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From: nrh@buzz.bellcore.com (Nat Howard)
Newsgroups: soc.women,news.admin
Subject: Re: I ain't afraid of no Batwoman
Message-ID: <2178@bellcore.bellcore.com>
Date: Wed, 31-Dec-69 18:59:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: bellcore.2178
Posted: Wed Dec 31 18:59:59 1969
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Reply-To: nrh@bellcore.bellcore.com (Nat Howard)
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Morristown NJ
Lines: 26
Keywords: censorship silencing
Xref: mnetor soc.women:6615 news.admin:895

Joe Buck draws an important distinction between what was said and what
was done, and then errs by saying that what was said by Mr. 
Nobody (instructions on how to sabotage someone) is somehow 
more worthy of censorship than instructions *to* censor someone.

Let's leave the censorship ideas to folks afflicted with central
controls, shall we?  And at the same time let's recognize that 
yes, news admins implementing censorship are doing something
incredibly tacky and inviting reprisal.

To my mind, the *advocacy* of censorship (either in the form of
"Just do this to get rid of X's postings" or in the form:
"News Admins of the world, UNITE -- and blow this guy's postings away")
are equally misguided.

It's rather like having the Nazis march in Skokie: what they say is
monstrous, evil, disgusting, and small-minded, but so long as they
confine themselves to *saying* things (however awful) they are not
engaged in activities that should bring down *administrative* 
controls on them.    Free speech includes speech advocating non-free-speech.

For the record, I'd be interested in who Mr. Nobody is, but then I was the
sort of boy who used to turn over rocks to see what was under them.

Any followups dealing mainly with the Skokie incident, or 
with free speech in general should go to talk.politics.misc, please.