Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!uflorida!novavax!twwells!bill
From: bill@twwells.com (T. William Wells)
Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions
Subject: Re: What constitutes abuse ...
Message-ID: <1989Dec28.203307.12639@twwells.com>
Date: 28 Dec 89 20:33:07 GMT
References: <7312@ficc.uu.net> <3507@harrier.ukc.ac.uk> <45062@bu-cs.BU.EDU> <1989Dec27.050047.2113@world.std.com> <50134@bbn.COM>
Organization: None, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Lines: 73

In article <50134@bbn.COM> cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) writes:
: What do you think that "censorship" is?  The only difference is who the
: agent is and what the medium is.  Either you have the right to speak in
: a public forum or you don't.

You don't. Contrary to popular opinion, the "right to free speech"
is *not* a right to speak at all! The right to free speech is the
right to speak and *not have force used on you as a consequence*.

Let me elaborate. There are two kinds of rights: "positive" rights
and "negative" rights. Positive rights are the things like
welfare, minimum wages, handicapped parking spaces, etc: things
provided to you which you are not required to earn. Most people,
today, believe that positive rights are what rights are all about.
Mr. Cosell's "right to speak in a public forum" would be a
positive right.

Negative rights are a completely different kettle of fish. A
negative right is simply a right to be unmolested: it poses no
positive requirements of action on another, but rather says that
there are certain things he may not do. Negative rights were the
kind of rights that our constitution's writers generally had in
mind when writing about rights. Examples of negative rights: the
right to not have your life taken by someone else; the right to
choose your own ethics or religion, and to act in accordance with
it (subject to not violating other's negative rights, of course);
the right to retain the products of your efforts.

The Bill of Rights is a partial listing of negative rights and
the limited ways in which the government is permitted to act
against them. The Bill of Rights says "Congress shall make no
law...abridging the freedom of speech". Read it carefully. It
does *not* say that "you have the right to speak how you will".
It *does* say that Congress (and as extended by later amendments,
other lawmaking bodies) may not act to restrict your freedom to
speak.

This is a very important point: a positive right to speech would
entail the government attempting to facilitate your speaking.
This has been tried before; it has always failed miserably. And it
must, there is always more to say than medium to say it in. Thus
somebody has to choose *whose* speech to facilitate, and who will
thus be *prevented* from speaking.

Recall the recent flap about "Piss Christ"? As the saying goes:
he who pays the piper calls the tune. And when the government
decides that it is in the business of providing the positive
right of speech it must then pick and choose *who* will speak.
And who will *not*.

And that *is* censorship.

A negative right to free speech only requires that the government
take no notice of your speaking and that you be protected against
force used against you as a consequence of your exercising your
right to free speech.

Every positive right entails infringing someone's negative rights.
A positive right to speak on this net would entail violating *my*
negative right to use my computer as I see fit.

As I've said elsewhere, if it were ever to occur that, solely
because I'm on the net, I could be made to propagate things that
I would choose not to, I would drop out of the net. Instantly.

This is *my* computer. Paid for by *my* effort. You try to *tell*
me how I may use it and I'll tell you where to go. You try to
*make* me use it as you will and I'll treat you like the thug you
are.

---
Bill                    { uunet | novavax | ankh | sunvice } !twwells!bill
bill@twwells.com