🚀 go-pugleaf

In news.admin.misc, Cyronwode <cyronwode@aol.com> writes:

> Uh...does the phrase "sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will
> never hurt me" ring a bell with you? Why do you think that phrase is a
> part of our vocabulary? Could it be because most of us realize -- through
> experience -- that there is a true difference between physical threats and
> verbal taunting?

Look, you need to get this straight.  You.  Threatened.  Someone's.  Job.
What, does it take a sledgehammer to get this through your skull?  You don't
think that hurts him any?  You don't think raising cane with his boss would
have any impact on the person whatsoever?

This isn't some big game, and we aren't all toys for your personal
amusement.  You don't get to just yank people around like this and then walk
away saying "it's not my problem."  We're actually going to (gasp) hold you
accountable for what you're doing.  There are actual people being those
e-mail addresses, people who can actually be affected by what you write.

Welcome to the real world, my friend.  We bite back.

> Sorry, but you are SERIOUSLY mistaken in your analogous attribution of
> causality here. I apologized FIRST. Several days LATER (4 days on my
> server) Fletcher closed the gateway.

Which has absolutely nothing to do with anything.  You acted like a moron.
One of a long string of morons, a disproportionate number of which have come
from AOL.  Fletcher decided he'd had about enough of dealing with morons who
do nothing but complain about a service that he's providing in his spare
time and who just use and use without giving anything back, and closed the
gateway down.

Whether or not you apologized is IRRELEVANT!  Whether or not you're sorry
now is IRRELEVANT!  There are some things in life that can't be fixed by
saying "I'm sorry."  It's absolutely astonishing that you haven't learned
that before now.

> No, i did not. *Fletcher* took the gateway down. No amount of *words*
> could have forced him to.

Guess what; the entire world doesn't reduce neatly to forced and didn't
force.  You may want to try coming down out of your black and white fantasy
world into the one the rest of us live in sometime.  *You* and *your
message* are the proximate cause for the closing of the gateway, and no
squirming, whining, and backpedalling is going to get you out of that.

And you're really making a good showing here, BTW.  Not only did you not get
smart and let the subject drop, you're actually flaming people for
expressing indigation and then lying about your affiliation with Eclipse.
Good show, Cat.  Nothing like demonstrating to the entire world the kind of
scum you really are.

> It was his choice. His free will. Live with it.  By manufacturing the
> analogy of physical force ("an Uzi and hand grneades") you prop up the
> false construct of my having coerced Fletcher to shut the gateway and thus
> you attribute final cause ("destroying something useful") to me.

Wonderful straw man.  If you ever feel like addressing what people are
actually saying, do let us know.

> Granted, i have earned some enmity for my original post, which i deeply
> regret -- and, judging by writers such as yourself, i am the *subject* of
> some enmity, but i cannot accept that i have "earned" enmity for
> FLETCHER'S actions.

However, emnity on Usenet is not something that is accepted or not
accepted.  It's earned, and you've earned yours well.  Hope you enjoy it.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@cs.stanford.edu)     http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~rra/