and if it's true? The point in fact is that no accusations were
made. Simply a statement of what took place upon my arrival to
Moscow and the subsequent information those events brought
forward. All my request involved was to check out the
information, the case histories are substantiated with mounds of
documentation on file at the court house and several other
locations. So I guess the real question is do you ask questions
and find out the truth or do you wait for someone outside to
come in and do it?
Seems to me I am allowing you the opportunity to either act on
your own or wait for the federal courts or an outside
investigator to come in and do it.
the choice is yours as always. Libel and slander is only if it
is untrue....those facts I was unsure of I was clear were
alleged. The facts that were substantiated with documentation
should have been clear, if you were willing to really read what
was there and not hide your head from the possibility that there
are some very deep and severe problems in the legal community perhaps it
make more sense to you. You know it's a fact of life that sometimes the
truth hurts.
Joan
Date:
Thu, 28 May 1998 16:29:34 -0700 (PDT) From: Dale
Goble <gobled@uidaho.edu> To: Jack Porter
<jporter@moscow.com> Cc: vision2020@moscow.com Subject:
Re: Alleged civil rights violations
A week or so ago I asked the people who have been making unsubstantiated
accusations about the police, the judiciary, and others to state the
facts
on which they base their conclusions. Jack Porter made a similar (and
more eloquent) request recently.
The response was more of the same: unsubstantiated accusations -- the
everybody-knows-that-x-does-cocaine type of statements. If there have
been any factual statements that support the accusations, I have missed
them. We who fail simply to accede to the truth of the statements are
in
denial.
On the one hand, it is tempting simply to note that at least two of the
people who have made the accusations were apparently convicted of some
crime; they believe that their convictions or subsequent problems were
unjust. Every attorney has stories of clients who believe that they are
the object of a conspiracy, that "the system" has treated them unjustly.
They are people who will let no opportunity pass to tell you of their
wrongs. Such stories soon assume an air sheer implausibility. We are
being asked to believe that everyone from the local police through the
federal government has conspired to deprive these people of what they
believe they are due.
On the other hand, however, the accusations that have been made are
extremely serious: named individuals in this community have been accused
of illegal drug use and other crimes. Such statements damage
individuals
and their standing in the community. It is unconscionable for a list
that
is committed to building community to tolerate such statements
particularly when the accusers have repeatedly failed to provide any
factual support for their statements.
How can we build community when we tolerate such nonsense?
Such statements are defamatory. The individuals who have made them have
failed to provide appear to have no reasonable basis for making them.
As
such they are subject of liability for the damage that they cause.
The internet is widely hailed as inherently democratic and empowering:
it
allows individuals to broadcast their beliefs widely. This list seems
dedicated to the proposition that free exchange of ideas is good. But
democracy requires that speakers accept responsibility for their
statements. There is no place in the free exchange of ideas willful or
reckless defamation of individuals.
Dale Goble
Moscow