make a legal point), but simply to illustrate just HOW nasty these creeps (tabloid staffers) are. Ditto for my remarks about "liberals" & unliberal Dartmouth: Charlie's first message sounded in part like "you're just mouthing liberal sour grapes!" As to the wiretapped gay students organization, I don't know for a fact that it was a "public" meeting. Neither Charlie nor I seem to know whether legal "invasion of privacy" hinges on this for sure. If it does, then the criticism is demoted (?) from a legal to a moral one: it's one thing to say the pseudo-lesbian had a right to write what she did, and another that it was ethically OK. I advocated cutting off tabloid funding because of their pattern of (unproven-in-a-court-of-law) legal offenses, not out of censorship. True, losing funds would handicap them somewhat; & I'm opposed to their political views. Charlie's discussion of this rests on his sense that I'm trying to supress rightwingers' freedom of speech; maybe he should forego this, in the interests of dealing only with explicit matters. So, I accept Charlie's general points about the law; but I think he overreacted. I also think he's somewhat callous ethically (as I am dense legally?), & tends toward thinking that if something isn't a matter of law, it has little moral relevance. I'm still interested in hearing about the antics of & lawsuits against campus tabloids. Maybe we should continue this only in net.politics (what happened to net.law?), and/or by personal mail. "Give me...?....a break!" Ron Rizzo
gtaylor@lasspvax.UUCP (Greg Taylor) (10/26/84)
Okay, here's one: When the student agency that holds the purse strings here decided to go after the funding for the Cornell Review (similar in tone to the DReview, but not nearly as interesting sounding), one of the students on the board called up to think tank place that does the startup capital and told them he was the "business manager" of the paper. He proceeded to try to see if they could get their funding run past the startup period (turns out that the place wasn't in the habit of doing so, although the guy from student agencies certainly would have had a good case for cutting the funding if they *had* been willing). The guy at the foundation got suspicious, called the "real" people from the paper, and the crusading young man wound up looking like a real toad. He didn't even get so much as a slap on the wrist for his behaviour. I find the Review itself a waste of time, but all the self-righteous caterwauling about the threats and dirty trick from the right sure holds less sway now. If anything, it was a shot in the arm for the Review people-who had this really nifty "orthodoxy of the Left" rap about life at Cornell. Do you *really* believe that extremism in the defense of <enter your cause> is no vice? Seems to me that the whole business winds up looking like the exchange of flames on the net at precisely the moment you start restricting stuff. You will *become* what you most despise unless you're *very* wise.
crm@duke.UUCP (Charlie Martin) (10/29/84)
If none of the attempts to prosecute the Dartmouth Review have succeeded, maybe it's because DR didn't commit a crime? -- Can you say "classical fallacy?" Good! I *knew* you could. Charlie Martin (...mcnc!duke!crm)
crm@duke.UUCP (Charlie Martin) (10/29/84)
Surprize. To a large extent, I agree with Ron Rizzo in this posting at least. I hope that won't prevent us from being able to argue a little ( no :-) -- I'm serious. Love a good agrument (in the technical sense of the word.)) In fact, I don't believe that I have enough information about what happened to make an argument about the ethical or moral points of the GSA thing. In fact, I simply haven't the time to research it. My reaction was, true enough, only to the points about freedom of the press, but don't make the mistake that I was makeing a merely legal argument. I feel that freedom of the press is an essentially moral or ethical issue, and was responding to what I felt was an essentially unethical argument. Also, I didn't research attempts by liberals to supress or silence conservatives, but if you think it doesn't happen, try being the only conservative Deist in a liberal behaviourist philosophy department. Or try reading a Playboy magazine in public in Boulder CO -- where an acquaintance had one torn from his hands and ripped up by a women who then proceeded to tell him that people who would read something like that should be shot. No more time for this, more later; but a question: have you actually *looked for* examples of anti-conservative action? Also -- where on National Review's masthead does it say " The National Agitprop Organ of the Buckley Family" -- I can't find it. -- Can you say "classical fallacy?" Good! I *knew* you could. Charlie Martin (...mcnc!duke!crm)
mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (11/01/84)
===============
Also, I didn't research attempts by liberals to supress or
silence conservatives, but if you think it doesn't happen,
... Or try reading a Playboy magazine in
public in Boulder CO -- where an acquaintance had one torn from
his hands and ripped up by a women who then proceeded to tell him
that people who would read something like that should be shot.
Charlie Martin
===============
This is liberals suppressing or silencing conservatives?
Was the liberal the reader of Playboy or the decidedly illiberal woman?
--
Martin Taylor
{allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt
{uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsrgv!dciem!mmtmikevp@proper.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) (11/01/84)
In article <> crm@duke.UUCP (Charlie Martin) writes: >If none of the attempts to prosecute the Dartmouth Review have >succeeded, maybe it's because DR didn't commit a crime? Quite correct. It is always fascinating to me that those self-appointed guardians of free speech on the Left suddenly are transformed into the most rabid of book-burners whenever anything comes along which clashes with their cherished opinions.
crm@duke.UUCP (Charlie Martin) (11/05/84)
Boy oh boy, do I know what you mean. I *still* am really offended by the way that the word *liberal* has been pre-empted.... -- Can you say "classical fallacy?" Good! I *knew* you could. Charlie Martin (...mcnc!duke!crm)
jhull@spp2.UUCP (11/06/84)
> So, I accept Charlie's general points about the law; but I think he > overreacted. I also think he's somewhat callous ethically (as I am > dense legally?), & tends toward thinking that if something isn't a > matter of law, it has little moral relevance. > > > Ron Rizzo As an otherwise uninvolved observer, I think Ron Rizzo also overreacted. Furthermore, I think that, having stated a position, Mr. Rizzo is unwilling to admit that he was wrong. The ethics of the situation depend almost entirely on whether or not the meeting was public. If it was, then anything said at the meeting, including the names of all attendees, is a legally and ethically a matter of public record and anybody has the right to use that information in any way not specifically prohibited by law. If the meeting was a private meeting, then the ethical implications are not so clear-cut. Further exposition would require more knowledge of the particulars than I have. Jeff Hull