Xref: utzoo soc.motss:19813 talk.rumors:3131 news.admin:6779 news.misc:3568
Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!purdue!bu-cs!buengc!bph
From: bph@buengc.BU.EDU (Blair P. Houghton)
Newsgroups: soc.motss,talk.rumors,news.admin,news.misc
Subject: Re: USENET site admin responsibilities (was: Re: Censorship is for Wusses)
Message-ID: <4076@buengc.BU.EDU>
Date: 8 Sep 89 16:44:26 GMT
References: <13316@nsc.nsc.com> <3988@buengc.BU.EDU> <1989Sep3.043558.9447@xenitec.uucp> <4030@buengc.BU.EDU> <89250.001226HERSCHEL@AUVM> <1682@convex.UUCP>
Reply-To: bph@buengc.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton)
Followup-To: soc.motss
Organization: Boston Univ. Col. of Eng.
Lines: 77

In article <1682@convex.UUCP> swarren@eugene.UUCP (Steve Warren) writes:
>In article <89250.001226HERSCHEL@AUVM> HERSCHEL@AUVM.BITNET (Herschel Browne) writes:
>Give me a break.  The only nations where for-profit corporations have
>been abolished are no longer able to even feed their own populations.

Neither are most of the rest.

You confuse many things with for-profit-economy efficacy.  Take a course
or two in Development Economics, then we can discuss this as an argument
of opinion, rather than forcing my pedantry into the open.

Meanwhile, economics isn't the issue.  It's completely irrelevant, except
as a lame rationalization of the corporate desire to silence sedition.

It doesn't justify censorship of a free person.  None of us is owned,
whether employed or not.  A corporate entity does not have the right
to force its employees to speak or not to speak.

(I know.  You're going to come back with trite whining of "well, you
don't have to work there, you know."  I wish it were so for most
people.  They don't even earn the moral dignity that comes from losing
a job for a cause, they just get laid off.  You don't have to work
anywhere, except maybe the first place that guarantees your family
its food.  The coercion implicit in that tenuous situation at most
jobs is enough to keep the workers blind, deaf, and dumb.)

>In order to survive they are forced to once again recognize private
>property and the right to profit from one's own possessions.  Human
>nature is such that people refuse to spend their lives working when
>there is no direct tangible benefit to themselves as a result of their
>labor.

And this, of course, is sufficient cause to eliminate freedom.

Human nature is such that when large entities begin to take away our
power to control our own destinies we band together by the force of our
voices and revolt against those tyrants.  We are about fifty years
overdue for a revolution, and it's attitudes like yours that will make
us want to have one.  Keep it up.

>Your wish to remove profit oriented corporations from the earth reveals
>the bankrupt motive for your argument.  It also reveals a foolish lack
>of understanding of basic human nature, as well as a frightening refusal
>to learn anything from the history of the nations that now exist.

And this, of course, is sufficient cause to eliminate freedom.

(Irrelevant note:  it also sounds a lot like the "reasons we hate the
Jews" speeches Hitler gave.  Lots of prejudice based on incomplete
historical analyses.  It ain't quite the same level of hysteria, but
it's the same basic shade of yellow.)

>As for net censorship, I expect that behavior that is damaging to the
>organization that is funding the net connection will generate a response
>of some kind from them.  Every organization, for-profit or not, tends
>to fight for its own reputation and ultimately for its survival.  Those
>organizations that are not responsive cease to exist.  This is not a
>moral question, merely a fact of reality.

And this, of course, is sufficient cause to eliminate freedom.

You are saying that capitalism -- free economy -- is anathema to free
speech and thereby to free thought.  Someone ought to tell Thomas
Jefferson he got it backwards.

[Disclaimer??]
>Obviously these are my opinions and not those of my employers.

MY ASS!  You're saying exactly the sort of thing that they would dearly
pay a public relations staff to devise.  Obviously, you don't have
a very sure awareness of your opinions.

				--Blair
				  "I would hope that BU would
				   be proud to see one of its
				   own arguing against its
				   corporacy."