Newsgroups: alt.polyamory Path: uchinews!ellis!esti From: esti@ellis.uchicago.edu (Paul A. Estin) Subject: Re: PLEASE READ - URGENT!!!!! X-Nntp-Posting-Host: midway.uchicago.edu Message-ID: Sender: news@midway.uchicago.edu (News Administrator) Reply-To: esti@midway.uchicago.edu Organization: U. Michigan Cognitive Psychology References: <3rlgdk$5ng@nntp3.u.washington.edu> <1995Jun14.211348.8125@lafn.org > Date: Fri, 16 Jun 1995 06:38:29 GMT In article <1995Jun14.211348.8125@lafn.org>, Donald Paschal wrote: >This is an example of what we are heading into with this bunch of >anti-sex born-again boobs who have taken over the >government....soon it may not even be possible >to talk about poly because it does not conform to "traditional family >values". I'm assuming you're refering to the Republican majority in Congress. Thus, it might interest you to know that the "sex regulation measure" at issue was sponsored by Senator Jim Exon on Nebraska, who's a *Democrat*. Support for the measure was frighteningly bipartisan; the vote was 84-16 overall. Sadly, there are plenty of representatives from *both* major political parties who will happily ignore the Constitution in favor of scoring political points. Don't restrict your blame and fear to just the Republicans. Matt Ryan writes: >If this country's *government* decides that the on-line exchange of text is >so dangerous that service-providers should be made liable for content, thus >stifling or ending the free exchange of ideas on-line... > .. >then I will likely be moving to Canada, and building my communities there. I'm not so sure Canada is so much better. While I'm not aware of a restrictive measure in Canada similar to the Exon bill, Canada does not have an outstanding record of favoring individual freedoms, either. For example, Canada is where a measure was passed, intended to restrict pornography demeaning to women, which was instead used oftentimes to censor informational sexual materials written by women for women. (Sorry I don't have the details at my fingertips, but that's the gist of it. Also, I'm not sure if it was a country-wide or just a provincial measure.) The Netherlands, maybe? 1/2 :-) Paul Andrew Estin "Haiku's inventor U. Michigan Cognitive Psychology must have had seven fingers estin@umich.edu on his middle hand." From: wfink@iastate.edu (Ruth J Fink-Winter) Newsgroups: alt.polyamory Subject: Free speech in Canada Date: 16 Jun 1995 18:16:15 GMT Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa USA Lines: 27 Message-ID: <3rshpf$fs2@news.iastate.edu> References: <3rlgdk$5ng@nntp3.u.washington.edu> <1995Jun14.211348.8125@lafn.org > NNTP-Posting-Host: pv0436.vincent.iastate.edu I too have always cherished the thought that if things got too bad here, I could emigrate... However, Canada has a law on porn stricter than this new telecommunications bills, which covers only the phones and the internet. In Canada, a version of the Minneapolis Dworkin/MacKinnon bill is law. This defines pornography as a crime on the basis that it degrades women. Result? This law has been used to persecute lesbian bookstores, while magazines like Playboy are unaffected, and some of Dworkin's books have been seized at the border. If you are looking for free speech on sex, Canada is not the place to go. So CALL YOUR REPS! Before it's too late. This bill has not yet passed the House, to my knowledge. Ruth who is sorry to admit that Exon is one of her senators (and by the way, in Nebraska, most of the Democrats *are* Republicans...there's not much difference) -- Ruth J Fink-Winter wfink@iastate.edu "An it harm none, do as thou wilt." Iowa State knows nothing about my opinions. Newsgroups: alt.polyamory Path: uchinews!ellis!esti From: esti@ellis.uchicago.edu (Paul A. Estin) Subject: Re: PLEASE READ - URGENT!!!!! X-Nntp-Posting-Host: midway.uchicago.edu Message-ID: Sender: news@midway.uchicago.edu (News Administrator) Reply-To: esti@midway.uchicago.edu Organization: U. Michigan Cognitive Psychology References: <3rlgdk$5ng@nntp3.u.washington.edu > <1995Jun14.211348.8125@lafn.org> <1995Jun17.233535.14530@lafn.org> Date: Sun, 18 Jun 1995 20:36:32 GMT >In a previous article, esti@ellis.uchicago.edu (Paul A. Estin) says: >>I'm assuming you're refering to the Republican majority in Congress. >>Thus, it might interest you to know that the "sex regulation measure" >>at issue was sponsored by Senator Jim Exon on Nebraska, who's a >>*Democrat*. Support for the measure was frighteningly bipartisan; the >>vote was 84-16 overall. In article <1995Jun17.233535.14530@lafn.org>, Donald Paschal wrote: >My reply: Having studied the growth of the religeous right in the past 20 >years, I do realize that sometimess they are huge blubbery parckyderms, >and sometimes they are asses, but a born-again boob is a born again boob. Request for clarification... How broadly do you define the "religious right"? For example, would you call all 84 out of 100 Senators voting in favor of the Exon measure to be part of it? Personally, I distinguish between the specific religious right movement and more general political authoritarian tendencies. There is a very broad current of *authoritarianism* among politicians-- some of it based on having a "holier-than-thou" attitude, some of it just cynical poll-watching, and some of it based on good intentions (but then we all know which road is paved by the proverbial good intentions). IMO, authoritarian tendencies seem to be endemic to politics throughout history, and is about equally distributed among the current batch of Dems and Repubs. Whereas I think of the "religious right" as a narrower movement, a category which describes at most about a third of the representatives currently in Congress, mostly Republicans. I'm just trying to get your terms straight, so as not to misunderstand what you're saying. Paul Andrew Estin "Haiku's inventor U. Michigan Cognitive Psychology must have had seven fingers estin@umich.edu on his middle hand."