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From: mat@mtx5a.UUCP (m.terribile)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,net.legal,soc.singles
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Officer, arrest that man!  He...he manipulated my emotions!!
Message-ID: <1581@mtx5a.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 27-Sep-86 20:14:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: mtx5a.1581
Posted: Sat Sep 27 20:14:34 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 30-Sep-86 00:43:24 EDT
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Xref: linus talk.politics.misc:427 net.legal:4870 soc.singles:270

> >>But I do like your style -- it echoes that of another poster seen on certain
> >>other groups, an author with whom I have locked horns a few times (his
> >>choice!), an author who makes humor and deciBel level substitute for clear
> >>thought about facts and feelings.  It's brilliant, in a Primitive sort of
> >>way.  I'm amused by its presumption ;^} ...
> 
> And who could Mark possibly be referring to?  Does he eat cheeseburgers?

Ok, Mikki, it's unfair to compare Muffin Cosmique with Whoopee Franqueesi the
All Dopey and his Prophet ...  You're right, and I apologize to both of them.

> >Really?  ...Gosh.  And I thought you did it with mirrors.  
> >Oh... you couldn't have... that implies a shiny chrome vibrator ...? B-)
> Chrome, Dorothy?  I thought it was bronzed.

Wasn't (and isn't) bronze used as an anti-friction alloy?

> In fact, I thought it used to
> belong to a certain individual on the net who implies that the government
> should control our "prurient interests" because it is obvious that *we*
> can't.  But he doesn't believe that other "manipulators of emotion", for
> example, preachers on the 700 club who show pictures of starving kids and
> ask for money, nor anti-abortion people who show pictures of chopped up
> fetuses should be regulated in this way.  Even though those preachers
> bankrupt little old ladies, and those pictures incite people to throw bombs
> at health clinics that may be performing abortions.

Hmm.  If I could prohibit people who don't feed starving kids from showing
pictures of starvng kids, I would.  You are alleging, I think, that religion
is used as a front for a confidence racket.  If this is true, I want to see the
confidence racket stopped as much as you want to see the religion stopped.
By the way, if the money *really is* going to feed hungry children ... let's
just say that it was ... what would be ignoble about an old woman with un-
grateful heirs turning most of her money over to the care of those children?

> Forgive me for bringing up abortion in this group.

Which is why I will not belabor the net with the obvious reply.  I'm not
angry with you.

> I'm afraid it is not enough said.  Nor will it be until people stop trying
> to run our lives for us.

Does that include the advertisers who entice you to buy their product?  Does
it include the people whose notion of ``public decency'' in some way exceeds
the notion of ``minimum common morality''?  Does it include the offenders whose
illness is pandered to and encouraged (even if not *caused*) by certain types
of published matter?

Lots of people influence your life.  Some of them do not have the right to.  We
are trying to consider which ones do and which ones don't and what means are
appropriate for them to use.

An aside to another poster: Yes, the Chernobyl point was exaggerated; I
admitted it before I even made it!  But it does point out some advantages to
a conservative approach to things.
-- 

	from Mole End			Mark Terribile
		(scrape .. dig )	mtx5b!mat
					(Please mail to mtx5b!mat, NOT mtx5a!
						mat, or to mtx5a!mtx5b!mat)
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