Xref: utzoo alt.flame:3178 news.misc:2022 rec.humor.d:1154 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!labrea!agate!ucbvax!BOSCO.BERKELEY.EDU!gsmith From: gsmith@BOSCO.BERKELEY.EDU Newsgroups: alt.flame,news.misc,rec.humor.d Subject: Re: The Good, the Bad, and the Stupid (LONG) Message-ID: <8811230645.AA00268@twinkies> Date: 23 Nov 88 06:45:09 GMT References: <1092@osupyr.mast.ohio-state.edu> Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: twinkies!gsmith (Gene Ward Smith) Followup-To: rec.humor.d Organization: Bosco Gang Chocolate Center Lines: 62 In article <1092@osupyr.mast.ohio-state.edu> nmg@osupyr.mast.ohio-state.edu.UUCP (Nancy M Gould) writes: >In article clong@topaz.rutgers.edu (Chris Long) writes: >>A play involving various evil-doers making stupid comments. I could >>have let them stand on their own (the gibber content is that high), >>but I couldn't resist a few cheap jabs. >Which is exactly what they are--cheap jabs. Cheap jabs? Do you remember who made the following cheap jab? "The fact that you have ignored my previous postings just goes to show your own anti-semitism." >Chris Long has just made a personal attack Jonathon Richmond, >David Makowsky, Betsy Schwartz, and myself without seriously >addressing what we had to say. >If people on the net wish to attack the contents of one's >postings, by all means, go ahead, but please refrain from making >personal attacks on one's character (and labeling people who >disagree with your point of view as "misguided" and "stupid". Let's see that again: "The fact that you have ignored my previous postings just goes to show your own anti-semitism." In other words, the fact that I may not have considered your postings extraordinary for their wisdom as well as their wit and seen fit to suitably acknowledge both with exclamations of awe and gratitude is taken by you to be a slight not to your ego but to your religion and/or ethnic group. You state I have either a slavering eagerness to burn down synagogues and desecrate Torah scrolls or at least the germs of such a feeling because I have not until now found your musings especially worthy of note. That was then. Now you are saying that character assassination is really not nice, and personal attacks perhaps not altogether polite. But you see, you really need to make up your mind on that score. Is it fine and dandy to discern anti-semitic tendencies on the basis of "evidence" which does not even make coherent sense, but less fine to label opposing points of view "misguided" or"stupid"? Of the four people on your list, only Mr. Richmond has (to my knowledge) refrained from name-calling. He has found other ways of annoying people, perhaps. In any case, the promoters of net politeness are seen in some cases (yours, alas, being one of them) to have a disturbing tendency to want to enforce a standard on other people they are not willing to meet themselves. And this whole question of ethnic jokes is at root a politness issue. This was the essence of my original complaint against Makowsky, which led to so much hollering. I still think it is valid, and think that person engaged in slinging stones should check first the composition of their walls. -- ucbvax!garnet!gsmith Gene Ward Smith/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720 ucbvax!bosco!gsmith Institute of Pi Research