From: "Perry E. Metzger" <pmetzger@lehman.com>
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 93 09:25:42 PDT
To: Marc Horowitz <marc@athena.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: encrypted anonymous traffic
In-Reply-To: <9308180211.AA20152@snorkelwacker.MIT.EDU>
Message-ID: <9308181620.AA20911@snark.lehman.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Marc Horowitz says:
> I have to disagree with Lance here.
> 
> >> No one can send any `bomb' through mere text, and to compare harassing
> >> mail (which is definitely not to be condoned) to it is to expose your
> >> naive and self-serving view of the matter.
> 
> I know people who would probably rather receive an explosive in the
> mail than receive email from certain individuals, or about certain
> subjects.

To begin with, the ban on encrypted messages makes no sense because
people who do not have the key to read the messages can obviously not
receive them, and even people who do have the key must make an active
effort to read the messages. I will ignore that for the moment,
however, and address this pervasive notion that words can cause more
harm than letter bombs.

I'm sorry, but its completely irrational to prefer to be killed by an
explosive over getting email from someone you hate. This insane notion
that words are somehow worse than physical blows has to stop.

It leads to insane conclusions, among others, the conclusion that we
must all be restricted in our speech at all times lest we offend
other's feelings. This is the same argument that fundamentalist
christians who would like to ban certain books from our libraries
would use -- that harm can be caused by people accidently reading the
books. This is no speculative notion -- the argument was once actually
used regularly in our country.

The real world contains lots of harmful things. People who are so
incapable of handling a threatening letter or an insulting piece of
mail that they would prefer to die from a letter bomb are unlikely to
be able to deal with the sights and sounds they will see on an
ordinary street in a big city. They are too fragile for this world and
likely should be locked up for their own good until psychiatrists can
manage to heal them, as the preference of death to being offended is
suicidal and the incapacity to deal with the real world will obviously
cripple them. The rest of the world should not be constrained to
handle the needs of these obviously very mentally unbalanced
individuals.




Perry Metzger