🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Pine.LNX.3.91.980107150217.8699B-100000@sake.bais.com>, Rich Cook <rcook@sake.bais.com> writes:
|>On 6 Jan 1998, Russell Leach {78830} wrote:
|>[regarding spammers' right to send spam around]
|>> |>> The right to free speech extends only to the limits of the speaker's forum.
|>> |>
|>> |>This seems like a circular and peculiarly noninformative statement.  A 
|>> |>forum is an area wherein a speaker may be heard, no?  
|>> 
|>> And which I can bypass, at _my_ choosing.
|>> 
|>> I guess I was too subtle for you. By "the speaker's" forum, I meant, for 
|>> example, a web page, which I can choose to visit or not.  _My_ resources,
|>> my connect time, my ISP charges are under my control.  When the spammer 
|>> blasts my mailbox full of crap, he/she is inflicting upon me, and the 
|>> resources for which I pay, the burden of handling that junk.  My email address
|>> is not an open invitation to "come on in, waste my time & money".
|>> By your logic, a speaker would be simply exercising his/her freedom by 
|>> kidnapping an audience, tying them down, & forcing them to listen.  That's
|>> not freedom, it's assault.
|>
|>Sending you email does not force you to listen to it, only to delete it.  

If forces me to pay for the storage and other resources at _my_ ISP and 
every other network node along the way.  The spammer is not paying this
freight.

|>I can easily distinguish spam just by its subject.  
|>I think your example may be just a *bit* extreme.  :-)  By *your* logic, 
|>speaking through a loudspeaker in public ought to be unlawful, since the 
|>people walking by are "forced" to hear it. Do you really want to be 
|>protected against everything you don't want to hear?  I would suggest 
|>that such an attitude would be unwise.

"In public" is not the topic here.  If your next door neighbor
decided to make a hobby of shooting off a howitzer, while blaring an arena-
suitable sound system, and shining a spotlight into your house, I suppose
you'd just chaulk it all up to "ah, the beautiful sights & sounds of freedom".
  
|>My point is that I don't want the government deleting my mail;  I'll do 
|>it for myself, thank you.
|>
|>> |>> Speech that invades my forum (in this case my email account) is not, and
|>> |>> should not be, protected.
|>> |>
|>> |>Why, then, we should be suing junk mailer, including the U.S. senate for 
|>> |>sending us their insipid mass mailings.  Sound nonsensical?  It is, and 
|>> |>I'll tell you why.  When you get an email address, you are by implication 
|>> |>assenting to receive all messages sent their, regardless of who sends 
|>> |>them.  Your email account, like your postal address, is a publicly 
|>> |>addressible but only privately accessible portal to the world.  If 
|>> |>someone sends you a message to your mailbox, it is protected by their 
|>> |>rights to free speech, whether you like it or not.  Please forgive my 
|>> |>bluntness.
|>> 
|>> Utterly, totally wrong.
|>> Your postal service example demonstrates a real ignorance of the economics of
|>> the net.  D
|>
|>You certainly are fond of the adhominem approach to discussion, aren't 
|>you?  Please be careful about your demeanor.  Your attacks say more about 
|>your own character than mine.  Why not consider the possibility that you 
|>don't know everything  for a moment?  Please.

Touchy, aren't you?  Since when is drawing a conclusion from your words an
ad hominem attack?  You're an a***ole!  There, that's ad hominem.

|>
|>> Don't you get an ISP bill each month?  Do you pay a monthly bill
|>> for your mailbox?  Do you put a stamp on each email?  Junk mailers pay for the
|>> services of the Postal Service.  Spammers are subsidized by each individual
|>> who owns an account.  Get it?
|>
|>The spammer pays for his email account, and for the software which he 
|>uses to spam you.  The Post Office and the Internet are not the same thing, 
|>logistically, thus each email does not require a stamp.

That's MY POINT!!!  Does the post office on your planet deliver your
messages to one, one hundred, or one thousand recipients, all for the cost
of only one stamp?

The recipients of junk email are the ones paying for all those extra stamps.


It's appararent that you're just a shill for the Spammers.  Your 
contradictory logic and stubborn refusal to at least try to comprehend 
the differences between free speech and junk email lead me to this
conclusion.
  
|>But this is all moot.  May I ask, what are your *constructive* suggestions 
|>to reduce spam without restricting free speech?  It's easy to complain...

Ban it.  Just like junk faxes.  Neither is protected.


-- 
-----------------------------------------------------
There's nothing right in my left brain.
There's nothing left in my right brain.
-----------------------------------------------------
*  Russ Leach  * awhfy@tiac.net * rfl@swl.msd.ray.com