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From: wengler@hollerith.ee.rochester.edu (Michael Wengler)
Newsgroups: news.admin,misc.legal,soc.women
Subject: Re: Proposed lawsuit
Summary: Lawsuit or not, why not act like humans?
Message-ID: <1378@valhalla.ee.rochester.edu>
Date: 18 Jul 88 18:23:57 GMT
References: <12165@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Sender: usenet@valhalla.ee.rochester.edu
Reply-To: wengler@ee.rochester.edu (Michael Wengler)
Followup-To: news.admin
Organization: UR Dept. of Electrical Engg, Rochester NY 14627
Lines: 88

Why do I suppose I can say something good under a subject heading which
has carried so much trash?  I don't know why, but I'll do it anyway.

Mark Smith IS being picked on by a large number of bigots with the morals
of playground bullies.  In addition, some relatively uninvolved people have
started picking on him also, presumably without having really understood what
it is that Mark is asking for, and how things have gotten to the current 
state.

In case someone is not aware, I recently read a `help find a new name for
Mark Smith' dialog in some newsgroup which I can't recall. This is not
a personal attack, carried on by a lot of people on the net?  It is.

Mark would clearly prefer to be referred to by what we were taught in
grammar school is the general singular pronoun.  As would I.  I don't
expect anybody to check my jeans or genes before according me that
courtesy/right.  Neither does he.

Even if you are philosophically opposed to this, why pick on an
individual who communicates over the net?  You feel some sort of
`right' to know the sex of who you are communicating with?  Too bad.
Most of the time you don't know, on the net.  Mark has stated he does
not wish to commit fraud, and it is certainly well known that he, and
others, claim he is female.

Perhaps Mark is not completely mentally healthy.  What does that
suggest about proper response?  A mentally retarded person is not
completely mentally healthy.  Playground bullies gather around him and
taunt him as a `retard'.  They go after what he perceives as his
weakness just to upset him, for reasons of their own which are
probably not very respectable in the grand scheme of things, and
especially considering the effect they have on the tauntee. 

Mark has stated his position clearly and eloquently, indicating to me
( who has never met him ) that he is mentally more than the equal of
most of the net, and certainly a clearer thinker than his taunters.
All it does is get his taunters more into the spirit of it.  A lot
like on the playground, as I recall.

I don't think the net is the proper place to attack individuals for
fun.  I wonder if there is such a proper place within the
philosophical boundaries of the free world.  A lot of you are acting
like pigs, and you can't help getting piggier and piggier in the face
of reasoned reply from Mark.

Mark's analogy to the Black person being called boy is largely
correct.  When Blacks started complaining about that, there were
people around them who didn't recognize their right to better
treatment.  Blacks continued to complain, and make sense, and
eventually, there is a much broader recognition of that right.  Mark
has rather eloquently asked to be referred to as a `man' in the sense
that `all men are created equal' etc.  Damned reasonable position.

I hope Mark's suits are unsuccessful at closing off usenet, or making
the so-called net.police any more powerful than they already are.  But
its not because Mark's case is without moral merit, people are acting
like pigs to him, and doing it in a very public manner in a forum
which belongs to mark as much as to anyone.

I hope those suits are unsuccessful at closing off usenet, because I
think there will always be people who act like pigs, and I hate how
many things in life are already limited by legal and social response
to them.

What I would prefer to these successful suits is that people `vote
with their fingers' for decency to each other, and that the pigs, the
playground bullies of the usenet, be accorded the education about
compassion and decency that they need, that the other people on the
usenet playground just not tolerate that shit.

By not tolerate it, I don't mean turn it back to them, sinking to
their level.  I mean, use the `r' key a lot when you read personal
attacks, and tell the person that you see what they have done as a
personal attack on a third person, and no matter what, that is bad
behavior that they probably won't continue when they understand
themselves and others a little better.

I know flaming is more satisfying in the short run, but its probably
not as useful.

Thank you for your attention, if you've gotten this far.

Mikey

Michael Wengler			wengler@ee.rochester.edu
EE Dept., U. of R.		wengler@valhalla.rochester.edu
Rochester, NY 14627		weng@uordbv  (bitnet)
(716) 275 9402			ur-valhalla!wengler