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From: era1987@violet.berkeley.edu
Newsgroups: soc.women,misc.legal,news.admin
Subject: Abusenet--Reply to Karl Denninger and other Libertarians. (Was: Re: The Rhetoric of Cruelty)
Message-ID: <12176@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 18 Jul 88 02:46:06 GMT
References: <11659@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <22312@tis.llnl.gov> <590@splut.UUCP> <1390@ddsw1.UUCP> <12138@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <4870@gryphon.CTS <1420@ddsw1.UUCP>
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In article <1420@ddsw1.UUCP> karl@ddsw1.UUCP (Karl Denninger) writes:
>Mark is all you have a right to -- and if someone associates a *true fact*
>-- your gender, with your name, then me thinks you have a pretty poor case
>for "defamation".
>
>Karl Denninger (ddsw1!karl) Data: (312) 566-8912, Voice: (312) 566-8910

Spoken like a true bigot, Karl.  You've come a long way, but you've
still got long way to go.  I remember when you were sure I had no
right to my name.  And all your friends agreed.  Why?  Well, since
you couldn't give a nondiscriminatory reason, you gave a discriminatory
one.  You were sure I wasn't entitled to my name because of my sex.
And you found out differently.  Now you're saying that you think I'm
not entitled to the pronouns appropriate to my name.  And again there
is only the discriminatory reason for your belief--I can't possibly
be entitled to the same pronouns men use because I'm female.  It is
getting rather tiresome at this point.  Men have no patent or
copyright on undiminished names or on undiminished pronouns.  Both
are in the public domain.  And you cannot deny somebody something
on the basis of sex alone.  But bigots will never believe that.

What about the women (or female pseudos) who claim that they prefer
diminutive terms?  That's no problem.  That's *their* preference.
When the first women dared to wear pants, previously clothing restricted
only to men (remember the Bloomer girls?), many women were outraged.
And there are still women who have never worn pants on any occasion and
never will because they feel it is unladylike.  That's their right.
But they cannot force other women not to wear pants.  And women who
prefer traditional forms of address cannot force other women to have
the same preference.  Haven't any of you Libertarians ever heard of
individual freedoms?

Some women would never want to work at what they consider to be
a man's job.  Some women would never want to earn what they
consider to be a man's salary.  In China, for 2,000 years, most women
wanted to have bound feet because they didn't want to walk around
on what they considered to be men's feet.  But men have no legal
right to be the only ones to practice law or medicine, or to
do contruction work or plumbing, or to run for Presidennt, or to
earn a living wage, or to have healthy feet.  It just takes people
a long time to realize these things.

Some people are born with rights they take for granted and even
abuse.  Others have to fight for equal rights, battling the whole
world single-handedly for each right on a case by case basis.  Women
in particular have this problem.  If a woman gets a nontraditional
job, chances are the pay will be less, if a woman gets the job and
equal pay, the woman won't be given the same title, if the woman sues
and gets the same, job, pay, and the title that goes with it, the
company will probably give men in similar positions more responsibility.
If the woman goes back to court and manages to get the same job, pay,
title and responsibilities, it will probably be necessary to sue again
to get equal promotional opportunities.  Get the same job, pay, title,
responsibilities and promotional opportunities as men, and they'll
still insist that you can't wear the clothing appropriate to that
job and must wear clothing that is unprofessional and makes you look
like somebody's wife or secretary.  Sue yet again and win the right
to the job, the pay, the title, the responsibilities, the promotional
opportunities and the robes of office, and they'll say that you still
can't have a name or terms of address similar to those men have.  Go
back to court, if you have energy left at this point, and win the legal
right to the job, pay, title, responsibilites, promotional opportunities,
robes of office, and equal terms of address, and they'll probably rape
or kill you.  After all, they can't possibly treat a woman the same
as a man, can they?  

The answer is yes, they can.  They may have to be forced to in
each case, but just as Chinese men found they had no real difficulty
marrying women with unbound feet after footbinding became illegal,
and most men in America today would rather not die than submit to
surgery performed by a woman surgeon, tolerance can be learned.
Why don't you try, Karl?

In article <1158@ddsw1.UUCP> karl@ddsw1.UUCP (Karl Denninger) wrote:

>Those users on machines who *cannot* receive soc.* "cannot" get it because
>management (or someone in charge) has decided that these types of
>discussions simply will not be carried on their machine; that they do not
>want to bear the cost of transport.  Period.

Has it ever occurred to you that sites subject to EEO/AA laws
might not want to carry discriminatory postings on their machines--
that they do not want to bear the cost of transport for articles
that violate the laws they are subject to?

>If you're really so upset about not getting soc.*, then get your own
>hardware and set up your own Usenet system.  Then you can carry and
>redistribute anything you want.  Alternatively, convince management that
>soc. is a good thing to carry and propagate. 

Excellent suggestion.  If you're really so upset about not being
able to violate my rights, set up your own Usenet system.
They you can carry discriminatory or defamatory articles or anything
you want.  Alternatively, convince management at large corporations,
universities and government agencies that discrimination is a good 
thing to carry and propagate.  You'll have a lot of convincing to do, since
they could lose federal subsidies and be held legally liable, but
you are welcome to try.

>Deception in any form is bad.  Organized
>intentional deception with the intent to *spend others money without their
>consent* is even worse.

And I suppose you asked each large site if it was okay with them
for you to violate my rights before you posted?  Or were you hoping
they wouldn't notice?  Doing something that leaves others open to
charges of participating in or funding an overtly discriminatory
or otherwise illegal activity is also wrong, Karl.  And doing it
without their consent is even worse.  

--Mark