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Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ucbvax!BOSCO.BERKELEY.EDU!gsmith
From: gsmith@BOSCO.BERKELEY.EDU
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,misc.legal,alt.flame
Subject: Re: The lawsuit of the year!
Keywords: about time, train engineer's revenge
Message-ID: <8801251537.AA01904@wheatena>
Date: 25 Jan 88 15:37:58 GMT
References: <2832@killer.UUCP> <1606@mind.UUCP> <11143@sri-spam.istc.sri.com> <1409@vaxwaller.UUCP> <354@genghis.UUCP> <8801241321.AA05248@ragu> <8692@ism780c.UUCP>
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Reply-To: wheatena!gsmith (Gene Ward Smith)
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In article <8692@ism780c.UUCP> mikep@ism780c.UUCP (Michael A. Petonic) writes:
>In article <8801241321.AA05248@ragu> ragu!gsmith (Gene Ward Smith) writes:

>>  Can someone explain to me why so many of the hate-Willson
>>postings reek of this kind of profound ignorance and stupidity?

>Perhaps it's because you're looking at it through a warped filter
>in which anyone who feels strongly enough about something to
>sacrifice his legs to is a martyr.

  Make a special effort and try to grasp the point, OK? The
peculiar idiocy to which I referred had nothing to do with who
was or was not a martyr. It had to do with repeated bonehead
contentions such as the notion that Willson was unaware that
trains are bigger than he is, and might be difficult to stop by
muscle alone.

>>Obviously this Sam Southard is a spamhead, but it is usually
>>assumed something which passes for a brain is a requirement for a
>>school like Cal Tech.

>I don't think his school has anything to do with what he posted.

  You're wrong, I suspect. One kind of spamhead is the kind who
thinks he is smart because he can push buttons on a calculator
and took a little calculus in high school, where he almost
understood it. Hence, I suspect, the "ignorance of the laws of
physics" nonsense.

>Your conclusion may be obvious to someone with a mentality and
>outlook like your own.

 Which conclusion?

>>I can only conclude that it somehow makes
>>people like Sam feel better to believe, contrary to any logic or
>>evidence, that Willson thought he could stop a train with his
>>legs.

>No.  It's an attempt to dish back some of your *own* stupidity and
>lack of accurateness in drawing out analogies.

  What analogies?

>>But *why*? Does Willson make these people feel morally
>>insecure, or what?

>No - not for me.  I don't even know why Willson stuck his legs in front
>of the train.

  "Stuck his legs in front of the train". Is this what you mean by
lack of accuracy in analogies, or is it only analogous to a
stupid analogy? In other words, duh?

>All I can assume is that he did it for some cause he
>believed in strong enough to lose his legs for.

  Your belief, I take it, is that far from being ignorant of the
laws of physics, Willson wanted to cut his legs off.  Any
evidence to support this moronic opinion?

>However, I got extremely
>irate when he decided to sue the people running the train.

  This whole business started over the people running the train
suing Willson, if you'll recall.


>It seems to
>me that he believes more in being a celebrity than in what he was
>fighting for.  It's sad to see a revolutionary become a victim of
>fame.

 Where did this come from? Do you make this stuff up, or do
people tell you this, or what? What is your evidence for this, in
other words?

ucbvax!garnet!gsmith    Gene Ward Smith/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720
"Without NNTP, the brahms gang itself would be impossible" Erik E. Fair