Claims Of Freedom Research Articles

The Parameter-Free Track Structure Model of Scholz and Kraft for Heavy-Ion Cross Sections

The "parameter-free", "local effects" theory of Scholz and Kraft is an extension to mammalian cells of the theory of RBE for dry enzymes and viruses of Butts and Katz. Its claim for parameter freedom has been challenged elsewhere. Here we examine its conceptual base and find errors in its use of the physical concept of cross section and its neglect of the radiobiological relationship between target size and radiosensitivity in evaluating the radiation damage to "point targets".

To "Corroborate Our Own Claims": Public Positioning and the Slavery Metaphor in Revolutionary America

The widespread use of the metaphor of slavery in the rhetoric of the American Revolution sparked intense moral debate about the legitimacy of Whig claims for freedom. When royalists, African Americans, and other abolitionists pointed out the hypocrisy of the patriots' words, many Whig leaders began to denounce the reality of slavery rather than relinquish the trope they used to define the crisis. Many texts, however, such as Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence, suggest that Whigs did so primarily to strengthen a weak rhetorical position. While such texts built an influential antislavery argument, they also help to explain the conservative reaction that took place once independence had been achieved.

Vouchers and Religious Schools: The New Constitutional Questions

In Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002), the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of including religious schools in programs of vouchers given to families for elementary and secondary education. Zelman indicates that most carefully designed voucher programs that include religious schools will survive challenge under the First Amendment's Establishment Clause. Part I of the Article explains that conclusion. But despite its importance, Zelman represents only the first round in the legal battle over whether families should be able to use tuition grants at religiously affiliated schools. The second round is already underway, with lawsuits challenging various state constitutional provisions and laws that may bar the use of a state's tuition benefits at religious schools even if the Establishment Clause permits it. The Supreme Court has just granted cert. in Davey v. Locke to address such a state provision. Part II examines this round of questions, and concludes that there is a strong case that state provisions that specifically bar the use of educational benefits at religious schools violate the First Amendment by discriminating against religion in violation of the Free Exercise Clause, by discriminating against religious expression in violation of the Free Speech Clause, or at least by imposing an unconstitutional condition on the receipt of state educational benefits. If a state makes vouchers available for use at private schools, it must authorize their use at religious schools as well. Finally, even if a school is not excluded from participation in a choice plan just because it is religious, it might be excluded because of other conditions on participation. A voucher-eligible school might be required to refrain from discriminating based on various characteristics - race, sex, religion, sexual orientation - in hiring employees or in admitting students. It might be required to teach certain subjects, or refrain from certain teaching certain ideas. If those conditions conflict with the practices of a private school, religious or secular, the school might challenge its disqualification, again with First Amendment claims of freedom of speech, association, or religion. Part III analyzes those constitutional objections, and concludes that they present a more mixed case than the exclusion of schools solely because they are religious. Some of these non-religious conditions are subject to strong challenge, but others are more likely to be upheld.

Copying for Religious Reasons: A Comment on Principles of Copyright and Religious Freedom

A growing number of copyright cases involve disputes over the copying of religious texts by defendants who claim a religious need to use them. The interplay of copyright and religious freedom raises complex and interesting issues. This comment makes two points. First, although accommodation of the interests of some religious users of a religious texts is justified, the accommodation is likely to come through copyright law itself, and not through an independent claim of religious freedom. To put it another way, in a case where copyright law prohibits the copying by a religious user, courts are unlikely to declare any exemption from the copyright law because of religious freedom principles - and indeed, they should be relatively reluctant to declare an exemption. Although I generally defend the idea of exempting religious exercise from some laws in order to preserve religious freedom, I offer a number of reasons why free exercise exemptions are, and should be, infrequent with respect to copyright law. With respect to each of these reasons, however, I also enter some caveats. Broad liability for copyright infringement can interfere with religious freedom. Such interference can mostly be prevented by proper interpretation of copyright law, in particular the fair use doctrine, and part II presents the copyright-based arguments for shielding certain religious uses through copyright doctrines. This part also attempts to define exactly what the line should be between permissible and impermissible religious uses. But if copyright law is not up to the task of protecting religious uses - if liability doctrines are interpreted too broadly, and defenses such as fair use too narrowly - then a religious-use exemption may occasionally be necessary.

Targeted screening of high-risk cattle populations for BSE to augment mandatory reporting of clinical suspects

In Switzerland, the first case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was diagnosed in November 1990. Case numbers peaked in 1995, with a total of 352 BSE cases identified by 30 April 2000. Reporting of clinically suspect cattle is currently the most commonly used method world-wide to detect BSE cases. The effectiveness of mandatory reporting depends on a variety of factors; for other diseases passive surveillance underestimates the incidence of clinical cases. The efficiency of passive surveillance systems for BSE will remain unknown until screening tests able to identify clinically affected cattle have been applied in several countries. This paper provides the first detailed description of a targeted screening programme for BSE. Two populations of cows >24 months of age were included in the targeted screening: (i) cows found dead or culled on site where the carcass was submitted to rendering (fallen stock) and (ii) cows with health-related problems unfit for routine slaughter that were slaughtered under emergency procedures (emergency slaughter). Between 1992 and 1999, on average 81 clinical BSE suspects per year were reported to the veterinary authorities (passive surveillance), of which 43% were confirmed with BSE. A total of 30 clinical cases were captured by passive surveillance and an additional 20 BSE cases detected by targeted screening between May 1999 and April 2000. The odds of finding a BSE case was 49 times higher in the fallen stock and 58 times higher in emergency-slaughtered cattle when compared to passive surveillance. The targeted screening of fallen stock and emergency-slaughtered cattle considerably increased the number of detected cases in this 12-month period. Targeted-screening cases were on average 4 months younger than the clinical suspect cases. In conclusion, post-mortem testing of fallen stock and emergency-slaughtered cows >24 months for BSE is an important active surveillance element within a total surveillance system that principally is based on mandatory reporting of clinical suspect cases. Without ante-mortem screening tests to detect BSE-infected cattle during the incubation period, a combination of effectively functioning passive and active BSE surveillance strategies might be the only approach to assess the BSE situation reliably in a given country or region — and it is necessary to substantiate claims of freedom from the disease.

A Balancing Act: Competing Claims for Academic Freedom

A Balancing Act: Competing Claims for Academic Freedom

Religion, Law, and the Land: Native Americans and the Judicial Interpretation of Sacred Land. Contributions in Legal Studies

Religious freedom claims by Native Americans (or American Indians)' have not merely presented the most interesting and challenging cases to arise under the American constitutional law of religious freedom. They have, in modem times, actually dominated and driven the development of that most difficult area of constitutional doctrine. Sadly, the results have been bad for both Indian religion and First Amendment jurisprudence. This is reflected most notably in three landmark cases during the late 1980s in which the U.S. Supreme Court considered and rejected Indian claims under the First Amendment's Free Exercise of Religion Clause. The grand finale of that line was the famous Oregon case involving peyote use by adherents of the Native American Church, which led a 5-4 majority of the Court to revolutionize (many would say to gut) religious freedom law.2 That case led, in turn, to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA), which in turn was struck down by the Court in 1997.3

Voters' Rights and Parties' Wrongs: Early Political Party Regulation in the State Courts, 1886-1915

Departing from the traditional focus on twentieth century federal electoral regulation and federal court decisions in election law, Adam Winkler examines the very first cases to decide the constitutionality of regulations governing political parties: those arising in the state courts from the 1880s to the 1910s. In these cases, which have escaped the notice of modern election law scholars, judges confronted the initial state regulations controlling the activities, nomination practices, membership rules, and internal governance mechanisms of political parties. Across the country, courts rejected the argument that political parties were private voluntary associations immune from state regulation on freedom of association grounds. Courts relied instead on a framework that melded an expansive understanding of the individual's right to vote, which included access to nomination practices and a say in party governance, with a profound fear of the corruption of party leaders, who were blamed for the chaos, violence, and fraud of late nineteenth century elections. Reforms were upheld to the extent they were perceived to advance these twin aims of expanding voters' rights and limiting parties' wrongs, regardless of the curtailment of party associational freedoms. Due to the widespread fear of party leaders' corrupting influence on elections, especially primaries and caucuses, the courts gave little weight to party claims of freedom of association. The impact of this history of the state court response to party and ballot reform on current electoral controversies -- such as two-party entrenchment -- and scholarly debates -- relating to the structure of political parties, the conservative character of Progressive era courts, and turn-of-the-century state-building is also assessed.

A national serological survey to verify Australia's freedom from porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome.

To provide serological data to support Australia's claim of freedom from porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome. A national serological survey was designed to provide 99% confidence of detecting at least one infected pig herd in Australia, assuming that at least 5% of herds would have been exposed to porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus and that at least 25% of the 'finisher' pigs in these herds would have antibodies to the virus. A two-stage testing regime was used. All samples were tested with a commercially available enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. If assay reactions were found, all samples from the herd were to be tested using the indirect immunofluorescence antibody assay. Of the 875 samples from 163 herds from all States in Australia, there was some evidence of reactivity in only four samples from four herds on the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Further testing using the indirect immunofluorescence antibody assay according to the study protocol demonstrated that the reactions were not due to the presence of specific porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus antibodies in the sera. The results of this study support the view that Australian pigs are free of porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus.

Vom Nebo ins gelobte Land. Erfahrene Rechtfertigung — von Karl Holl zu Rudolf Hermann

Justification is the metaphorical occurence of God's righteousness. This is God's judgment concerning reality (Gottes wirklichkeitsurteil) and is made as a promise to sinners in order that God becomes >justified simul iustus et peccator<. The praxis of this judgment is grounded in God's promise at baptism which is interpreted as a sacrament of Jesus Christ. Praxis of judgment takes place within an imagery of time, which has to lead to the mystery of Christian freedom as the freedom of participating in God's time as a creature. This creatural freedom claims to be perceived theologically as a freedom of judgment. Included with this idea of freedom of judgment is the notion that it is able to endanger itself. Karl Holl's political theology of November 1918 is the example of such a danger.

From Margaret Mead's Field Notes: What Counted as “Sex” in Samoa?

AbstractsDerek Freeman based his criticism of Margaret Mead's claim of sexual freedom for adolescent girls in Samoa on two premises. The first—that there was a “cult of virginity”—has been disproved by scholars. The second—that the low incidence of premarital pregnancy precluded sexual freedom—has not been adequately addressed. Sexual freedom and a low incidence of pregnancy were not mutually exclusive. The key lies in consideration of what counted as sex in Samoa at the time.

Reproduction and Rights: A Response to Dorothy Roberts: [Commentary

We live in a liberal, rights-based society and gain immeasurably from the stability and freedom such a society offers. Yet some persons are highly critical of a rights-based approach to public issues. They think that an emphasis on rights ignores and political realities and hurts persons who lack the power or resources needed to exercise rights effectively. Dorothy Roberts's critical review of Children of Choice: Freedom and the New Reproductive Technologies is an example of the war on rights now being waged in many academic circles.' Although she grudgingly admits the importance of some rights, she is highly critical of my focus on negative procreative rights and my unwillingness to argue for positive rights for public funding of procreative services. She fears that a commitment to individual autonomy in reproduction can be achieved only at the expense of real social thereby further entrenching unjust social hierarchies (pp. 1006, 1016). In her view, claims of procreative freedom are seriously deficient unless they incorporate more fully concerns about equality (p. 1006). Despite her primary concern with issues of social justice, more than two-thirds of her essay is criticism of the book from within the liberal paradigm itself, questioning whether there is an independent basis for valuing procreative liberty and whether my account of tangible harms that justify

Bohemia's Claim for Freedom

Bohemia's Claim for Freedom

X—Natural Powers and Human Abilities

of the commonest and most legitimate usages of the phrases 'could' and 'could not' is to express a difference, which often really does hold, between two things, neither of which did actually happen... I could have walked a mile in 2o minutes this morning, but I certainly could have run two miles in 5 minutes. I did not, in fact, do either of these two things; but it is pure nonsense to say that the mere fact that I did not, does away with the distinction between them, which I express by saying that the one was within my powers, whereas the other was not (G. E. Moore, Ethics, p. 206). But the stillvexed question is what this sense of 'can' is, how it is to be understood, and especially, whether it can be understood in such a way as to reconcile the apparently conflicting claims of causal determinism and human freedom. One such 'can' is the 'can' which ascribes powers to inaminate objects (This car can do 70mph) or abilities to human agents (This man can swim), for it is clear enough that things can possess powers and agents abilities even when they are actually exercising those powers and abilities. I want to sketch an account of this 'can'-and it will be merely a sketch, a contribution to current discussion, a precise analysis-which will bring out the essential similarity, though also some difference, between powers and abilities, as well as indicating that this is the 'can' crucial to the free will debate. The verbal distinction between 'natural power' and 'human ability' is, of course, mere terminology on my part, and nothing crucial to my argument should turn on it.

Higher Education: Challenge and Possibilities

Many in and out of the profession are increasingly concerned about the threat of big ess and con tinued expansion to teaching and to the entire educa tional process. We must, all of us, confront the threat with honesty and courage. Instead of bemoaning what is perhaps inevitable except in a very few schools, we must make the most serious efforts to keep our struc tures human and personal. Administrators in particular must give this problem major consideration. Teachers, not so much by statement as by example, must show a concern for the quality and relevancy of their teaching and research, a sensitivity to the needs and expectations of the young people who sit in class and seminar. They must, with an eye constantly on the future, develop dif ferent modes for the educational encounter, and find new ways of strengthening modes that have proved valuable. They must find techniques of making the lec ture a better vehicle for the flow of ideas, of making the seminar a genuine clearing house for new findings and insights. They must explore the many possibilities of informal settings, from the living room to the university commons to the dining hall, as opportunities for the sort of small, person to person exchange of viewpoint that may prove a true paradigm for the experience of five, ten, and twenty years hence. Suggested here is the need for innovation, not as a goal in itself, not at the expense of the professional de mands made on all of us, but as a way of breathing freshness into the consideration of the great questions of literature, history, and philosophy, of all the areas that a university takes as its province. What is further sug gested is that this innovation is the responsibility not just of teachers who are most intimately involved in the classroom situation, but of deans, provosts, even busy presidents, those more closely associated with guiding the programs, planning, and financial priorities of the campuses. No sooner does one advance the case for a greater degree of personality in the university than he faces the very relevant question of how all of this is related to the large questions of the professor's specific responsibility to his profession. Many modern academic sins can, of course, be tied to the cult of personality. Teaching as a kind of demonstration of virtuosity for large, uncritical audiences, as an expression of a certain exhibitionist temperament ; the great breaking down of proper divid ing lines between professor and student; the caricatur ing of research that all too often serves as a defense of one's own inadequacies; all of these are matters too clear to need much amplification. And yet they are real problems that in the long run may make higher educa tion into a great leveling process ; a 20th century version of the Academy of Lagado, or a bargain basement epi sode removed from truly human concerns. I suppose I am proposing my own variation of Whitehead's rhyth mic claims of freedom and discipline as an answer to the tension I suggest, or my own version of Keats' poet in The Fall of Hyperion, a man not a dreamer but one committed to the real and the human.

The Incidence of Labour-Service in the Old Babylonian Period

SCHOLARS RECOGNISED long ago that the corvee was a permanent feature of life in ancient Mesopotamia, which must have existed from the very earliest times. Indeed, under the conditions which prevailed in this first hydraulic society, it could hardly have been otherwise. Large gangs of men were needed to dig and maintain canals and irrigation ditches, and were employed upon a wide range of other works as well. When an institution is so all pervasive, it tends to be taken for granted, and to arouse little contemporary comment. However, there was one aspect of the corvee which did attract attention and leave its mark on the surviving evidence. However necessary forced labour may be, it can never be popular. It formed a natural point of friction between the Crown and its subjects, and granted its necessity, could also act as a source of dispute between different social groups, each trying to unload its burden upon the others. Both these points are niade perfectly clear by the well-known text babylonische Firstenspiegel, I which classes the imposition of forced labour upon the citizens of Nippur, Sippar and Babylon as one of the most heinous offences of which a king could be guilty. The exemptions claimed in this text have a very long history,2 but the very frequency with which they were conceded shows that they were precariously held and often infringed. And if the citizens of these great and ancient cities were not always able to avoid service, we may be sure that the obligations of the other inhabitants of Babylonia were heavy and difficult to avoid. Unfortunately, the evidence which we possess is scanty and hard to interpret, especially as regards the incidence of service which fell upon the different classes of society. In this paper, I propose to examine this problem on the basis of the royal proclamations of the Isin-Larsa period. The other evidence which we possess from Old Babylonian times has in recent years been greatly enriched by the publication of the texts from Mari. However these consist principally of letters and administrative records and deal with practice rather than policy, and it will be more convenient to handle them separately.3 We may take as the starting point of our enquiry a passage from the Prologue to the Code of Lipit-Istar, which has recently been published in a considerably improved version.4 This offers fresh information upon the period of service which was demanded the Crown under the dynasty of Isin, and the basis upon which it was levied. Lipit-Istar claims that he had, upon the instructions of Enlil, established justice in the land, and goes on: I (re) established the liberty of the 1 F. M. Th. Bohl, MAOG, XI. 3 (1937). Most recently published as Advice to a Prince, in W. G. Lambert's Babylonian Wisdom Literature, pp. 110 ff. and plates 31 and 32. The lines which deal with the corvee are 23-30, dealing with a direct royal imposition of labour, and 55-59, dealing with forced labour on the temples of the gods. I hope it is not too cynical to point out that since only divine sanctions are called down upon the guilty king, it may be that the citizens themselves had only slight powers to affect the issue. However, it is important to compare this claim for freedom from both forms of service with UMBS V 66 V 1'-14', where Ime-Dagan of Isin frees the citizens of Nippur from military service in order to work on the temples of Enlil and other gods. 2 Those recorded from the Isin-Larsa period have been collected by D. 0. Edzard in Der ' zweite Zwischenzeit ' Babyloniens, see especially pp. 80 ff. It is from this work that the last two ref s. in the previous note were drawn. Since I have taken the liberty to differ from Dr. Edzard on certain points of interpretation, it is all the more necessary to stress my dependence on his work (henceforth ZZB) in this paper. 8 I hope to deal with the evidence from Mari shortly in another paper. There were a number of problems of method which made it difficult to include a discussion of this material here. 4ZZB, pp. 95-98. According to his note 470 on p. 96, this passage has also been discussed by I. M. D'yakonov, in Vestnik Drevnei Istorii, 1952.3, p. 220, note 15, which I have not seen. Nor is the translation and Commentary upon the Code by A. Falkenstein and M. san Nicolk, Orientalia, 19 (1950), pp. 103-118 yet available to me. See F. R. Steele, The Code of Lipit-Itar, Museum Monographs, University of Pennsylvania (reprinted from AJA, 52 (1948), pp. 424-450), and E. Szlechter, Le Code de Lipit-IJtar, RA, 51 (1957), p. 57 ff., with commentary in following numbers.

The Growth of Thought in Society

A MOVEMENT denying the justification of pure science was started in England in 193I by a group of Soviet delegates, including Bucharin and Hessen,2 at an International Congress of the History of Science, held in that year in London. It has been carried on since with considerable success by a number of able writers, mostly Marxists, under the leadership of L. Hogben, J. D. Bernal, and J. G. Crowther. As a result the idea of pure science is considered to-day as obsolete and reactionary by most of the scientists who take an active interest in the position of science in society. Though such scientists form a comparatively small minority, they have now brought considerable influence to bear on important organisations and publications dealing with scientific policy. The doctrine of this school can be summed up in three points. (i) Pure science, as distinct from scientific technology, has no real existence. All science, pure or applied, arises in response to the specific practical needs of contemporary society. The ideals of a disinterested search for truth and of the cultivation of science for its own sake are unsocial and futile.3 (2) Modern science in the last 300 years pursued this wrong tendency, which must now be replaced by a social control of science in the interests of the community.4 It follows that resistance of scientists to social control of research and their claim for freedom of research is unreasonable. (3) Instead of urging such claims, scientists ought to join in the struggle for the establishment of the right kind of political power, which may be expected to advance science in the right direction.5

The Speaker’s Claim for Freedom of Speech, 1604

Journal Article The Speaker’s Claim for Freedom of Speech, 1604 Get access F. G. MARCHAM F. G. MARCHAM Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The English Historical Review, Volume XLIV, Issue CLXXV, July 1929, Pages 453–454, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/XLIV.CLXXV.453 Published: 01 July 1929