-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Robert Hettinga wrote:

At 7:45 pm -0500 on 11/11/97, Monty wrote:

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As Michel Foucault used to say, "The only guarantee of freedom is freedom itself."

The world's foremost pseudomystical relativist cited to support an absolutist position. The logic escapes me. But then, logic, much less independent thinking, was never Foucault's strong point.

Physician heal thyself! Much of your discussion consists of ad hominem attacks with little content such as the paragraph quoted above. The Foucault discussion quoted is worth reading. Unfortunately, it's been a long time and I cannot provide a reference. At any rate, the upshot of his argument was that there are often attempts to ensure freedom, but in reality it can only be assured through its exercise. He gave the example of a building in France which was designed to make people feel free. Instead of winding little corridors and small rooms where people would be locked away, it had a large open courtyard and it was designed so that when you entered the building, everybody could see you and you could see them. Foucault argued that in the context of people who are free, this building would have the intended effect. In the context of a fearful and oppressive society, the effect would be quite the opposite. Everybody would feel that they were being watched all the time.

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Put another way, "rights which are not exercised are lost."

True enough, but it doesn't follow from your Foucault quote very much. Besides, I'd rather say "because it can be done, it will be done." Especially if it's better.

If Tim believes that a judge has committed a capital crime, I want to hear about it. If Tim and others fail to exercise their right to say what they believe, then it is likely those rights will be suspended in due time.

So, by the same token, I would also say that if you're going to threaten a federal judge with death on a public email list, it might behoove you to use a nym and a remailer. Like you do, Monty. Using a nym and a remailer, I mean, not threatening a federal judge. :-).

It seems to me that Tim said "The judge in the Paladin case committed a capital crime" and not "The judge in the Paladin case committed a capital crime and should be gunned down in the streets like a dog." Tim is a good writer. If he meant the latter I am sure he would have written the latter. If anything, the term "capital crime" suggests a legal proceeding. Personally, I don't consider violation of oath of office a capital crime. But, the judge should be fired. He clearly isn't taking the Constitution very seriously.

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Just because free speech is a right guaranteed under the Constitution does not mean that is necessarily a safe right to exercise. Let us hope that Tim does not come to harm. But, let us also give him the credit he deserves for having the courage to speak his mind.

Yes. Fine. Tim has courage. God bless him. Hope he enjoys his firefight.

I don't understand why you keep insulting Tim. Your first post was insulting and comments like these are likewise insulting.

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I've been reading about a newspaper called the "Aurora" which operated in the 1790s from Philadelphia.

Yes. I read it too, when it came out. Franklin was my favorite patriot. Aurora was founded by his grandson(?), if I remember. The one who went with Franklin to Paris, as a kid, right?

The book I am reading is called "The Aurora: A Democratic-Republican Returns" by Richard N. Rosenfeld.

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It made itself very unpopular with Washington by claiming he was not the "Father of the Country". It made itself doubly unpopular with Adams for other less than respectful, but astute, observations.

Right. And then Adams passed the Alien and Sedition laws. And then the Supreme court took him out. Game over.

We must be reading different books. The Supreme Court did nothing while the Executive Branch ran rampant. My guess is that the members of the Court identified with the political faction represented by the Adams administration. Incidentally, it has only been during the 20th century that the Court has protected the Bill of Rights in any significant way. After the editor of "The Aurora" was publicly beaten by Federal troops, citizens of Philadelphia formed an armed militia and stood guard outside the offices of the newspaper. That's why it wasn't suppressed. Here's an example of what was going on (pp: 526-527):

In the midst of this campaign [for the House of Representatives], the federal government indicted Matthew Lyon for sedition (October 5), arrested him (October 6), tried him without legal representation (October 8), fined him $1,000, and sentenced him to four months in prison (starting October 9). His "seditious libel" was the claim that President John Adams has demonstrated "a continual grasp for power" and an "unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, or selfish avarice," &c. Today, Vermont Congressional Congressman Matthew Lyon is in jail."

The Alien and Sedition Acts had a built in expiration period at the end of Adams's term so that they couldn't be used against the party that passed them. They also did not apply to speech against the Vice President, Thomas Jefferson, who did not belong to the Adams faction. When Jefferson was elected he pardoned everybody who was tried under these acts. Abigail Adams apparently wrote him about these pardonings. She had been quite enthused about the suppression of free speech in the United States and was upset that people who insulted her husband, in her view, would be allowed to go unpunished. Jefferson's reply (page 902):

I discharged every person under punishment or prosecution under the Sedition law, because I considered and now consider that law to be a nullity as absolute and as palpable as if Congress had ordered us to fall down and worship a golden image... [The discharge] was accordingly done in every instance without asking what the offenders had done or against whom they had offended but whether the pains they were suffering were inflicted under the pretended sedition law. It was certainly possible that my motives... might have been to protect, encourage, and reward slander; but they may also have been... to protect the Constitution violated by an unauthorized act of Congress. Which of these were my motives must be decided by a regard to the general tenor of my life. On this I am not afraid to appeal to the nation at large, to posterity, and still less to that Being who sees himself our motives, who will judge us from his own knowledge of them, and not on the testimony of Porcupine or Fenno.

The Constitutional mechanisms to preserve liberty all failed, except for the election of 1800.

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If they would only behave (i.e., go along with anything), then they wouldn't have to be censored.

Hogwash. What the conventional wisdom held, back in the 1790's, was a bunch of neoaristocratic justifications for the devine rights of the state, reminiscent of the devine rights of kings, and that George Washington, as the victor of the revolutionary war, deserved as much power as he wanted.

Abigail Adams (page 84):

Bache [editor of the "Aurora"] has the malice & falsehood of Satin... But the wretched will provoke to measures which will silence them e'er long. An abused and insulted publick cannot tollerate them much longer. In short they are so criminal that they ought to be Presented by the grand jurors.

Fortunately, a certain "nym" named Publius advocated the separation of powers in the constitution, which created a supreme court, which used Jefferson's Bill of Rights to shut all that crap down before it went too far, modulo a little jail time for those who crash-tested the idea.

1. Publius was John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison. Jay and Hamilton were leaders of the party attempting to subvert the Constitution. 2. The Federalist version of the Constitution was intended to have aristocratic elements - the Senate and the President. Adams even suggested privately that the Senators should have life long terms and that Senate seats should be hereditary. 3. The separation of powers failed completely during the Adams administration. The Federalists had control of the Congress, the Executive Branch, and, I suspect, the Supreme Court. 4. The rights and freedoms of Americans were protected only by the fact that the voters threw the bastards out. Something to keep in mind when people tell us that the voters are less trustworthy than career politicans. 5. The Supreme Court did nothing. 6. Jefferson did not write the Bill of Rights. He was in France at the time and was pleased to hear these amendments had been added to the Constitution. Monty Cantsin Editor in Chief Smile Magazine http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.htm -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBNGtV2ZaWtjSmRH/5AQHeZQf/UiD0ctd+xy8CUE8ednsENDNNCrVWXvTy UxYuRm2KtRCYVZ4Yg7C5kPEqpHU3xAWgifB4ZYKHb22rmgYa1cz3U2ZDBluMl74h mgAgZU2Rry+tDRs2TtHJWFFgQfscgRjFBG7rRxWdD0n9G5KwBcR3ne60wU5KzPbs kR0FpXjh+Q0PFSKWJOfY65xs33Wn6auUBUXKZTUI4fPowt4DmQKaWPtsSzv4ojxE LOXEhvngMQl5Y729ZOmfIW1uQtGp3EUbDOheC1wb6szzFEgfr1TsZntHRnkiTqyJ ssOAvq7XzeDROEehhVlsXUfYCmCcNIq1UakDKSpouUAMhBrwYVCK9A== =MUMa -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----