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From: rhonda@chinet.UUCP
Newsgroups: misc.legal,alt.drugs,alt.flame
Subject: Re: Rosen + Wiener = Mading?
Message-ID: <1877@chinet.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 20-Nov-87 15:42:25 EST
Article-I.D.: chinet.1877
Posted: Fri Nov 20 15:42:25 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 22-Nov-87 12:23:53 EST
References: <19013@amdcad.AMD.COM> <1232@puff.wisc.edu> <7368@eddie.MIT.EDU> <1843@chinet.UUCP> <3615@bellcore.bellcore.com>
Organization: Chinet, Chicago Ill.
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Xref: utgpu misc.legal:2936 junk:6444 alt.flame:573

In article <3615@bellcore.bellcore.com>, tr@wind.bellcore.com (tom reingold) writes:
>$ Some people say that closing down Mading's account is "bad" because
>$ it means "controversial" posters can be canned at any time.  Bull.
>$ There's a difference between "controversial" and "obnoxious."
>$ People who express political or personal opinions about the world
>$ that grate against the norm are controversial and should be protected
>$ under first amendment rules.  People who chase people around and
>$ harrass them with stupid childish name calling are obnoxious and
>$ shouldn't be so protected.
>
>In principle, maybe.
>But in practice, NO WAY!  Whose job is it to distinguish between
>controversial and obnoxious?  What method works reliably?
>
>I find Eric offensive too.  Nothing he has said has been constructive
>or insightful, or good in any way.    I also think that he is baiting
>us and that annoys me.  His remark about Jews, even if it was a
>joke, was really uncalled for.
>
>But your delineation between the obnoxious and the controversial
>is useless, Rhonda.  There is a difference between the two but
>there is no justification in silencing someone for either reason,
>unless you don't really believe in the right of free speech.  If
>you want to argue against free speech go ahead.  But free speech
>is free speech, and it is not a censor's job to make your delineation.

I think that delineation is not useless at all.  Clearly no one supports what
Eric said.  No one in their right mind would come out to defend ethnic slurs,
accusations about entire groups of people based on stereotypes and prejudice,
designed to antagonize, humiliate, or defame those people.  If you look around
at what people are saying, NO ONE has come out and said that what Eric said
had any merit whatsoever.  And EVERYONE who has said anything at all has
deliberately disassociated themselves from any implication of giving their
blessing to what Eric said.  Why?  Because we KNOW this is something that
falls clearly on the negative side of this delineation.  Some people are
claiming that, because there are cases where the delineation is blurred, we
must abandon it entirely and allow absolute free speech.  But this is a
bad argument.  There are times when there are very clear distinctions between
something between abusive or harrassing and it just being controversial.

What was the controversiality regarding the Brahms Gang chasing people around
the net shouting "ayuck yuck" at everything they said and calling them names
in an effort to diminish THEIR rights to free speech?  Was there ever a
question about whether or not this was anything but two children engaging in
childish taunts for which they deserved (and hopefully got) punishment?
Matthew and Gene have on occasion presented opinions on various topics.  Are
they trying to say there is no difference between professing opinions (however
controversial) and shouting at other people without discussion content other
than name calling?  Are "Captain Carnage," "ayuck yuck," and "moron twit"
opinions, the results of their endless years of university book learning, or
are they something else?  The fact their only rebuttals to others' opinions
have so often been petty insults like these shows how little they have to say.

Maroney's opinions may have been overtly bizarre, but does Matthew's
disagreement with their opinions (or his personal well reasoned evaluation
that Tim, like everyone else who disagrees with him, was an idiot) mean that
Tim and others like him DESERVED to be subjected to Matthew's raving idiocy
and annoying harrassment?  Did the Brahms Gang rewrite that famous quote to
read "I may not agree with what you say, but YOU will defend to the death MY
right to call you names and harrass you for saying it?"

And where was the "controversiality" in Mark Ethan Smith's making up lies
about me and other people because we disagreed with her?  The real
offensiveness is when people who are being nothing but harrassing and abusive
hide behind the words "free speech," claiming that they are really being
persecuted for their "controversial" opinions.  If they get their way, if
their vicious abusiveness of other people is considered on the same level as
personal controversial opinions, in the long run we will LOSE all semblance of
free speech in this country.  Of course there are cases where the distinction
is blurred.  But that doesn't affect situations where the distinction is clear
cut!  At least it shouldn't.  People who are promoting free speech as an
absolute are simply wrong, free speech is NOT an absolute, and we know this
by the very fact that there are exceptions.  And there's no reason to declare
it as an absolute, to throw away the distinction between true free speech and
abuses of that right, just because there are cases where the distinction isn't
clear.  The unclear situations are why we have a judicial system, to arbitrate
and decide upon those cases.
								--Rhonda