Re: personal invective

["sonic5" <sonic5>]

mary wrote:

> I really have to agree Fiona,and thank you for speaking up.
> JBolt, Michael, can't you unsubscribe this guy?  
 - stuff snipped here -
> In my political opinions,
> free speech has always been my highest priority, but I see no real
> contradiction in this case.  You are making the whole list a very
> distasteful place for many of us, and I can't even figure out why.
> Ed, you are a truly unpleasant man. Life does not have to be like
> this. You did not simply join the list, you invaded it, hurling
> insults and inanities about cliques, before you even tried to get to
> know us.  There are SO MANY good people on this list, I really am
> amazed that you can't stop. Perhaps you think you are a punk, but
> there are quite a few alternate definitions for that term.  Have you
> considered therapy or a spiritual practice?  I would highly
> recommend it.
> 
I'm awfully confused. Free speech is everyone's right, except when 
it bothers us, then it should be squashed? Personal invective is bad,
except when its directed at Ed?  I was always thought the whole idea
of free speech was that even "unpleasant" people had the "right" to 
say their bit. That free speech was  made a constitutional right
specifically to protect unpopular speech. Isn't that why the ACLU
represents groups like the KKK? Not because they agree with their 
words, but cause they, like all of us, have the right to say them.


I'm astonished at the narrow-mindedness of folks who continually 
espouse the concept of community, open discussion and freedom of 
speech.  If you find Ed  (or anyone else) offensive, delete his 
posts (or here's a thought: ignore them!), don't ask for big brother 
to step in and  censor him for you.

I sent the following to Fiona privately, cause I thought this whole 
thang was most appropriate to private discussion and comment,
but given the public responses, I'm reposting it here:

 Fiona wrote:

> 
> All right.  That goes over the line for me.  I am now going on
> record, as one individual lowly member of the babel-list (darn
> right!), as saying that no one has the right to call anyone else on
> this list a schmuck.  Especially not in public.
> 
So why  did you post this publicly? Why not take it up with Ed
privately? Certainly you are entitled to be pissed by anything any one
writes and you're entitled to say so, but to claim someone doesn't
have the "right" to say it? Seems a bit of a stretch.  Last time I
checked there weren't any laws against using personal invective in
internet postings - public or private (you're really not saying that
one can't even use such a word in private email are you? that sounds a
bit like an invasion of the thought police).

Ed himself can be a schmuck, I'm not defending his flame baiting. But
I will defend his "right" to post that very same flame bait. (Besides,
Fiona, you oughta be able to recognize his taunts, and know that any
reply is only going to engage him  and other listmembers in an
on-going and useless war of words.) 

Censorship can be a dangerous thang. Exactly who does get to be 
the arbiter of what can be said? And who's to say you posts wouldn't
be the next ones to be excised. 

Interesting that babel-list has  just had a discussion re: the 
word nigger - how it may or may not be offensive, but that Patti
certainly has the "right" to use it.  

> I'm serious.  I recognize the value of having, as we do in Michael
> Berch, a very tolerant and laissez-faire listowner, but personal
> invective of this nature is too much.  
> 

I think Michael is the ideal list 
owner, not indifferent, maybe not even simply  tolerant, but   
smart enough to let listmembers work things out on their own. Smart
enough to know it's not his place to judge who should and shouldn't be
allowed to post.

> 
> 
>       "If we had no faults of our own, we should not take so much 
>        pleasure in noticing those in others."
>                             --La Rochefoucauld, 1768
> 
precisely. 


sonic5

----------------------------------------

just a few thoughts from someone who finds lots of stuff
distasteful, but who takes the personal responsibility to change
the channel...

sonic5