March nine. Political Science

I just finished an article this morning -- you know, it's really

funny you get

to this feeling that you like many people, Jeez, I got to

write something and procrastinate and you sit there and once

I sit down and right boy, all the bull shit poors out. I

guess that's what it means to be a journalist. The

article's for the Monitor and the Monitor there is a group

that has constantly for years now tried to get the college

newspapers to run adds for their organization which argues

that the Holocaust never occurred.

Now the Holocaust is what when we use the term

historically? Anybody understand the word Holocaust? When

the Jews were put into concentration camps, but the

Holocaust is the term that's used for the systematic

elimination of six million Jews. -- concentration camps

through gas chambers. It's the period of time of Shindler's

List and many cases like in the Ukraine they weren't using

gas chambers and then made them down and then fall back down

into line pits where they would be bodies would dissolved

and they buried them. Now most of you have heard some of

this I suspect? I don't think that history has been that

bland in your course. I know that my son just finished up

that in his Mission high school sophomore class in history.

The Nazis did not only kill/murder Jews and although that

term replies it also there were ten to 12 -- I'm sorry, six

million others as well. Gypsy, Jehovah's Witness,

homosexuals, handicapped people who were killed. We're

talking about the attempt to rid society by the Nazis of

what they considered to be undesirables. The evil people

and so this group who runs these adds to try and see it

seems to have sort of this sense that all of this was made

up, that the bodies that they found and had pictures of were

really German citizens killed by the allied bombing that

there was an international Jewish conspiracy to try and

deceive the world to make the German's look bad. Despite

all the thousands of documents and testimonies including of

course the studies of the gas chambers and the line pits.

But they command an academic hearing they say that it should

be studied deny their rights for learning and peoples right

to learn the truth quote unquote at least their truth.

By the way, this is where that statement came from to

some extent by Rev. Martin Niemueller that -- he is in my

book -- if you recall, I mentioned he supported Hitler.

he's a Lutheran minister. When Hitler came to power in 19

--. In 1938 he was arrested and put in a camp. He didn't

-- he wasn't put into a death camp. After the war, he wrote

a number of Lutheran theological tracks, but always much an

autobiography where I paraphrase it if you recall the

statement by Rev. Niemueller was: First they came for the

handicapped and mental retarded. Since I was not

handicapped nor mental retarded, I didn't say anything. And

then they came for the homosexuals. And I was not a

homosexual, so I didn't say anything. And then they came

for the Jews. And I was not a Jew, so I didn't say anything.

And then they came for the communist. And I was not a

communist, so I didn't say anything. Then they came for the

gypsy, and the Jahova's Witness, so I didn't say anything.

Then they came for the labor leaders. I was not a labor

leader, so I did not say anything. Then they came for the

catholic priests and nuns. And I was not a Catholic priest

nor a nun, so I didn't say anything. And then they came for

me, and there was no one left to say anything.

Here we have, of course, the underlying history of Nazi

Germany. The absolute ultimate violation of civil

liberties, the taking of life, the taking of liberty, the

refusal to allow people to quote unquote pursue happiness

and the adviser to the Monitor has decided to run the ad.

It's a paid ad, but he's also going to run a spread about

commentary and so he asked me to write a short article

pertaining to the end of the Holocaust and of course the

Holocaust deniers and our right to be heard. I started out

-- the title of my essay is The Flat Earth Society. Which I

think explains it all. So it was fun to write.

I like most times and I don't know how you people write

but I certainly I spend days if not weeks of course I didn't

have a week in this case, thinking about what I'm going to

write and when I finally sit down that's why I'm able to

write. But all the writing is done in my head way ahead of

time. And then I have to coordinate it the research and

everything else the readings and finally it seems to come

together on paper. So I that's what I did this morning

dealing with this favorite topic of mind.

I support civil liberties. I said that, but does a

group who believes that Elvis Presley is actually alive and

well in Moscow or that United States never landed on the

moon it was really a false testing ground and pictures were

taken in the Nevada desert? Do they have the freedom

academically to present their positions in courses at the

colleges and universities? Should they be presenting these

positions in an academic institution? Where is that then --

is that a denial of civil liberties? Maybe it is, but then

the whole point is that we have to weight what has a valid

learning and what does not. And obviously from my

perspective, if they want to have free speech, they have

free speech. Internet chat rooms. Internet news groups.

Talk shows, Jerry Springer. Those are all available to

people to try and present their perspective, but yet an

academic institution has to set certain standards. It is

not relativism that anything has a right to be heard and

that's why I said to you, when you present your positions on

a paper, your position are fine, but I can't grade you on

your position. It has to be supported with some sort of

academic sorts. Even though valid and prove to be valid and

maybe in the long run Elvis Presley really is alive.

There's a group in New York called the Insane Liberation

Front. They argue that they're not insane, it's just that

other people haven't got the ability, the perception, the

height of the -- to be able to see the snakes crawling on

the walls that their perception out does every people and

therefore others lack knowledge, lack facts, lack the real

details. Now again, maybe they're right. But we do have

then demands like everything else a certain level of the

standards and responsibilities. We don't stop free speech,

but we may well dictate where that speech is determined.

And so, true out our history, where we've supported civil

liberties in our country because Americans have a tremendous

deep history of belief in civil liberties even though our

government has violated from time to time. The fact is that

at certain times we have determined certain activities as

not to be allowed because they are destructive to the moral

fiber of society or to values and traditions and sometimes

that's hard because there will be groups that disagree.

Censorship of course we all are familiar with. Where do

we draw the line? There is a group whose headquarters is in

Pleasanton. I don't know why. It's NAMBIA. No. North

American Boys ( Karen, I am not too sure what he said here.)

love social sex between men adults or young should be legal

because it allows the boys to learn about what sex is and it

will be a good growth and mature experience like in ancient

Greece the old man becomes. Mentor this was a Greek

tradition. Well, we too allow them to preach their views.

But we don't allow them to act on their views and that is

the difference. We have to assert a certain standard and

say okay you can try and convince us. The minority does

have a right to try and convince the majority but they don't

have a right to act on their views they don't have a

necessarily a right to deceive the public either. In San

Francisco a few years ago and some of you may recall, the

group was having meetings at the San Francisco public

library and parents found out about it because they were

right next to youth groups and parents were concerned

because some of these individuals had been busted as

pedifiles. They had records of sex offenses and they were

upset because they had not been informed that this group was

meeting there. That you have a right to know that that

group is meeting there. Don't you? So that you want to

keep your kids away. They argued that they had a right not

to be harassed and to meet secretly in that sense or without

knowledge. Well, again, whose right prevails? The right of

the group to privacy or the right of the parent to protect

our child? Obviously the society protects today the right

of the parent to make the decision as to whether or not they

feel rightly or wrongly that their child should be

protected. It's like for elementary schools they register

sex offenders they give you that map and tell you where they

live. And various groups fight that. They feel that the

right of the privacy of the sex offender is being violated

and it is. They don't tell you the name or anything they

just give you -- well there's a list on a CD ROM on the

names of the people on the register people that you can

obtain as well. That is a violation of civil liberties.

There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it. We waive the right

in certain indications the so-called Megan Laws because of

the M-E-G-A N-the girl was murdered by a convicted sex guy

across the street. And many people do object to it. How far

do we push the right of liberty versus the right of civil

rights? Now, in our state of California if sex education is

going to be taught in the schools, they inform your

parents. And they have to sign off on it. And if you don't

parents don't want the child to go to that sex education

class because they want them to go out and be sexual, the

fact is that and learn from their friends or whatever I'm

being a wise ass here. The fact is that based on that

parents can take their child out and let them go to the

library during that time. Well in Tennessee 1987 one of the

most brilliant cases of censorship came forward. A group of

fundamentalist parents did not argue for censorship. They

listed three hundred books that were on the programs in the

schools that they felt that were in opposition to their

religion and that their children should be warned when

they're read and that their children should be allowed to go

to the library so that they would not be perverted religious

values from these book. Books like Cinderella, Ann Frank,

The Wizard of Oz, books about dinosaurs, other religions, My

Friend Flicka. Why? These are books that have been censored

some other places here they weren't asking censor they were

asking to leave. Their right not to be confronted by

stories about magic because magic is with the devil. The

Wizard of Oz you have a good witch. They can't be good.

They're related to the devil. In Ann Frank, she said

something to the effect that it doesn't matter what religion

you are as long as you believe in God. To them it does

matter. Dinosaurs could be taught, but only to be ten

thousand years old, but if older than that, it violates that

the Bible that humans were created with in the last ten

thousand years in a special creation. Other religions are

objectionable. All I could go on and on with all of these

particular issues I can -- but I remember it well enough

because I've been talking about it for a few years now.

They won their case in the lower courts the first court says

when is it went to an appeals court the court ruled that if

every parent or group of parents had determined what a

schools curriculum could or could not be, at that point you

would not have an educational system. Okay?

Well today of course there are many people who were

making another step which was not allowed years become be my

in most states they're pulling their kids out of school not

because schools are bad, that's one thing but they're

educating them in home schooling because they believe the

schools are immoral in the kinds of things they're teaching

which is different. I mean there is some for certain

children that need to be home schooled in certain

educational areas. The homeschool movement has exploded in

this country in recent years to avoid what they consider to

be the degradation of the public school system. Not the

educational level, but the moral level. But values are

there. Should they have a right to educate their children?

Well perhaps they should. Outside of the school system, but

to what influence should certain groups have on the

education decisions. Last year I was sitting I'm on the

psyche counsel where the parents decided on and thing like

that that comes in from the state. And we decide on the

in-service days. Well unanimously the psyche counsel decided

that one of the days was to be a day where are there will be

discussion of in any case homosexual want but to avoid the

word homosexuality, childrens confusion, childrens

confusion. It's a children confusion, but they wouldn't to

spend money because of the need to deal with the emotional

problem that some go through who were in high school and are

identifying themselves with homosexuality. And of course

Mission has a homosexual club on campus at this point. And

not to educate the children, but to educate the teachers how

to deal with these children and how to treat them as human

beings so that they don't commit suicide or that they don't

feel the pressures of the peer groups who can be pretty

vicious obviously at the secondary school level that was the

intent among they've done many, many in-service days. The

word got out and a number of parents came down to the

Fremont school board and the board banned the Mission high

school from using from doing having that as an in-service

day. Because of pressure from the community. The attitude

for that group is is that if you discuss these kinds of

issues it will make people that way. It will open the door

to relativism that it is perfectly all right to experiment

and once you do, you create a pattern of being homosexual so

that you turn into a homosexual. It's linking many men. If

a male sits down, they jump away fast like the virus is

going to spread to them and they will become gay. Well,

let's face it folks. It doesn't jump over at you. But

that's my point of view, I guess.

In any case, the fact is that these kinds of pressures

in the schools are put on the school we have had numerous

books constantly banned throughout this country. By various

communities, school boards, libraries, and cities. Among the

most active book being banned is the American Heritage

dictionary. Did I mention that earlier? Does anybody know

why the dictionary is banned? It defined curse words. But

it not only defines the curse word, it defines the

derivatives not the S short it defines mother F. And of

course there the attitude of many people is that if the

words are defined, then people will use them and it will

destroy their moral fiber because evil will prevail. I'll

tell you right now that there was the major reason I had to

get out of the south no matter what you say about the south

the thing I could not deal with was the fact that people

avoided cursing to the extent that ridiculousness. They had

to constant, gee whiz, golly, and shucks. I wanted to get

somewhere in the world where it was real and people said

shit when they were upset. Not joking. And the hypocrisy

drove me nuts. I was at an Earth Day rally and this student

of mine, he over did cursing. He had a real New York accent

and every word was the S-word. He was on one side of the

room I was on the other and I got up and gave this political

discussion every other word was the S-word. And he got into

everybody interjected by this guy and he says you carpet

baggers come down here. You can deal with that kind of

filthy mouth talking in front of your women folk don't stand

like that and if you need to defecate then defecate out of

your mouth then you go outside and you defecate but not in

here not with our women folk. And then he sits down and I

hear him lean over to his wife, I told that son of a bitch

off, didn't I? I mean -- I'm sorry. Values are one thing,

hypocrisy is something else from my perspective.

What book has probably been the most banned in this

country? Huck Finn, feelings it is derogatory and spread

racism the surprising element of that it was banned in a

school called Samuel Clemmons high school who was Mark Twain

but the fact is that Mark Twain himself was far from a

racist which he was recording history the way it was and

supported black colleges financially and scholarships in the

19th century. So you get into -- do we study things for

it's words or do we ban it either from the left or the right

and not just the conservatives as we were dealing with but

as you indicated many radical left want certain issues

banned.

Jews in New York attempted to ban the Merchant of Venice

because it's derogatory towards Jew. The city of

Indianapolis passed legislation banning Playboy and

Penthouse magazine because it was promoting violence against

women. Well, we get into that whole issue. Do they? Well

there's no doubt in my mind that there may be people who

will pick up on violence and from reading those magazine or

looking at the pictures whatever. I mean, but when Bundy

said because he started reading Penthouse magazine he was

laughing at society. Just before his execution. Obviously

the fact of the matter is the statistics don't bare it out

because if Playboy and Penthouse magazine created rapists

and murders beyond there wouldn't be much women left. But

if it does kill one woman or two women then maybe there has

to be studies to indicate that. The studies aren't there

and this we draw the line about responsibility. Maybe there

is a need to educate people to the fact that those magazines

are derogatory, but education is different than censorship.

And we talk censorship, we talk about government

censorship. Education allows people to be aware and make

their own choices that's what we call responsibility if

you've been reading the papers the last two days an appeals

court just over turned a district court. The district court

ruled that the lawsuit against Natural Born Killers by

Oliver Stone could not go forth. The law against it says

that the Oliver Stone and the movie producers put that film

to incite violence because they wanted to get publicity and

therefore people would go see Natural Born Killers and is

their own negative attitude that this was a really factor in

historically. The woman who sued the parents who sued one

of their kids was killed by people who were emulating the

people in the film. The appeals court said that no lawsuit

was able to go forward that they could sue on that

principle. It doesn't say that that principle was right.

They just now have a burden to prove that it was the intent

to cause violence. It's an interest kind of an argument

because if you remember a guy name Hinkly which you were too

young to remember directly attempt to murder president

Reagan because he was trying to impress Jody Foster because

he fell in love with her by the movies Taxi. Um, where do

you ban the film because one nut takes some element of that

film and goes crazy? Where do you draw the line? But

certainly from my perspective responsibility becomes

important. What kind of responsibility I think it becomes

pretty obvious that certain things should not appear.

When I first came to California it was in the middle of

the sexual revolution. Everything was open and you begin to

wonder do you really need it in. I don't believe in

censorship, but I believe there's an extent to openness. I

take my kid to buy a slurpee and right in front were all the

sex magazines and the kid says dad look at that. What's

that? Why do I have to deal with that. Later of course

7-11 put boards in front of it so only the adults could see

over it. Um, 7-11 doesn't sell their magazines now. Its not

censorship, it's a personal choice of business. When

government forces it becomes censorship, but they took

responsibility.

One day I take my kid to the Union City drive in.

They're gone. They're putting up a 25 theater complex. 25

theaters that's got to be emmence. They got Cinema 8 or

something over in Newark. 25 cinemas? What are they going

to show? Thirteen screens of Halloween seventeen? Or was

it Halloween twenty or H20 twenty. H20. I took my kid to

see a Walt Disney film. On the screen right next to us was

this X-rated film and out of a sudden my little seven year

old was watching the same film I am. Now that's not there's

know need for that. They had they used to have a couple of

accidents on the highway every few weeks. Responsibility is

an extent to -- so how do we draw the line? Oh, I went back

to the book. The book that's been banned is Catcher in the

Rye. Well number one, curse words. The F-word's in there

and probably more so is people see it as questioning the

authority of the parents. And once you question the

authority of the parents according to the Bible you should

be stoned. At least in the Old Testament and so rather than

open the door to legitimacy of rebellion by teenagers, they

would prefer to have the book banned because it might

inspire some other children to talk back to their parents to

rebel against their parental values. But the list of books

goes on and on. The list consists the closing off of value

systems and of course as I say you to have to wait.

Now, again, civil liberties and rights different but

then they overlap and I don't know how many of this I went

into. In 19 -- I can't remember. A few years back in!

New Jersey, a group at a church, a fundamentalist church

asked the teenagers of the church to bring in their rock

music and their sex books or whatever. And they had a big

bonfire, the teenagers burned. And the daughter of the

minister was quoted in the paper as saying, I have to burn

these materials because rock makes me feel lustfull and this

is the way to prevent my lust. It reminded me of the Salem

witch trials. Now was that a civil rights or liberties

relation? Burning that material. Not really, why? Because

they own it. You have a right to destroy what you own

that's your choice. They didn't go out and take it from

somebody. But when Hitler ordered that kind of material

burned and had book burnings then you got a civil liberties

violation. So persons there therefore can do what they want

within limitations. However, if they started you because

your black or Mexican or because your Jewish then we go

beyond individual rights. If I were to push you on the

street but if I push you because your black, it's not only

battery, it's also a hate crime. We refer to it as a civil

rights violation and what happens? I then ask government to

protect me from those individuals or groups who want to

eliminate my life, liberty, or pursuit of happiness. That's

a civil right when you ask government to intervene. When

government prohibits something it could be a civil liberty

violation but we often ask government to protect our civil

rights.

Q That for the disabled to like when you ask the

government to protect?

A Sure. And provide is a form of civil rights ability to

create equal opportunity.

However, what if I'm a restaurant owner and I say this

is my business. It would cost me too much money. I'd lose

money if I had to put up a ramp for the handicap to come in

if I had to build a rest room for the handicap to use. Why

should that? It's not good for business. I don't want those

people there. They upset people while they're eating

dinner. Years ago they were allowed to. Weren't they?

Their civil right in a sense their right to decide how they

want to make their own money up until about twenty years

ago. We weight it differently. Today we decided that their

liberty to choose to decide the equal opportunity of people

in society and today business people can't do that because

we provide equality for the handicapped and for others. They

cannot refuse services to people because of gender because

of race because of creed belief or because of any disability

that they may have. Despite the fact that you see signs up

from that say, we reserve the right to serve whom we please.

that means a totally different thing. They can reserve the

right to serve people who and not serve people who were

disruptful who come in without clothes on. In fact, that's

a good reason. Let's talk about something that can destroy

your digestion. I think the most disappointing thing in my

life is to go to a nude beach. People look so much better

with clothes. Fantasy is so much better. All right.

Well, however, that nude guy in Berkeley and others

claim it's part of the their religion and creed. Maybe in

the future they could win their argument for nudity. That

group that does their plays nude in Berkeley, the police

have been going nuts. They finally had to change the laws

because you are the so they made it a non a misdemeanor

ticket, rather than one that would go in court because

causing the city a lot of money. This is in the last few

months if follow these in the newspaper. They can't

prevent. They can prevent those people maybe in the future

they won't. Just like people used to prevent blacks or Jews

or others or had it continue their contracts you couldn't

tell to a black family for ever or to a Jewish family .

Those are part of the contracts not unusual. Acceptable

business practice. Not acceptable today. But when we take

away the right and saying I don't want to sell my home to an

Asian, aren't I taking away my liberty when the government?

Sure we are. But we've weighted the equal opportunity of

the Asians to participate in our society above my right to

sell publicly. Now can I still meet publicly with racists

in a school or business or a club that's racist? Sure I can

as long as it doesn't impact the public. But where do we

draw the lines? Obviously we take away the liberty of the

bar owner to determine that can make money when people smoke

in his bar. But today the law says no smoking the laws it's

detrimental in the people but what about the people who want

to smoke? What about the bar owner who wants to make

money? Well, right now they introduced a that it's an

attempt to overturn that to allow the bar patrons and the

workers to allow for smoking in the bars. I'm not sure how

they would do that. So we have to weight it. Our value

systems change. Sometimes liberties prevail. Sometimes

equality prevails. So when civil rights are being

demonstrate when Martin Luther King spoke, he did so with

the concept that he was trying to get the federal government

to intervene, to stop racism, to stop segregation by state

by local and by individual people. Because there was a

higher and more natural law. And in is doing he committed

civil disobedience and what is that? The willful refusal to

obey a law which you think is illegal. The difference being

that he didn't bitch, cry, and scream when he got busted.

The whole point was that when you got busted in civil

disobedience you go to prison. And he wrote his letters

from a Burmingham jail identifying the horrors of the law

but since it was the law, we accept it until we get it

changed. That's the non violence principle as to why Martin

Luther King junior followed the principles of Gandhi are so

well respected because they did stand up for their beliefs

and they weren't little whiners, cry babies.

Ralph Waldo Emerson the great American poet went to

Thuro who was protected at that time, but he was in prison

and Ralph Waldo Emerson end went up to Thuro why are you

doing this why are you here? And he said that's not the

question Ralph, the question is why aren't you here? And

that's why civil disobedience, so if you don't agree with

the law you can protest it. You can demonstrate and speak

out that's what the democracy is about, but also taking the

consequences. And it responsibilities of not destroying

other people by blowing up buildings the Timothy McVeighs of

the world and killing other innocent people although there

are those that feel that's the only way they can be heard.

Civil liberties and rights therefore liberties and equality

do conflict. Because we indicated with the story and many

examples.

Another example of the conflict in waiting is abortion.

Waiting which value and hiring. The Supreme court in 1973

God knows how many times, ruled that states could not ban

abortion. Under the principle that women have the privacy

in a sense the liberty the choice that it is a woman's body

it is her liberty. It is her right. It is her choice

liberty government could not ban. However, pro life people

argue that what about the civil right of the unborn of the

preborn that somebody has to speak out for this new

Holocaust. They speak out for the Genocide of so many

million of so many you have violated civil right by taking

their right. Their right to life, liberty, and pursuit of

happiness and they argue that that right then considered

higher than the liberty of if female's body of course the

courts have decide that they don't think it's a life. They

can't defend a life. And therefore, they have not upheld it

as a life, but that is the argument. The argument between

the liberty of the female's body and the civil right perhaps

of the fetus that might be and is a potential life.

Conflict continues. It's a very difficult roll but the

reason Americans have civil liberties and because we stand

up for them. But perhaps even more the reason we continue to

have them even though our government has violated one of the

biggest violations, slavery, perhaps another phenomenal

violation, the Japanese being put under executive order

9066. We have had thousand of cases of but Americans have

always objected at some point. And some point perhaps we

have demanded a redress of grievance historically.

I lost where I was going. The reason for the civil

liberties being preserved is in part again our

constitution. It is the district distribution of power in

our country there isn't one power. Our separation of powers

are checks and balances allow civil liberty to prevail

because one agency of government or one violates there is

another one we can appeal to so if the local government

violation we can go to the state government. If the

legislature we go to the courts. If the courts don't listen

maybe we go to the executive branch and if all government

violates then we go to perhaps the most powerful

institution, the media. And the media if they buy into it

may create enough publicity to bring about a change in the

legislation or in the enforcement based on people's sense of

justice. Americans have as a whole a sense of justice. A

sense of right and wrong. A sense of liberty. A sense of

civil rights. And the best example: Rodney King. Did I

speak about Rodney King at all? You remember Rodney King

was the African American who was brutally beaten by the

police and the Watts area? And it was videotaped.

Everybody a agrees he was a looser, he was a hateful person,

he took drugs, he was a criminal, in fact he just got busted

yesterday, day before, for beating up his wife again.

However, when Americans saw the video tape they said nobody

as a human being no matter what they done to deserve that

treatment because the police cannot be judge and jury. The

roll of the police is to act as restrainers not enforcers.

And therefore we wound up with civil liberty suits, battery

suits against the police as well as civil rights suits. In

the local outer in Semi Valley the police won. They won the

civil liberties charge. They won against the -- they won

against the battery charge, but people were not satisfied.

The government was not satisfied. They felt that a man who

the people were in sensed that here we have proof video

tape. And so new charges were filed, call it double

jeopardy, if you will, in the federal courts that he violate

the civil rights and police were convict and received jail

sentences up to ten years. Justice? Perhaps. It's always a

question as to what really constitutes justice, but

certainly the points I'm making is that it isn't just one

institution. That our society can preserve certain liberties

but we have multi institution that will fight for a

particular cause. And will fight to defend and support

civil rights.

Civil liberties can conflict by the way as well. The

Bill of Rights is really the Bill of Liberties. There are a

number of things our constitution provides in the bill of

rights as well. You have a right to a fair trial. The

Constitution also provides for freedom of the press. Those

are both liberties. However, what happens when the press

refuses to give information in a trial and it may effect the

outcome of that trial? The press says we have liberty. We

have the liberty. We have to protect our sources otherwise

we can't be the watch dog of democracy. However the courts

have unanimously almost always rule if there is beyond a

reasonable doubt that that information from the press would

impact the right to a fair trial, the right to a fair trial

prevails and the press will be held in contempt of court.

They must reveal their sources or go to prison or fine

because we weighted the liberties. The liberty of a fair

trial is weighted above the liberty of the press. So we do

have to a sense make judgments. And society makes those

judgments which you and I may not agree to.

What about the right of a person not to wear a helmet

and kill themselves versus my right as an individual not to

have to pay for somebody's stupidity for a trauma unit and

hellicopters? I don't remember usually they argue I have a

right not to wear a helmet, I have a right not to pay for

your stupidity and well you don't have to, yeah, but I still

have to pay for the police to show up and clean the blood on

the sidewalk. We weight those things today. Today, the

right to wear a helmet no longer the right not to wear a

helmet has been taken away. I mean whatever -- but today

the law says that motorcycle helmets are required and

bicycle helmets for those under eighteen are required. It

helps parents too. But when the law says it you got a

little extra argument on your side. Now we need snowboard

helmets. All right.

How do the courts decide on what is a civil liberty a

civil rights? How do they weight them? How do they decide

which prevails? There are four interpretations courts use.

Probably others, but we break it down into four groups.

There is the absolute interpretation. The clear and present

danger interpretation. The dangerous tendency

interpretation, and the balancing of interest. Absolute,

clear and present danger, dangerous tendency, balancing of

interest. The lower courts being the trial courts are more

likely to use a dangerous tendency or clear and present

danger. But the higher you go in the court, the closer it

gets to a clear absolute interpretation. So the Supreme

Court and others will not be as lenient to a dangerous

tendency interpretation. Absolute interpret says what it

means. The word says civil liberties cannot be suspended,

perfect. They are absolute. What they say is what they

mean. What they say is what they mean. They can't be

suspended. Free speech is free speech is free speech. The

right to carry weapons is the right to carry a weapon is the

right it carry a weapon. They cannot be qualified. Abby

Hoffman once said that freedom of speech is your right to

yell theater in a crowded fire. Now that is a take off on

the old adage, your freedom of speech ends with your right

to yell fire in a crowded theater. Most people have heard

it obviously referring to the fact that if you yell fire in

a crowded theater, it can create panic and it obviously is a

clear and present danger because people can be stampeded to

death. What if there really is a fire? Or you think there

is? Where do you draw the line? Your right to free speech

ends with the other person's knows. Where the other persons

knows beginning. Well that would mean you have less free

speech because I've got a bigger knows. Oh, well. Where do

we then draw. Abby Hoffman was also in his protest against

the Vietnam war and the culture of America at the teach he

was commenting on the first cases where those words were

you've. The case where the term freedom of speech ended

with your right to yell fire in a crowded theater because it

created a clear and present danger.

That case was Schenck versus the United States. That's

on your word lift and beginning with a an S. Oh, all of a

sudden people are getting their word lists out. Schenck was

a socialist. Who during U-S-entry into world war one 1999,

1917, spread propaganda spread information advocate that

people not go to war that they not be drafted and not go

fight for the country. Believing that it was an

international conspiracy by businesses to make known that

there was know reason or cause for the war except for

capitalism. He was busted under the subversive act for

inciting people not to go to war talking against the war

under what facts is they were called subversive acts to

prevent subversion. During world war one. They in fact

prevented free speech. If the people opposed the war. He

sued of course went to the Supreme court he was convicted

and the Supreme court was headed by one of great jurors of

our history and a liberal, Oliver Wendell Holmes. The

Schenck case appeared in 1919 and he lost. The Supreme

Court ruled I can't remember but I think it was unanimously,

that his action was like yelling fire in a crowded theater.

it was a clear and present danger because by asking people

or demanding that people not participate in the war it could

convince some people not to go and that could effect the

outcome of the battle and therefore impact the safety and

security of the United States.

Should we have urban warriors in Oakland? Who knows

what I'm talking about? One. That's it? Nobody else knows

about the urban warriors in Oakland today? Didn't I ask you

to please listen to the news? Or read the newspapers? The

U.S. Marines are running a simulation in Oakland to prevent

urban terrorists and they're fighting terrorists with blank

bullets to see how well the soldiers learn how to deal with

a possible terrorist take over in Oakland. Nobody heard

this on the news? Yes? She has heard. Yeah. I just read

it. She read it in the Chinese paper and in the Chinese

paper. Interesting, in the editorial section today there's

a guy in town who got kicked off of campus. He's the type of

guy that always walked around with a bicycle helmet with his

mirror in case of attack. He's have bracelets with the

large spikes and he'd carry this big knife on his side. He

was tough little guy. Probably shorter than I am. Always

paranoid talking about always writing letters about anti gun

control and about the socialist and communist trying to take

our gun from us. Generally I'm glad he writes the letters

because I think it lets out the steam. My own feeling is

this the kind of person that gets if he didn't get the steam

out could easily go into McDonalds and shoot it up

personally that's a statement. In any case, today's letter

was surprising. He attacked -- he made the comment that

people have been accusing the protest as against these

demonstrators against the urban warriors as being socialists

and being anti American. And he said let me write it from

the perspective of a real American one who has served his

country or words to that effect. I am opposed to the urban

warriors. He's opposed to them having the Marines having it

because this is a militia issue. All of Americans should be

armed. We should have this posse where is the shooting

gallery we're supposed to have in Fremont so that we citizen

can take up our guns and shoot these terrorists when they

appear? Philosophy always amazes me how thing get projected

and twisted. I never would have expected him to oppose the

military training. You never know.

In New York city, you go to New York City, you see cars

saying please do not break this window because there is know

radio, there is know stereo. It's not worth it. I'm

serious. There's signs on the cars.

The organization perhaps that does argue for the

absolute position is the National Rifle Association but only

of one absolute in the Constitution. They that he would

that the Second Amendment is -- it means what it says, that

everybody should have a right to bare arms whatever they

are. No bare legs, just arms. And therefore they hold as

the absolute effect to do that any qualifications banning

hollow point bullets or whatever, any of those kinds of bans

will be detrimental to the ability to defend themselves to

the militia to defend itself and more so would open the door

for further by creating other laws which will wind up taking

away the weapons from people who must have them to protect

against oppressive government to against crime and

terrorists. Interestingly, the second amendment has not

been interpret by the courts the way the NRA has. In 1939

the Supreme Court ruled that the second amendment does not

apply to the people. The world of the second -- in other

words, they said there is no right to bare arms. Which of

course for some reason the NRA may argue, but people don't

hear that we hear that you have a right. In 1939, well the

second amendment reads a well regulated militia being

necessary to a free society the right of the people to bear

arms shall not be infringed. All you ever see is the right

to bare arms. You don't see the first part. What the

Supreme court ruled was that a well regulated militia is a

government militia. The state militia and unless it is not

a true government militia you don't have a right to bare

arms. You have to be a member of that militia of course the

NRA argues that all people are a part and therefore we

should be walking around carrying weapons. Now for further

court decisions have generally up held the right to ban

weapons. They feel that's a state issue. The NRA feels

that those court decisions are inaccurate or

misinterpreted.

In 1982, Morton Grove in Illinois, a village, out of the

ban any kind of guns rifles or pistols. The national rifle

association sued. In the federal courts. They threw it out

and said it was a state issue. It had to go through the

state courts and doesn't pertain to the federal constitution

and since there was nothing in the Illinois constitution

that gave them a right to bare arms, Morton Grove was able

to bare arms.

California does have in it's constitution a right to

bare arms. Some states actually have a right to carry arms

in their constitution. By the way, when Morton Grove banned

weapons that every head of the household carry a gun.

Couldn't be challenged because there was no penalty

involved. I knew you know in New York city since 1890 the

ownership of weaponry has been banned. You can get a

permit, but it's very difficult to get a hold of. You really

have to prove the need for carry permit either for sport or

for protection. And sales cannot be of is any kind of --

and including bee bee guns not to have a bee bee gun to

shoot my friends and the birds with. So the first thing I

did when I came to California and I bought a bee bee gun I

felt like a real man again. This is my pistol, this is my

gun. This is for shooting, this is for fun.

The other organization that stands up for the absolute

interpretation that is best known and most hated is the

ACLU. The American Civil Liberties Union. Who argued that

they don't defend the kooks, the weirdos, and the nuts.

They defends the Constitution. When they take a kook, a

weirdo, a nut case, they're not defending them. They're

defending all people all rights because if they lose, then

our liberties, we lose our liberties are qualified. Now I

have to admit that at times I wish the ACLU would lose some

of their cases, although I do support and have been a card

carrying member of it. Because let me tell you, I am very

happy that there are kooks, nuts, and weirdos out there

because if we didn't have those people, I'd be the kook,

nut, and weirdo. And I'd be gone.

Q Are you having our midterm --

A I said I wouldn't tell I you. It's what I said. Not

until I decide it. So I can't answer you when I said I

haven't decided it, right?