Re: Re Horowitz article

I did not have any disagreement with the other points you made in your 
article.  However, I believe I addressed your first and second points.  I 
apparently upset you by misattributing an implicit point that I thought you 
were making, but you are misunderstanding my points too.

First point: Although we can disagree about whether ads by "monied 
interests" are right or not, my point was that if a paper is going to accept 
them at all, they should make a point to be impartial about which ones they 
accept.  The tone and point of the ad should be irrelevant.  It is a fact 
that many (I'll bet most of them accept editorial ads of one kind or 
another) of these papers are hypocritical if they accept some editorials but 
not others.

Second point:  Your second point is entirely ridiculous.  You can deny it is 
theft, but then why is it a problem to take them for a week?  What do you 
call it then?  If a week isn't ok, then it must be either 2,3, or 4 days 
that is acceptable.  How many days is it permittable before it reaches the 
level of "theft" or vandalism, and what logical basis do you use to come to 
that conclusion.

Why should he give lectures on campus about reparation when he can reach a 
much broader audience by submitting an ad?  That would be stupid.

Finally, I am a bigot for making a point that references gay date 
classifieds??  What do you mean?

Seriously, if a bunch of drunk white frat boys ran around trashing papers 
one morning because of a negative article on binge drinking, there would be 
a concerted effort to track them down and punish them.  I was pointing out 
an obvious double standard, nothing more.  If that makes me a bigot, I 
really feel for the two-faced administrators who go soft on the "protesters" 
"protesting" the reparations ad.

----Original Message Follows----
From: Bijan Parsia <bparsia-vEoVa6Jh+/J4piUD7e9S/[email protected]>
To: Greg Konig <[email protected]>
CC: bonobos-4GNy1lrxftmrG/[email protected]
Subject: Re: Re Horowitz article
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 15:15:41 -0500 (EST)

On Thu, 29 Mar 2001, Greg Konig wrote:

 > Your defense of campus papers turning down ads is amusing.

Well, as I recall, that wasn't the main point of the article, but...

 > Re point # 1:
 > Many of these newspapers have run ads in the past which deny the 
existence
 > of the holocaust.

Of course, I think that's not too bright. I think having ads as the locus
of free speech is a bad idea anyway.

 >  It is certainly fun to watch them explain their former
 > "obligation" to present another point of view, but then explain that 
there
 > is in fact no obligation to do so in this case.

Well, y'know, hypocrisy is the monopoly of no one.

 > I would agree that they don't have an obligation per se,

Thanks. I'm glad you acknowledge that I say *some* sensible stuff.

 > but why would they
 > hesitate to print it.  The reason you posit is a weak one: to avoid the
 > knee-jerk reaction to inflammatory anti-reparations arguments.

Where do I posit this? Quote please.

Were you thinking of:
"And it's pure slander to claim that the papers were turning down
Horowitz's ad because of his political beliefs. Clearly they turned down
the ad becaue of its content. If Horowitz placed an ad for his newsletter
or lecture series, especially if it were sanely presented, I bet all the
papers would have run it. Is it permissible for the papers to turn down an
ad favoring pornography because of objectionable graphics? Or one that was
pro-animal rights? Isn't it possible to turn down those ads because
they're tasteless and inflammatory and not merely because of the ideas
expressed or the beliefs of the people placing the ads?"

Please go through this paragraph again, this time with your reading
comprehension abilities working at full blast. Try to read what I said,
and not what you think I said.

Try to distinguish between 1) turning down ads because *Horowitz* holds
certain beliefs, 2) turning down ads because they *express certain ideas*,
3) turning down ads becasue they express certain ideas *in a certain
manner*, and 4) turning down ads because they're crap.

Rosenthal claimed 1, which is just silly. Well, maybe not. I suppose one
could fantasize that if the Horowitz ad had been placed by the Black
Radical Congress, the editors might have caved. I doubt it, however,
*unless* they could have "Placed by the insistence of the BRC" which
changes the content.

 >  The response
 > of the campus papers flies in the face of the purported values of the 
left
 > to consider and address diverse views.

Read my article. All the way through.

In any case, it seems to follow that considering the ad, then not running
it counts as "considering and addressing". You *mean*, of course, the
value of "putting out in public" in some way. Or rather, making people
consider and address views.

Of course, there are alternatives to running the ad. Running an editorial
with discussion, point and counterpoint seems much better. Indeed, just
running the ad only fulfills the value of "being a passive medium for
moneyed interests" which isn't a value of the left, even purported.

 > If the tone is inflammatory, that
 > would only detract from the power and influence of the argument,

Which, in itself, is a reason not to run it, eh? What kind of freedom of
thought and discussion value is it that you hold, such that promoting
expressions which *mess up* the supposed intrinsic value of an argument or
view conforms to it?

Separate the *ideas* from *Horowitz's expression* of them.

 > just like
 > the holocaust denial ad. Instead, the reaction of the papers was 
hypocrisy
 > and cowardice.

Boy, you like to conflate things don't you? You mean to say that *every*
paper that didn't run the Horowitz ad *did* run the holocost ad? Isn't it
likely that there were diffierent editors? Etc. etc.

Oh, sorry, I forgot. Slander, innuendo, and crappy reasoning on your part
are *good*.

  >  Claiming Horowitz is ahypocrite as you do does not excuse

And wasn't intended to excuse. I think editors shouldn't run holocost
denial ads. Indeed, I think running ad "editorials" is just a bad
policy. Running pro-choice ad editorials should be ruled out.

Now a school paper that failed to print a notice of Horowitz's coming to
speak to a campas group would be wrong. But that's a completely different
issue.

 > it, it just attempts to divert your audience from the obvious.

Actually, it successfully directs my audience to the relevant and denied
obvious. Please *try* to follow the actual argument!

 > Re point # 2:
 > I guess if I decided to collect and burn the DTH every morning

Every day might make a difference, but I doubt it would make it theft.

 > it contains
 > personal ads for gay singles, it doesn't matter,

I never said it didn't matter, I said it wasn't theft.

 > because it's just another
 > form of protest.

Not at all, it an evil nasty protest. Indeed, it may go beyond protest
because of the everydayness. (This would be true for Horowtiz ad, if it
ran for a week.) Please don't attribute to me your inept straw
extrapolations of what I wrote.

 >  It's not theft because they're free;

Something like that. It may be wrong under other circumstances. It may be
*made* theft by posting a note: '1 per customer'. But it's not, as things
stand, theft.

 > just a matter of
 > scale, right?  A non-minority would be prosecuted if he pulled a similar
 > stunt, and subject to school disciplinary action as well.

Wrongly so, IMHO. Why would you think otherwise?

Ah yes, because you're an uncharitable bigot, who assumes that I'm a
special pleader *because* of certain views I hold. Note, I charge that you
*attribute* certain stupid and nasty views which I didn't express
*because* I'm a "leftist". Grow up.

 > The real reason you pick apart a strawman argument by a leftist

No no no. It's not a strawman argument, it's a *bad* argument. It's bad
when Horowitz makes it, it's bad when Rosenthal makes it, it's just bad.

 > is that you,
 > like others, are sucked into the belief that Horowitz was attempting to
 > address university campus PC.

For good reason, given some quotes I've read. Note: I don't think it's the
*only* reason he did it. But he's surely not *disappointed* with the
result.

Note, that the protest has gotten a wider airing of his views, so it may
have been a means to that wider end.

 >  It is quite obvious to me that he was
 > attempting to address the reparations issue.

The original article, certainly. But why publish it in campas
newspapers? That's a very specific, and not all that common, tactic. He
could have gone on the campas lecture circut, for example,a nd gotten
*paid* to present his views, rather than have to pay.

 >  Of course, I haven't seen any
 > assessments of his arguments,

That's *not* the point of this article. We at monkeyfist surely plan to
write about reparations. But this is unpaid, part time work for us.

In any case, the issue of how to respond to the protests and the
newspapers, etc. is a topic worth discussing. And it's interesting *to
me*.

 > just reasons why his opinion should be
 > suppressed from newspaper ads.

Then you missed *lots* from my article, which didn't directly or
prominantly address that issue.

Sheesh, what part of relevance do you understand.

 >  Sad.

Indeed. You *could* have argued that the topic of my essay was minor, and
thus not worth pursuing at length. (You tried to at the end, but that was
pretty feeble.) You *could* have challenged my arguments, but the best you
could do was try to attack point 2, but clearly you didn't understadn it
(the point is *not* that it's "A-OK", or even "A-OK but only if leftists
do it" but that it's not theft and not likely to be see as theft by those
doing it (*not* because "whatever we do is ok" attitudes, but "the papers
are free with no limit on how many we take"; for evidence for the latter,
you must submit that the protesters would have broken into distribution
boxes...a considerable slander).

Try meeting my on the plain of ideas, as your purported values direct.

Cheers,
Bijan Parsia.


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