roundtable: Re: Content is the cargo of truth

roundtable: Re: Content is the cargo of truth

Re: Content is the cargo of truth

Richard K. Moore (rkmoore@iol.ie)
Tue, 21 Mar 1995 09:44:45 +0000 

Message-Id: <v02110141ab94407465ef@[193.120.234.103]>
Date: Tue, 21 Mar 1995 09:44:45 +0000
To: roundtable@cni.org
From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore)
Subject: Re: Content is the cargo of truth


At 9:41 PM 3/20/95, Matt York wrote:
>In a democracy the marketplace for ideas dictates "who is heard saying
>what". In a socialist system, the government takes money from its
>citizens to make sure the "right people are heard saying what they think
>should be". In a communist system the government starts out itself
>"being the right people to be heard" but then degenerates into
>"manufacturing who is heard and it is them". Then we have little red
>books and rewritten history.

That is simplistic hogwash.

For one thing, there aren't pure "democracies", "socialist states", 
and "communitst states".  For another, democracy and socialism aren't 
at separate poles, but can overlap considerably.  And capitalism is not
democracy.

The BBC is an example of a mechanism for improving and broadening public
discourse which doesn't fall cleanly into any category of governance --
it's an independent agency, funded by direct license fees, and continuing
through very socialist and very tory governments.

Matt's statement above is simply a cheap shot aimed at confusing 
discussion about what regulatory framework is approrpriate for the 
market mechanisms to operate within, and which public intiatives should 
be part of the mix. He's saying: "do it my way or you're a pinko."


Richard K. Moore
<rkmoore@iol.ie>

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