Xref: utzoo soc.culture.jewish:8504 news.misc:2209 news.sysadmin:1763
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!akgua!rjb
From: rjb@akgua.ATT.COM (Bob Brown)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish,news.misc,news.sysadmin
Subject: Re: Anti-Semitism (Jew-hatred) on the network. What should be done?
Message-ID: <1856@akgua.ATT.COM>
Date: 1 Dec 88 17:10:33 GMT
References: <1748YZKCU@CUNYVM> <577@oravax.UUCP> <17569@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Organization: AT&T Network Systems/Bell Labs, Atlanta GA
Lines: 31

In article <17569@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, era1987@violet.berkeley.edu writes:
> 
> Morality cannot be legislated.  Racism can and must be.  The only
> way we abolished slavery was through law.  The only way we managed
> to integrate schools was through law.  You seem to feel that the
> shouting and bullying that intimidates women and people of color
> from participating in Usenet is Constitutionally protected, but you
> don't want the oppressed to use similar means to defend themselves.
> Unless the response is protected to the same extent as the attack,
> you do NOT have freedom of speech, nor can you have balanced
> discussions.  
> 
> --Mark

I like to whack this canard every time I see it......

Every law that affects interpersonal behavior (and perhaps every law
period) is the legislation of some collective or individual morality.

You cannot legislate against Racism (a belief or attitude) but the
effects of that attitude as worked out in behavior.

You cannot, in short, pass a law to make me like you...but you can, as you
have noted, pass a law to keep me from enslaving folks.  However, you
would be hard pressed to argue that there was no moral imperative behind
your anti-slavery law.  You decided, based on some value system, that
slavery was not acceptable and in our kind of governmental system you
convinced a required number of folks about your position.

To rephrase your first sentence "You can't legislate attitudes...they
develop from the inside out."