From: alves@calvin.usc.edu (William Alves)
Newsgroups: alt.culture.indonesia
Subject: Re: What is the problem ?
Date: 27 Jan 93 00:13:48 GMT
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: calvin.usc.edu

In article <1993Jan23.201409.11235@cs.cornell.edu> donsw@cs.cornell.edu (Donald Wihardja) writes:

>I think discussion about religion point of view about morality is a
>good idea. This is not the reason why I think the original posting was
>inapropriate, however. I consider it to be similar to posting:
>"According to my belief, the reason why whites are inherently better
>than blacks is this-and-this, and not (as I assume most of you
>believe) so-and-so."  In another word, the above would probably be
>appropriate to be posted to alt.white.supremacist, but not to alt.usa
>(or alt.intelligent.being, for that matter) 

Well if it merely a disagreement over the appropriateness of newsgroup
selection (like someone on comp.music telling a poster he should have
posted to rec.music.synth), then I reiterate that religion is a fundamental
part of culture (as you concede below). However, the responses I have read
so far indicate that the disagreement is much deeper than that and questions
the appropriateness of any discussion of religion (at least arguing cer-
tain veiwpoints) outside of the alt.religion.* groups. This is, in turn,
related to the in my opinion mistaken belief that control of religious
speech is necessary for the control of religious tension and animosity.

In my experience, it is the people with the most intolerant and inflammatory
points of views that cry most for the control of speech. In the United
States, the Moral Majority in the early 1980's proposed a ban on speech
critical of the government. A couple of years ago, Senator Jesse Helms
proposed a ban on government funding of art that offended "members of
any religion or non-religion." In my opinion, it is your hypothetical
white supremacists who have the most to lose by an open and free forum.
Faced with the onslaught of disgust and rational argument, their racist
points of view wither.

Not too long ago, someone crossposted a blatantly racist and insulting
post to many newsgroups. (It later turned out to be a hoax, but that's
immaterial.) The flood of reasoned rebuttals as well as the expected counter-
insults was astonishing. However, one person wrote their congressional
representative as a result of the incident, asking for government over-
sight of the usenet to prevent such abusive posts that "create divisiveness
and racial tension." As you must guess by now, I vehemently disagreed.
Instead of creating divisiveness on the usenet, there was unanimity in
the negative responses. Instead of obtaining some sort of false veneer
of validity, the poster was shot down by numerous well-argued rebuttals.
Government intervention and control merely puts politicians in the
position of deciding what speech is appropriate - a power which seems
to be constantly abused and used for personal gain around the world -
and also gives the worst of these groups de facto government recognition
and a shield against the scrutinization of public forums.

>(Would Mr. Alves seriously
>wanted to hear two racist talk about how much inferior blacks are, or 
>worse, two blacks discussing what a bunch of oppressive trash all the 
>whites are.  

No, I would probably just press "n". By the way, why is the second scenario
worse than the first?

Bill Alves