From: David Sternlight <david@sternlight.com>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 22:38:58 +0800
To: Alan Horowitz <tcmay@got.net>
Subject: Re: Boycotts and Etiquette
In-Reply-To: <ae18344f000210049773@[205.199.118.202]>
Message-ID: <v03007808ae1a05e84034@[192.187.162.15]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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At 9:04 AM -0700 7/22/96, Alan Horowitz wrote:
>My own decision to not interlocute with Sternlight is premised as
>follows:  His viewpoint is invariant and, by now, efficiently disseminated.
>Briefly, he is a Statist and he never heard of any degree of Statism that
>offends his sensibilities.

You, sir, are an ignoramus. I mean by that that you have not read any
significant volume of my posts, in many of which I vigorously oppose such
things as the Digital Telephony Bill, and yet you pronounce freely on
something about which you know little.

Although I sometimes agree with sentiments here for logical and policy
reasons, and sometimes disagree for the same reasons, you apparently think
that unless someone agrees lock-step with you they are rubber stamps for
the "other side".
You have a lot to learn.

And by the way "statist" is an empty taunt. But then, perhaps you think the
Founding Fathers were statists, and the Constitution a tool of the devil.

> I understand he's old enough to have been
>around when Stalin was still running things in the USSR.  David probably
>was finding good things to say about Old Joe.

Actually, though fairly young at the time, I was horror-stricken. That's
one man I never had a good word for. I was amazed that most
fellow-travelers didn't see it until his pact with Hitler.

> And more importantly,
>about J Edgar Hoover.

Though your black and white mentality can't accomodate it, Hoover did at
least one major positive thing for civil liberties, amid the morass of his
high-handed offenses. That was to refuse to go along with the Nixon White
House's "Houston Plan". He said flat out it was unconstitutional and he
wouldn't do it. They tried every way they could to get around him, but
failed. It's all been documented in Senate hearings and with the source
documents. Now some say Hoover did this for his own reasons but be that as
it may, on that occasion he saved the Constitution, and despite his sins I
think he died shriven.

>
>I pay by the minute for my internet access; many others do as well. If I
>decide to ignore Sternlight, it is a business decision, not a moral one.

You are free to ignore anyone you like for any reason, or no reason. I urge
you to kill file me if you don't want to read my stuff. If you have a mail
reader I'm familiar with, I'd even be happy to give you instructions on how
to do it.

David