From: kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy)
Subject: Re: Kevin Welch: An ethics question.
Organization: Who, me???
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 92 01:10:20 GMT

In article <1992Apr5.181517.29813@crd.ge.com> keegan@sunroof.crd.ge.com (James G Keegan Jr) writes:
>kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy) writes:
>-> keegan@acm.rpi.edu (James G. Keegan Jr.) writes:
>-> >kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy) writes:
>-> >>keegan@calyx.crd.ge.com (James G Keegan Jr) writes:
>-> >>>kwelch@eniac (Kevin C. Welch) writes:
>-> >>>-> Well, since we all go by the law around here
>-> >>>
>-> >>>wait a minute sonny!
>-> >>>
>-> >>> [Welch's admissions of harrassment]
>-> >>>
>-> >>>and isn`t harassment against the law, sonny?
>-> >>
>-> >>Certain forms of harrassment, yes. But, since YOU are making
>-> >>this allegation of law-breaking, don't you think it's
>-> >>incumbent on you to SPECIFY exactly what laws Welch has
>-> >>supposedly broken? Chapter and verse, I mean.
>-> >
>-> > [...]
>-> > 
>-> > ...where did i allege
>-> > law-breaking? the post reads to me, and i imagine to just
>-> > about everyone else, like i asked a question, ...
>->
>-> Given that Welch had admitted to harrassment, your question
>-> amounts logically to the same thing:
>-> 
>-> "admits to harrassment" + "harrassment is illegal" => "admits
>-> to law-breaking"
>
>other that you, who said harassment was illegal?

You asked the question in the negative - "isn't harrassment illegal?" - which 
ALWAYS implies a certain state of affairs. Specifically, it implies the 
negation of the declarative form of the question, e.g.

	   "Isn't the sky blue?"    (interrogative form) 
	=> "The sky isn't blue"	    (result of converting to declarative form)
	=> "The sky is blue"	    (negation of result).

Your question implied (without bothering to identify any exceptions or 
conditions, of course) that harrassment was illegal, thus, along with the 
other premise (Kevin Welch admits to harrassment), by inference you implied 
that Kevin Welch is a law-breaker.

Say, if you WEREN'T implying that Kevin Welch was a law-breaker, why 
did you lead off your original article with this "witty" little exchange?:

Welch> Well, since we all go by the law around here
Keegan> wait a minute sonny!

"Wait a minute sonny"? Sounds like a prelude to contradiction, doesn't it?
Or do you maintain that "wait a minute sonny" signals accord? And this was
in DIRECT response to Welch's claims of law-abidance. Your meaning was clear,
Jimmy, regardless of your subsequent attempts at obfuscation...

>-> Please cite chapter and verse as to how and why Welch's
>-> harrassing acts might be construed as being in any way
>-> "illegal", or withdraw the whole line of questioning.
>
>again, why should i support a claim you wrote?
>
>as for withdrawing a line of questioning, do you now claim that
>there is somethign wrong about asking a question. 

Depends on whether it's a loaded question or not, and whether the embedded
premise(s) "loaded" into the question are true or not. In this case the
embedded premise (harrassment is against the law) ISN'T necessarily true. 
As I have pointed out (and you have not even addressed), it's true in _some_
cases, and not others. Your question implied, unconditionally, that Welch was 
a law-breaker, and was therefore way out of line.

>actually kebbie, i think your recent posts, say over the
>last several weeks, indicate that the net is really getting
>the best of you. you were always rather petty and spiteful.
>lately these personality features of yours have seemed to
>grow. i think you need a break.

If you're so damned concerned with my well-being (riiight), why don't you go
and buy me an all-expense-paid vacation to Hawaii AND reimburse me for the 
corresponding lost wages while you're at it, huh? Talk is cheap, Jimmy...

								- Kevin