From: sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer)
Subject: Re: Brian Siano Proclaims the End of Privacy (was: Robert Sheaffer Whines About "Exposure")
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 92 21:40:02 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)

In article <6Z8RPB3w164w@cellar.org> revpk@cellar.org (Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano) writes:
> 
>     Such emotion! After writing lengthy screeds maligning both the
>loyalty, rationality, and motives of his opponents, Robert Sheaffer
>has the gall to yelp when someone decides to share his methods of
>intimidation with the world! And considering his sloppiness with
>facts-- as amply documented throughout this argument-- methinks
>Sheaffer's being a little overcompensatory in his invocation of "Net
>rules" as a standard of behavior.

Now that Brian has already posted my private e-mail,
the reader can understand why I am astonished to find myself 
accused of "intimidation." I ask him some questions about certain
individuals whose supposed "innocence" and "persecution" were once
_cause celebres_ among the left, asking him whether he was now willing
to admit he and his pals had been wrong. He calls this a "loyalty
test" (!), and denounces me as a fascist!

A "Loyalty Test" asks questions like "Do you swear loyalty?" or
"Have you ever been a Communist?" or "Do you Promise thus-and-such?".
It does not contain questions about matters of presumed fact like "do you
agree that the Dali Lama is a Buddhist?" 

Loyalty test = "I promise that   ."

Reality test = "I think that ...."

>     The sad thing is how screwy the above paragraph is. The
>revelations over the Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss are no surprise, the
>info on Gus Hall is even less so, and there aren't a lot of leftists
>who look up to Armand Hammer, either. As far as I can tell, the only
>'leftists' for whom the 'revelations' have caused pain are either
>borderline nut cases, or they exist solely in Sheaffer's fevered
>imagination.

Note the clear implication that Brian would have answered "yes" to
most of my seven questions. It just PAINS him so to have to admit it!


>     The sense I gained was that Sheaffer is somewhat intolerant of
>opinions not completely in accord with his own-- and since he tends to

And Brian is "Mr. Tolerance" himself, which is why he follows me
around the Usenet, and starts an _ad hominem_ thread about what a
rotten guy Sheaffer is every time I post something he doesn't like.

> 
>     And you have the nerve to bitch about how my sharing your
>McCarthyite ravings with others is a 'breach of Net rules?' get real.

Brian has just proclaimed that a person's right to privacy can be
freely violated if the things he says are 'bad enough'. So I presume
that Mr. Tolerant Siano has no problems in letting the FBI, the police,
etc. place all the wiretaps they want, or let the Post Office open the
private mail of known "McCarthyites" or other supposed deviants. 
After all, their perfidy needs to be exposed to the rest of the world,
and we can't allow tinny little bourgeois concepts like their "right
to privacy" to stand in the way. 

Of course, if somebody publicized the "Trotskyite" ravings of some
little socialist group by violating their personal correspondance,
Brian would be screaming his head off! Morality, for the Politically
Correct, depends on whose ox has been gored.

Folks, now you see EXACTLY how every Politically Correct movement
leads to tyranny, if it comes to power. The Incorrect HAVE no
rights that it will recognize.

-- 
  
        Robert Sheaffer - Scepticus Maximus - sheaffer@netcom.com
  
 Past Chairman, The Bay Area Skeptics - for whom I speak only when authorized!

       "Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.
        Then all things are at risk. It is as when a conflagration has
        broken out in a great city, and no man knows what is safe, or
        where it will end."
                               - Emerson: Essay, "Circles"