Supreme Court on Nude Dancing

Two side-by-side reports on the front page (June 22) were frightening.

In “Ban on Nude Dancing Backed by High Court,” David G. Savage reports that “Government has the authority to protect ‘societal order and morality,’ including the power to forbid ‘expressive activity’ within the confines of a private establishment, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist said for the court.”

In “Gorbachev Puts Down Threat by Hard-Liners,” Michael Parks reports that in response to his efforts for radical political and economic reforms in the Soviet Union, Gorbachev said, “The people understand that now is the time for concrete action, a time when delays will kill. Yet we have people who do not like this. . . . At any forum, in the mass media, at the plenums of the (Communist Party) Central Committee, beyond the scenes, they are working to impose their opinions on us, to impose their visions, their policies.”

I’m confused. Which is the dictatorship and which is the democracy?

NORMAN N. ALPERIN, Rancho Palos Verdes