From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!poli-sci Newsgroups: fa.poli-sci Title: Poli-Sci Digest V2 #149 Article-I.D.: ucbvax.7794 Posted: Sun Jun 27 21:31:50 1982 Received: Tue Jun 29 07:44:31 1982 >From JoSH@RUTGERS Sun Jun 27 21:29:59 1982 Poli-Sci Digest Mon 28 Jun 82 Volume 2 Number 149 Contents: The Sounds of Silence (2 msgs) Social Experiments Insanity Plea Civil Rights ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 25 June 1982 2247-EDT (Friday) From: Hank Walker at CMU-10A Subject: silence I was taught in business classes that "silence means consent". It doesn't matter whether this is really true, it only matters that people believe it. It might mean that you don't care enough to get involved, which is essentially the same as consent in politics or watching a mugging. If someone is doing something objectionable, and you say nothing, they'll assume that it's okay to do it. This is as true for little kids as adults. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Jun 1982 1714-PDT From: Jim McGrathSubject: Re: J C Pistritto's comments on Gary Feldman's comments on conservatives & racism (getting long enough?) On this issue, if you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem. This is a statement of a fanatic; this is the reasoning used to justify the killing and maiming of children in acts of political terror; this is the reasoning of certain ignorant hawks who believe that only capitalism (the US) and communism (the USSR) exist in the world. This is, in short, such an EVIL statement that I cannot see anyone taking it seriously except for those poor, and dangerous, mad dogs who continue to make life dangerous and unhappy for us all. (as you can tell, I am a bit upset about this!) Enough said. Perhaps more to the point is simply that a large segment of the conservative community strongly believes that the government should interfere as little as possible in the affairs of individuals (some conservatives feel otherwise, but I cannot fairly speak for them). They also feel that government action, when called for, should be carried out at the lowest level of government possible. Finally, that power should NEVER be concentrated in any organ of the government if you can possibly find an alternate way of solving a problem. Quite frankly, many conservatives distrust government on principle and would like to see it's activities confined to areas where individual action is very difficult (such as national defense). This belief has ample historical justification - the greatest danger to liberty is the government, not the people. Frankly, I cannot understand the reasoning of many who hate conservatives. THEY support individual libertities in the most effective manner possible - by decentralizing power whenever possible throughout the government, industry, and society. Many radicals, who profess to love human rights so much, continue to argue that more and more power should be CONCENTRATED in the government (particularly the national government) to deal with the "evils" of society. They attack connections between industrialists and politicians, desiring to place industry under greater political control - which would only INCREASE the strength of those connections, not decrease them. They simply do not seem to understand that any "evil" has a reason for existing, and that INTELLIGENT action (which is very difficult, and often impossible) is the only way to stop them. The recent (past generation) meatax approach to solving problems has done some good, but a lot more harm. If this goes on, I fully expect a practical dictatorship in this country by the turn of the century. And, ironically, it will be the ACLU and the doves who drove us to it. Jim [A thought: Which of the two above opinions on the "silence" issue am I agreeing with by not saying anything about it? --JoSH] ------------------------------ Date: 25 Jun 82 23:58:24-EDT (Fri) From: J C Pistritto Subject: Social Experiments Social experiments exist today, for instance, the Israeli Kibbutz movement. While the kibbutz is an almost totally socialist experiment, and seems to work well, like all small-scale experiments, the results, (almost entirely successful), do not guarantee the same thing on a larger scale, or even on a similar scale in different conditions, (Soviet collective farms, for instance). -JCP- ------------------------------ Date: 26 June 1982 01:48-EDT From: James A. Cox Subject: Insanity Plea The issues of guilt and punishment already are reasonably well-separated. In most criminal cases, the jury determines the guilt and the judge then sets punishment, using his own judgment when the law does not prescribe punishment exactly. The problem is that insanity is considered to be important to guilt or innocence. A person is guilty only if he knew what he was doing and he had the mental presence at the time to understand the difference between right and wrong. What you want is to change the legal definition of "guilt" to simply "committed the alleged actions." Laws would then have to be made much more flexible, allowing the judge or jury to consider, when fixing punishment, things which are considered now in the determination of guilt. So you see, things are not so simple. Actually, I don't believe that the problem is that severe. Alan Dershowitz (sp?), a professor at Harvard Law School, notes that the insanity defense is rarely attempted, and even more rarely succeeds. The insanity plea is generally only tried in especially heinous crimes, and by using it the defense virtually admits that the defendant committed the crime, and most juries tend to put people away who commit heinous crimes, whether they are insane or not. Sometimes though, as in the case of John Hinkley, the insanity plea succeeds spectacularly, and this brings an outcry for reform. But reforms should be based on a study of the whole issue, and not on one case. ------------------------------ Date: 26 June 1982 1626-EDT (Saturday) From: Gary Feldman at CMU-10A Subject: civil rights 1. The tactic of collecting other peoples quotes with a minimum of commentary is intended not to establish my own point, but to let people know where I am coming from, and to get them to think. I don't believe anyone has to apologize for missing my intention. I do think that when confronted with such a message, people should refrain from guessing at what I am trying to say, and instead limit themselves to what the quotations say. 2. Cox makes the claim that Kilpatrick's views only appear to be limited, because the scope of the aritcle is (quite justifiably) limited. This would be a valid point IF I could find other articles by Kilpatrick (or another member of the conservative camp) that filled the void. I will leave that task to others. 3. No, I am not surprised that conservatives failed to support liberal solutions to civil rights problems. However, I am skeptical of the notion that conservatives were so busy fighting the liberal solutions that they could not come up with their own. My reason: I sincerely believe that if conservatives had given strong support to their own solutions (for example, strong enforcement of the provision for limited Congressional representation), then those solutions would have passed with far less difficulty than the Civil Rights Act. Gary ------------------------------ End of POLI-SCI Digest - 30 - -------