ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, March 5, 1997 TAG: 9703050046
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: LETTERS
Freedom of speech has trade-offs
NORRIS E. Van Cleave (Feb. 20 letter to the editor, "Censorship has its purposes") addressed a very broad issue with a very narrow focus, and his expression is typical of conservative Christians in modern America.
As a graduate student in communication at Radford University, I'm appalled that certain people fail to understand what far-reaching and insidious implications censorship has.
In the democracy we live in, citizens trade the right to suppress such items as sexually explicit magazines for the right to express themselves freely in their own way. If we ban Playboy, Penthouse and Hustler magazines, how long before Van Cleave cannot write to The Roanoke Times to express his negative feelings about these publications?
We are a society that is torn. We want to please all citizens at all times, but we also want to provide freedom of expression to everyone who wishes to utilize it. These two elements cannot exist together without tension within, or destruction of, the democracy.
I respect his right to criticize the government for allowing such material onto military bases and his Christian beliefs. I don't respect the fact that he takes living in a democracy, which allows us freedom of speech, for granted. His call to censor materials that offend him will lead others to do the same, if he's successful in banning something. Eventually, there will be no flow of information within our society, and the public will be largely ignorant of issues that could have grave consequences.
The simple answer is a harsh one. The United States is a democracy, and living here entails putting up with the garbage in order to have access to important information. If any sexually explicit magazine offends him, he shouldn't look at it, but focus instead on information that's relevant to his life. If Van Cleave is unwilling to surrender his right to censor materials that offend him, then he should live in a country that is willing to censor such materials. I hear China is nice this time of year.
MARK LAMBERT
CHRISTIANSBURG
Now's the time to buy Apple
ROANOKE School Board member John Saunders says the time has come for Roanoke schools to stop buying Apple computers, even though many students like them, because it's ``fiscally irresponsible'' when the company's long-term financial viability is in doubt (Feb. 18 news article, ``School boards worry Apple will lose flavor'').
Saunders doesn't know what he's talking about. Recent analyses of Apple's future have reached the same conclusion: Buy its stock now, because the company's fundamentals are sound, its technologies being released this year are superior, and companies like Apple - the 60 million-customer type - don't just go away.
Market facts dictate that Apple is either going to come out of its current problems a stronger, leaner, tougher and profitable company or it will be bought by someone who will try to make it profitable. Apple will not go bankrupt. There are six Mac cloners in the world and thousands of software and hardware manufacturers who would march on Cupertino (Apple's home), take Mac's operating-system assets in hand, and maintain and grow them themselves if they had to.
Whether Apple is run by Apple, by another company or by its customers and shareholders, the Mac standard of computing isn't going to vanish anytime soon. In fact, a recent market analysis shows its operating system's share of the market has grown (because of the impact of the clone makers), even though Apple's own share has dropped.
Instead of focusing on all the machinations that will continue to emanate from Cupertino while the fight to "save" the company goes on, let's focus on how successful the Mac and its operating system has been for many - including kids and teachers in our schools.
AARON SCHROEDER
BLACKSBURG
This judge is not a sexist
YOUR FEB. 15 news article on Judge Joseph Bounds (``Some say he's crossed a line'') was unfair, and an ugly example of what can happen when political correctness becomes of overriding importance.
Anyone who knows Judge Bounds will tell you that he is a fair and decent person, and he is certainly not a sexist.
Such reporting is reckless and hurtful. I think you owe Judge Bounds a public apology.
RICHARD J. GRAYSON JR.
ROANOKE
Edwards should see the procedure
I WAS upset to read your General Assembly Notebook article of Jan. 31, ```Partial-birth' abortion ban fails.''
Virginia's Senate Education and Health Committee voted 9-5 against a bill that would have banned so-called partial-birth late-term abortions. Sen. John Edwards, D-Roanoke, voted against the bill.
I met Edwards and heard him speak during the election. He really impressed me as a good family man, as intelligent and as one with integrity.
Needless to say, Edwards and other Virginia senators need to observe when the life-saving medical person (doctor?) grabs the baby's leg with forceps, pulls it into the birth canal and delivers the entire body except for the head; then jams scissors into the skull and suctions out the child's brain.
Edwards and President Clinton apparently think alike.
GEORGE J. PALMERIO
VINTON
Lincoln was a tyrant
IN YOUR Feb. 3 ``General Assembly Notebook,'' I was shocked that the Senate adjourned in memory of the tyrant Abraham Lincoln on his birthday. This man was responsible for 320,000 deaths, both North and South, in 1861-1865.
Perhaps the idiots in Richmond can give the same courtesy to Gen. Philip Sheridan.
NICHOLE HUTSON-RADFORD
FERRUM
Reshaping NATO's role and mind-set
CHARLES F. Roberts' Feb. 7 letter to the editor, "A red flag on NATO's expansion,'' correctly describes the origins of the Atlantic Alliance as primarily a counterballast to Western European fears of Soviet expansion. NATO's treaty provided valuable security assurances that halted the Soviet Union's encroachment. The protection of Western European territorial integrity against the Soviets, as Roberts asserts, defined NATO policy throughout the Cold War.
NATO's military planning was centered on the prospect of an invasion by conventional Soviet forces and a larger nuclear scenario enveloping the European continent. As the nuclear and military threat has greatly diminished, NATO's policy has been adapted under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and conventional/nuclear weapons-reduction agreements.
Roberts questions what is to replace the Soviet Union and center NATO's policy. A valid concern, but one based on the idea of opposition to a particular "enemy" country. This mentality is not entirely applicable to the post-Cold War world.
Author Robert Kaplan wrote in 1994 that the new era of conflict will result less from nation-state interrelations and more from social, demographic and environmental stress. Events have reinforced his theory. Therefore, to assume that the policies of any security organization, let alone NATO, must focus on an enemy nation will not address emerging crises.
The creation of the Combined Joint Task Force will enable NATO to function outside its treaty domain (the European continent) and assume a more global role to combat destabilization. These changes aren't simply blind thrusts into the mire of international conflict, but instead the embodiment of an awareness that the world has changed and European security isn't solely defined by continental or East-West relations.
Heads of state will meet this summer to determine NATO's shape as it enters the 21st century. The organization, it is hoped, will retain some degree of malleability to meet future crises while abandoning the "us against them" mentality so harmful to continued cooperation and integration with Central Europe, Eastern Europe and Russia.
CHRISTOPHER L. BURDETT
ROANOKE
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