🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <dreilley.197.00448462@pinc.com>,
David Reilley <dreilley@pinc.com> wrote:
> In article <DCBBDD.L1E@reptiles.org> evans@reptiles.org (Tom Evans) writes:
> 
> >BullSHIT! Art is existence....stay in  your museum and let artists exist.
> 
> So is sex - but does that mean I can jerk-off on the sidewalk in front of your 
> house?

This is the kind of logic that informs the Exon Bill, New Zealand's 
Technology & Crimes Reform Bill, and countless scaremongering media pieces.

"Usenet can be accessed from my home PC; therefore it is part of my 
personal space, and should not be invaded by things that displease me."

IMO, there is a world of difference between:
1) A discretionary medium; I can only be offended by what's in a newspaper 
or magazine if I choose to buy it and read it.

2) A broadcast medium: Radio and TV do come to my house as it were 
"univited," and I at least have to take positive action (turning the OFF 
switch) if I become aware that something will be broadcast that offends me.

3) A personally directed communication like mail or email.

Usenet news, IMO, belongs in 1. If you see a message header from Bob 
Allisat, there is nothing that compels you to read the message, or 
characterises it as a communication to you personally.

You may ignore everything beyond the header. You may put Bob Allisat (or 
messages posted to more than a certain number of newsgroups) in a 
killfile and you won't even have to be bothered with the headings.

This is at most an inconvenience on a par with turning the OFF switch. 
Unlike drawing your curtains to avoid flashers on the sidewalk, it does 
not personally inconvenience you to any noticeable extent to have to do 
this.

Start arguing that Bob's poetry is directed at you, and the logically 
following consequence is that any discussion of a topic more suited to 
adults on Usenet should be regarded as personally "made available" (in 
terms of the Exon Bill) to any randomly-selected child. 

That way lies the Noddy-Internet; the net as an educational toy for kids.

Now maybe you want this, but by imposing it on me you are, in my opinion, 
trespassing far more on my freedom than a random bit of not particularly 
good poetry.


-- 
         /\    |            Steve Bell    <ahaz@actrix.gen.nz>
     ___/_ \   |    _  __   "You may as well fall flat on your face as
    /\_  /\_\  |^,  _)  /   lean over too far backwards."
   /_ _\/_ _ \ | | (_) /__                        James Thurber