Xref: utzoo news.admin:6729 news.misc:3551
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!sun-barr!texsun!texbell!splut!jay
From: jay@splut.conmicro.com (Jay "you ignorant splut!" Maynard)
Newsgroups: news.admin,news.misc
Subject: Re: USENET site admin responsibilities (was: Re: Censorship is for Wusses)
Message-ID: <2863@splut.conmicro.com>
Date: 4 Sep 89 06:41:41 GMT
References: <3659@uwovax.uwo.ca> <13316@nsc.nsc.com> <3988@buengc.BU.EDU> <1989Sep3.043558.9447@xenitec.uucp> <4030@buengc.BU.EDU> <2860@splut.conmicro.com> <4034@buengc.BU.EDU>
Reply-To: jay@splut.conmicro.com (Jay "you ignorant splut!" Maynard)
Followup-To: news.misc
Organization: Confederate Microsystems, League City, TX
Lines: 43

In article <4034@buengc.BU.EDU> bph@buengc.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton) writes:
>In article <2860@splut.conmicro.com> jay@splut.conmicro.com (Jay "you ignorant splut!" Maynard) writes:
>>In article <4030@buengc.BU.EDU> bph@buengc.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton) writes:
>>264 lines of argument based on an invalid assumption: that there is such
>>a thing as freedom of speech on the net.
>Read on and see where you are very, very much mistaken.

Uh huh. The rest of the article, reproduced in its entirety below,
doesn't live up to the promise.

>>Sorry, Blair, but it doesn't work that way in the real world. Them that
>>has the gold makes the rules. There is no more freedom of speech on any
>>site than those who own the system allow. If you think that there should
>>be freedom of speech on my site, send me $5000, and I'll sell you the
>>computer; otherwise, stop trying to tell me how to run it.
>I don't tell you how to run it.  You may remove as many users as you
>wish simply because you may do so.  The buengc administrators may yank
>my account simply by saying, "we own this box," and I am powerless and
>have no controverting argument.
>However, if they lock me out and say "we disagree with your opinions,"
>or "we don't let blacks use Usenet," then they are wrong.

By telling me that I can't use whatever criterion I fancy to determine
who may and may not use my system, you are telling me how to run it.
It so happens that I allow anyone who has access to my system (a fairly
small circle of friends) unrestricted access to read and post news, but
that's solely because I'm a helluva nice guy. I have the right to remove
anyone's access from my system, or anyone's posting privileges on my
system, for any reason I desire. This right is inherent in my ownership
and maintenance of the system. It is a right that you _cannot_ take from
me short of buying my system.

You don't say above why that is wrong; you merely assert that it is. I
believe that my ownership rights to the system prevail over someone
else's right to use that system contrary to my wishes. You have a right
to say what you desire, but you do not have a right to force me to
provide you with a microphone to speak through.

-- 
Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL   | Never ascribe to malice that which can
jay@splut.conmicro.com       (eieio)| adequately be explained by stupidity.
{attctc,bellcore}!texbell!splut!jay +----------------------------------------
"The unkindest thing you can do for a hungry man is to give him food." - RAH