Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!lll-winken!grover.llnl.gov!howell
From: howell@grover.llnl.gov (Louis Howell)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: Judge for Yourself
Keywords: Fact Fancy Paranoid Bizarre
Message-ID: <69259@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV>
Date: 4 Oct 90 17:54:28 GMT
References: <1084@lsicom2.UU.NET> <6432@hub.ucsb.edu> <1990Oct04.001804.18056@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu>
Sender: usenet@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV
Reply-To: howell@grover.llnl.gov (Louis Howell)
Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Lines: 44

In article <1990Oct04.001804.18056@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu>, zippy@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Patrick Tufts) writes:
|> This is the slippery slope arguement (yes, I know all of you know
|> this, but hell, IO had to open with something! :-).  Of course, you
|> can say the same about anything:
|> 
|> 	once we keep guns from some peoples hands, we'll
|> 	keep 'em from everyone's.
|> 
|> 	If we make this illegal, then what's to stop "them"
|> 	from making this, this, and this illegal?
|> 
|> The point is, with any restrictions we must draw limits.  For example,
|> censorship _does_ occur.  Take your local public school library - do

Just because restrictions do occur, that doesn't mean people agree on
where to draw the line.  I lean toward libertarian sympathies myself,
and I find it more helpful to think in terms of "keeping the fight on
the enemy's territory" than the slippery slope.  It is much better to
be fighting for rights you don't really care about, than to be in real
danger of losing rights that really matter.

For instance, I haven't the slightest desire to own a fully automatic
weapon or armor-piercing bullets.  I would much rather see the political
battles be fought over these items, though, than over my right to own
a target pistol.  Therefore it makes sense for me to oppose controls
on weapons I don't want to own myself.

Censorship works the same way.  I don't really care whether or not I
can get pornography over the net.  I've got better things to do with
my time.  But I oppose attempts by anyone to censor network traffic,
even pornography, since that helps keep the battle away from the
material that does matter to me.

If you say to yourself, "It's not my fight", then next year it might
very well BE your fight.  If that happens, you would want as many
allies as possible, no?

-- 
Louis Howell

  "A few sums!" retorted Martens, with a trace of his old spirit.  "A major
navigational change, like the one needed to break us away from the comet
and put us on an orbit to Earth, involves about a hundred thousand separate
calculations.  Even the computer needs several minutes for the job."