From: snow <snow@smoke.suba.com>
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 1996 11:04:50 -0800 (PST)
To: hyperlex@hol.gr (George A. Stathis)
Subject: Re: [REBUTTAL] Censorship on cypherpunks?, from The Netly News
In-Reply-To: <199611151044.IAA25992@prometheus.hol.gr>
Message-ID: <199611151919.NAA01357@smoke.suba.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


> At 12:19 =F0=EC 15/11/1996 -0600, snow wrote:
> (in the end)...
> >     That is what freedom is, the ability to _do it yourself_ not the=20
> >requirement that others do it for you, or allow you to use what they=20
> >have already built.=20
> Hey man, do they sell "FREEDOM KITS" in American Supermarkets? :-)
> ROTFL!

      Nope, you have to make your own. The Kit is mostly Education, which
is available to all. 

> (and started saying):
> [...]
> >> Just as suddenly, the classic anti-free-speech arguments of "if you
> >> don't like it, start yer own" begin to surface. (Anyone ever notice
> >> how this resembles the "love it or leave it" mentality of certain
> >> American patriotic organizations?)
> >     It still isn't censorship. Censorship, at least in my dictionary,=20
> >refers to censor, which uses the word "Official" several times.
> You mean that if... Dr. Dimitri Vulis hires a Mafia-man to kill ya,=20
> (to silence you) this wouldn't be censorship, since it would not be
> "Official"  ? :-)

     It would not be censorship, it would be Conspiracy to murder (I 
believe, the Legal types could give you the proper charge) on Vulis's part,
and attempted murder on the Hit Man's part. 

> 
> >Mr.=20
> >Gilmore is not an "Official" in a government sense, he maybe in the EFF
> >sense, but this is not an "Official" EFF organ, so that doesn't count.=20
> 
> OK, any bombs thrown in the offices of the Ecological Party are not
> official censorship either. It was _unofficial_ censorship by... "Motor
> Oil Corporation" trying to stop the Flow of Information (about their
> oil leakages polluting the Mediterranean Sea)... See what I mean?

     That is NOT censorship. A rake is not a shovel, you can dig with it,
but that doesn't make it a shovel. It simply isn't. 

> >     He is the OWNER of this list, and the machine it runs on. If he=
>  chooses
> >(which he didn't) to keep someone from using the list, it is his right.
> If I own a building and invite you to an open meeting inside this building
> do I own what you _say_ or your rights to _say_ it?=20

     Red Herring. Gilmore never claimed ownership over anyones writing, 
nor did he even make the claim that Vulis didn't have the right to 
say what he said, all he "claimed" (note quotes) was that Vulis wasn't 
welcome to say it here. 

> >     "Editorial Control" means that someone decides who get's published and
> >who doesn't. From your opposition to it, I guess you think that a magazine
> >dedicated to poetry should print all poems submitted, or as many, selected
> >in some sort of non-judgemental order, as they can fit. Or that a magazine
> >should print any writings submitted to it.=20
> See my other posting about why the "Editorial" analogy has serious flaws.

     I don't buy it.

> I don't see 'em mailing listes hangin' over the kiosk in the centre of

     Not yet. 

> town, ya know. Nor does the list-ownere make his bread out of 'em. And

     Wether he makes money off it or not is irrelevant. 

> finally, we readers aren't as stupid as to forget that we are also the
> WRITERS of them mailing listes! :-) :-)

     As the poets who send their drivel/art to a poetry mag. are the 
WRITERS of that magazine. 

> >> Mr. Gilmore, and other like minded parties, might want to consider
> >> what would happen if one parent company owned *all* communications
> >> media. Would they they be so supportive of the ideology of ownership
> >> and communciation they espouse?
> >     How would this happen? Setting up a press is fairly easy, at least=20
> >a small hand operated press. Start your own magazine, start your own
> >mailing list.=20
> 
> Bulshit!  If this happened, nobody would exist to allow us to express

     This doesn't make sense. 

> Are you telling us that setting up an entire _PRESS_ is fairly easy?
> Listen man, it's not. My printer (who printed the boxes for my software)
> will tell you this!  He'll also explain why my major competitor in Greece
> owns an entire Printing/Publishing house just for Computer Manuals
> (Singular S.A.).

     Setting up an entire Offset Web Press is difficult, setting up a 
press that will print on boxes and shit is not easy. Setting up 
a small hand operated press isn't that difficult. Note, I didn't say 
build, I just said set up. I have, in the past run a Vandercook Universal,
a small letter press. These are available used at very low costs by 
hobbyists all over America, and probably other parts of the world. Ture
your output is limited to what you can crank thru the press, but this
is just an example. 

    As I noted somewhere else, there are always Photocopiers, and 
small presses will never go away, there just is too much market for short
run stuff that the boys with the big presses don't want to deal with. 

> Setting up a mailing list is not _that_ easy, but it's still much more
> intricate and difficult than accepting the Basic Principles of Free
> Expression: DON'T KICK OUT GUESTS YOU INVITE TO "OPEN MEETINGS".
> (In the Internet or anywhere else in fact). If you don't like 'em
> guests don't invite them in the first place, or don't call your
> meetings "OPEN".

     Very few of the people on this list were "invited" most simply 
wandered in.

     Try this, organize a small "open meeting" of around 1500 to 2000
people. Show up, act like a fucking drunk, scream rude and untrue things
at the speakers, piss on the other guests. Let me know if people try
to get you to leave. 

> e.g. Just as aga tolerates me and vice versa, so should Gilmore
> tolerate Dimitri Vulis.=20

     It wan't his opnions, it was his actions. That is the difference.

Petro, Christopher C.
petro@suba.com <prefered for any non-list stuff>
snow@smoke.suba.com