Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ncrlnk!ncr-sd!hp-sdd!hplabs!ucbvax!ENCORE.COM!bzs
From: bzs@ENCORE.COM (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Networks, who pays (Really: Libertarian Soap Boxing on INFO-FUTURES)
Message-ID: <8811171559.AA11040@multimax.encore.com>
Date: 17 Nov 88 15:59:04 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 47


As experienced readers of INFO-FUTURES are by now painfully aware of
every time some conversation occurs which seems to spark the slightest
interest by the membership of this list the Libertarians spring up to
exploit the audience as a soapbox for their mostly crackpot ideas.
This has now happened several times.

Their method is simple, everything needs to be paid for somehow, so
start an argument about who pays by claiming that some new devpt
described seems to imply, oh, govt sponsored research or whatever.

Then go into a tirade about taxes etc., call everyone who disagrees a
socialist (or worse, a liberal!) and don't forget to delve into
crackpot theories like Hitler's main problem was that he was a
socialist (you see, Nazi stands for National Socialist, see, the word
is right there! That *proves* it! Forget that Hitler killed all the
Marxists, or may have had some other serious flaws, etc.)

The issue is not free speech, they are free to set up their own list,
discuss their own issues and I encourage them. They of course have no
such interest and have made no such attempt since they know damn well
that few are VOLUNTARILY interested in their looney-tunes, it has to
be graffitti foisted on people. These are the self-proclaimed saviors
of freedom, clowns.

The issue is whether or not the rest of us can discuss the future of
computing etc without having to be subjected to these mindless tirades
by "the one true way".

Their purpose is not to discuss the topic at hand, their only purpose
is to shout their slogans over and over again and the public be
damned.

It as much involved with free speech as standing up in the middle of a
concert hall during the show and shouting their slogans with a
megaphone would be, it's just rude and individuals engaging in this
should be shown the electronic door.

If this doesn't stop IMMEDIATELY I will begin moderating the whole
list and promise to toss such drivel in the can (again, they are free
to publish elsewhere, freedom of speech does not guarantee you a front
page column in the New York Times etc.)

Congratulations Jeff Daiell and Karl Waldmann, so young yet already so
unknown...

	-Barry Shein, ||Encore||