On 7/20/2020 9:13 AM, Rebecca Chandler wrote:
While I and others on the board do not agree with the
> contents of the letter, it is important to the integrity of the
> organization to allow our members to express themselves without censorship.
This is a statement with which I profoundly disagree. Mr. Nauck
publishes a catalog of auction offerings, and he used to occasionally
append his opinions on political matters to the catalog. There is no
censorship of those expressions; he has an absolute right under the
First Amendment to express those opinions and publish them in his
catalogs, and I would vehemently oppose any attempt to censor their
expression in those catalogs -- for example, by the denying to him of
bulk-mailing privileges.
That doesn't mean or imply that ARSC is under any obligation to provide
a platform for those opinions; it is not, and in my opinion it should
not be. All opinions are not created equal, and this opinion at this
time is inflammatory and potentially harmful. The editors may, at their
discretion, grant the privilege of appearing in the newsletter to
members who have expertise in a particular area. Mr. Nauck can claim
particular expertise in the compensation curves appropriate for playing
78 rpm records; he's co-authored a book on the subject. He does not
carry any matching expertise in the enormously complex area of race
relations in America; he's simply a guy with strong opinions on the
subject. As I said, Mr. Nauck has an absolute right to hold those
opinions, and to express them in the catalogs he publishes; if he wants
to feature a record called "There's a Coon in the White House", as he
did at the beginning of the Obama Administration, that's his right under
the constitution, but I see no reason for the ARSC to provide him with a
platform for promulgating those opinions, and think that the editors of
the newsletter made a significant mistake by doing that.
Peace,
Paul Stamler
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