From: sethb@fid.morgan.com (Seth Breidbart)
Subject: Re: Once more into the breach, dear friends (was: Re Ed babbles again
Organization: my opinions only
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 02:58:12 GMT

In article <1992Sep13.063733.25098@Princeton.EDU>
egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
>In article <1992Sep12.182028.14059@midway.uchicago.edu> thf2@midway.uchicago.edu writes:

>How do you ground the sysop's right to boot bozo off net?  Oh, forget
>it.  Let's save the net bandwidth and an airing of more of your silly
>views.  Lesseee, the sysop has Sacred Property Rights and bozo...NOT.

Very simple.  The sysop has Sacred Property Rights to her computer.
The bozo has Sacred Property Rights to his computer.  The bozo does
not have Sacred Property Rights to the sysop's computer, nor does the
sysop have Sacred Property Rights to the bozo's computer.  Can you
understand all that, Ed, or do I have to simplify it for you?

>Sacred Property Rights to "her" computer (actually the property of a
>large corporation),

Maybe; if so, she is acting on behalf of that corporation.

>Robert A. Viktora had the right, according to the sitting Supreme Bozos,
>to perpetuate a tort.

Only according to your interpretation of the decision, not according
to the Supreme Court's.

>>It's a shame that your hate speech law would have him jailed.
>
>That's a lie.  Hate speech laws don't ban private remarks, they at most
>enhance the penalties for torts and crimes in which hate speech occurs.

Then how come Viktora was convicted (up until the Supreme Court) of
violating the Hate Speech Law, while he hadn't even been tried for the
other crimes he committed?

>>Really?  Then why did you flame me for knowing about Gallagher and Shean?
>>And why do you continue to make an issue out of a long-dead radio show?
>
>Because of your nauseating hypocrisy, Ted, in speaking of anti-Semitism
>and then turning around and comparing an Arabic-named poster (Sheheryan)
>and myself to characters in a racist vaudeville program.

Ted compared two posters who spout the same sort of drivel to two
comedians who lampooned that sort of agreement.  Ted didn't care about
Sheheryan's name, only about the words posted.  You're the first to
bring up race in this discussion.

>Ted, you make a mistake common to neoconservatives, typically young and
>half-educated.  This is the attempt to argue against liberalism and
>modernism using its own precepts...to turn its guns against it.  This is
>nothing more than an attempt to argue by reduction to absurdity.
>However, it is a flawed and fallacious form.  Proper "reductio" assumes
                                               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>the opponent's beliefs for a short moment and quickly shows how they
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>lead to a contradiction (in logic) or perhaps a result morally
>unacceptable to all parties (in ethics.)  Your attempts to convict Jesse
>Jackson under (nonexistent!) hate speech laws, laws that you yourself
>decry, or to convict Henry Miller as an antifeminist (when you yourself
>may be a misogynist or at least not sympathetic with radical feminism)
>show that you actually buy-in to the views you oppose, in part at a
>subconscious level.

No, he's assuming your beliefs (re the hate speech laws), and showing
the consequences of them.  That doesn't mean he buys into your
beliefs.

>Argument from contradiction, Ted sweetie, works best when dealing with
>fragile mathematical structures.  Structures of political and literary
>discourse cohere accroding to different rules.

A contradiction is a contradiction.  Of course, you would love for
logic not to apply to political discourse, since that would make it
harder to refute you.

Seth		sethb@fid.morgan.com