From: m5@vail.tivoli.com (Mike McNally)
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 94 13:40:24 PST
To: danisch@ira.uka.de (Hadmut Danisch)
Subject: Re: Oh No! Nazis on the Nets
In-Reply-To: <9402102018.AA08946@deathstar.iaks.ira.uka.de>
Message-ID: <9402102139.AA04298@vail.tivoli.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Hadmut Danisch writes:
 > I don't know at the moment whether it is allowed to sell "Mein Kampf",
 > but what is the question: One says that in Germany nobody cares
 > about the right-wing, the other says that you can't buy such books.
 > What do you expect? Shall we care or not? We can't fight again
 > right-wing people and sell such books!

Really?  So your only defense against ideas you don't like is to make
the dissemination of the ideas illegal?  Clearly there are values you
rate higher than press freedom.  (That's not necessarily bad, though I
personally don't like it.)

 > I'm sure that american press freedom is not better than german ones.

Sorry, but if you have to go to some office and ensure them you're
following the "rules of newspapers" or whatever, then that statement
is incorrect.  I can this instant decide to print out thousands of
copies of whatever I want, drive down to some public area, and start
handing out my documents (or charging for them), all without a visit
to a government office.  That's not illegal.  Only "pornographic"
material is inherently illegal to distribute (and that irks me, I
assure you) (though not because I'm interested in that line of work).

(I'll leave it to Mr. Godwin to point out the various little laws I
might break doing something like what I described above; the point
stands nevertheless.)

 > Seen from Germany, american presidents elections look like a mixture
 > of a football game and a tv show. 

What does that have to do with press freedoms?

 > (I'm sure german elections don't look better for americans...)

Actually, we don't see much about German elections; there's not enough
airtime between the football games and TV shows.

 > In Germany I can get my Cryptosoftware from whereever I want,
 > I can give my software to whereever I want and I can write
 > a PhotoCD decoder. [ ;-) ]

So can I in the US---today.  The problems spring up when I try to
export what I write.

--
| GOOD TIME FOR MOVIE - GOING ||| Mike McNally <m5@tivoli.com>       |
| TAKE TWA TO CAIRO.          ||| Tivoli Systems, Austin, TX:        |
|     (actual fortune cookie) ||| "Like A Little Bit of Semi-Heaven" |