Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!sugar!ficc!jeffd
From: jeffd@ficc.uu.net (jeff daiell)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Networks, who pays (Really: Libertarian Soap Boxing on INFO-FUTURES)
Summary: pots and kettles
Message-ID: <2258@ficc.uu.net>
Date: 18 Nov 88 10:57:50 GMT
References: <8811171559.AA11040@multimax.encore.com>
Organization: Ferranti International Controls
Lines: 58

In article <8811171559.AA11040@multimax.encore.com>, bzs@ENCORE.COM (Barry Shein) writes:
> 
> 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.

   When advocates of freedom do this, he calls it exploiting the
   audience.  When advocates of coercion do it ....

> 
> 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 

  Hmm.  I didn't use either term in reference to those advocating
  state control of the network -- nor did I call anyone a crackpot,
  as he is doing.

  And if ye dinna think Hitler was a socialist, read his platform,
  study his economic policies, and ask yourself why the National
  Socialist flag had red in it.  Or read HITLER'S SOCIAL REVOLUTION,
  or THE PSYCHOPATHIC GOD.  Or Hitler's condemnations of
  capitalism.
> 
> 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.

  And this from a man who criticizes name-calling?  Sigh.
> 
> 
> It as much involved with free speech as standing up in the middle of a
> concert hall during the show 

  So now he's comparing his entries with a symphony.  Interesting!
> 
> 

  I'm reminded of the bad old days of the "New Left" when the campus
  authoritarians demanded free speech for themselves and shouted down
  anyone else.  Why is it OK for him to use the net to advocate
  coercion and monopoly and not OK for others to advocate freedom
  and competition?   And also reminded of the Falwell types who
  want to preach the Gospel and censor The Catcher In The Rye.

Jeff Daiell


-- 
  If a hungry man has water, and a thirsty man has bread,
  Then if they trade, be not dismayed, they both come out ahead.

                                   -- Don Paarlberg