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From: rhonda@chinet.UUCP
Newsgroups: alt.flame
Subject: Re: Rhonda, Professional Adult
Message-ID: <1611@chinet.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 22-Sep-87 17:50:02 EDT
Article-I.D.: chinet.1611
Posted: Tue Sep 22 17:50:02 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 25-Sep-87 04:49:30 EDT
References: <8709070142.AA00636@ragu> <20534@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: rhonda@chinet.UUCP (Rhonda Scribner)
Organization: Chinet - Public Access Unix
Lines: 61

In article <2997@hoptoad.uucp> tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney) writes:
>I would like to particularly thank Rhonda Scribner, James Wilbur Lewis,
>Laura Creighton, and John Gilmore for countering Smith's falsehoods and
>distortions in pursuit of his vendetta.  My greatest thanks, without
>denigrating anyone's contribution, go to Rhonda.

Not to seem ungrateful, but what on earth for?  You were almost as nasty
in the drug debate to me as the brahms gang had ever been.  And I suggested
that you and the brahms gang were two (or three) of a kind.  Tim, what you
did may have had merit, Gene and Matthew may indeed have been extremely
rude and obnoxious (and proud of it) in a most uncalled for way, but you
were no better.  My comments suggested that you were the proverbial pot
calling the kettle black, but that despite Gene's protest this did not
nullify your right to complain about the abusiveness of the brahms gang.
My only point in posting at all was to counter the obsequious pleadings
of Gene Ward Smith that claimed that Matthew was a martyr to the cause of
free speech, since I too was a victim of brahms gang obnoxiousness.  I
thought Gene's efforts to paint Matthew as the "victim" and you as the
"victimizer" was uncalled for, and I agree that he made many distorted
statements in pursuit of a vendetta.  But by no means should my comments
be perceived as claiming that the opposite was true.  As far as I can tell,
you have been extremely hypocritical in this whole affair, and you and
Matthew both can be tarred with the same brush.  However much I may not
like hypocrisy, being a hypocrite does not nullify your rights of
recourse, and I found Gene's efforts to say that it did to be even more
hypocritical, since his and Matthew's own hypocrisy would thus nullify their
rights.  If being a hypocrite nullified a person's rights, we'd all be
living under martial law.

This is not really a flame, I'm just sitting here wondering what you're
thanking me for.  I just wanted to make it clear that I'm not speaking
out to be on a particular "side" or the other.  Obviously Matthew has
gone to great lengths to be abusive to me and others in the past, and I
spoke out to ensure that the effort to depict him as a martyr was
shown for what it really was before it went too far.  But I'm not on your
"side", Tim, and I don't like that impression being bandied about any more
than I liked Gene Ward Smith seeming to be on my "side" rushing to my
defense in an argument with you when all he really wanted to do was have
an opportunity to insult you again.  OK?

I'd like to end my part in this whole argument because I've been spending
much too much time on it.  Matthew has gotten what he probably deserved, and
based on what Tim said about his knowing that further abusiveness would get
his account terminated, he has gotten what he probably asked for.  Gene's
obsequious pleading for mercy has been shown for what it really was.  And at
least for a short time, things calmed down to the point where everybody was
actually being polite and courteous (or at least faking it :-) ).  It seems
almost a pity that alt.flame came to be so that that old ravenous "hostility"
(to use Gene's word, I think) was back bigger than ever.  Especially to me
because this whole affair has gotten me into hostile mode, too.

Surely we can find better things to flame about.  Let it suffice to say
that if there is a lesson here, it is that being wildly rude and obnoxious
is not a right covered under the banner of free speech, that efforts to
invoke free speech as an excuse for such behavior are frowned upon, that
being that way may have consequences, and that even those who are that way
themselves have the right to recourse against such things, no matter how
much like schoolyard bickering between bullies it may appear to be.  The one
who eventually and hypocritically called in the teacher doesn't forfeit his
rights just because he's a bully.  End of movie, OK?
								--Rhonda