The  problem with  this type  of discussions  is that  they are  strongly
affected by cultural biases. Consider these two examples.
 
Bill  Clinton,  President  of  the  USA,  is  said  to  have  engaged  in
miscellaneous sexual activities with a woman in a van somewhere in a back
road in  Arkansas. Everyone  knows about this,  because the  press talked
about it big time.  Bill Clinton has spent a lot  of time protesting that
he did not  in fact do anything  of the sort. Time  which, obviously, was
not spent  running the country,  but obviously  Bill Clinton felt  it was
crucial to his success as a US  President to invest all that time warding
off the blows.  Some people think the whole story  was fabricated to harm
the president, some think the woman is looking for $$$, etc.
 
Francois Mitterand, President of France, had  a mistress 20 years ago. At
that  time he  was  58, and  the  woman  was much  younger.  They had  an
"accident" and the woman decided to keep  the baby. This did not come out
when he  ran for  the presidential  elections in  1981, even  though some
journalists knew. When he ran again in  1988, most of the press knew, and
it still  did not come  out. It came  out recently, through  a journalist
that decided to write  a book while the president is  still alive and the
potential for $$$ is highest. This  journalist is now being flamed by the
rest of the press, including the papers that ordinarily devote a third of
their space to flaming the president. The journalists feel it was totally
unethical  to mix  the  president's  private and  public  life. Even  the
opposing parties said  they "regretted" that this happened,  or that this
was a "very unfortunate" incident.
 
Well, I'm  sure one could put  American and French journalists  in a room
and ask them to discuss these issues.  It would be a total waste of time,
though.  The situation  is  very much  the same  with  issues related  to
freedom,  authority, control,  etc. You  can talk  all you  want and  get
nowhere. Journalists  who think  control is evil  will continue  to think
list owners  are out  there to  bash people's  constitutionally protected
rights to freedom. Journalists who think  control keeps some order in the
discussion will  not begin  to worry  about freedom  of speech.  A couple
percent might  change their  mind, and meanwhile  the silent  majority of
people who're not interested in this discussion will start signing off.
 
  Eric