Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!novavax!twwells!bill
From: bill@twwells.uucp (T. William Wells)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: Expansion of rec.humor.funny to other networks
Message-ID: <811@twwells.uucp>
Date: 2 Apr 89 08:57:57 GMT
References: <439@corpane.UUCP> <3100@ddsw1.MCS.COM> <9773@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <1989Mar16.165623.20831@utzoo.uucp> <487@tiamat.fsc.com> <749@aoa.UUCP>
Reply-To: bill@twwells.UUCP (T. William Wells)
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In article <749@aoa.UUCP> carl@aoa.UUCP (Carl Witthoft) writes:
: Heyhey. Dont' you guys know the difference between freedom of expression
: and offensive behaviour? Free example:
: 1) I disagree that you should be allowed to say anything you wish about
: someone so long as you don't actually make criminal accusations.
: 2) You dumb f***s have no *** idea what you're talking about. You are
: all probably Commies anyway, so go eat s**t.
: Now, should both of these examples really be covered by free speech?

Absolutely. The latter would certainly be offensive to me, but is
considered normal in other parts of our society.  Offensiveness is a
very personal judgement. There are no universal standards.

In fact, I find your apparent advocacy of censorship about as
offensive as I would your suggesting that I prefer sex with cows. Can
you prove that I don't find it as offensive?

How then do you propose to form objective laws to suppress offensive
speech? And without such laws, how do you propose to prevent any
random person from persecuting another by claiming that the other was
being offensive?

If you want a dictatorship, feel free to try to suppress offensive
speech. If not, you must live with it.

---
Bill                            { uunet | novavax } !twwells!bill
(BTW, I'm may be looking for a new job sometime in the next few
months.  If you know of a good one where I can be based in South
Florida do send me e-mail.)