From: snow <snow@smoke.suba.com>
Date: Wed, 6 Nov 1996 11:38:12 -0800 (PST)
To: dthorn@gte.net (Dale Thorn)
Subject: Re: Censorship on cypherpunks
In-Reply-To: <3280A5D9.35E8@gte.net>
Message-ID: <199611061955.NAA12955@smoke.suba.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


> snow wrote:
> > > > It's only authoritarianism if the government is involved.
> > > > Clearly, the government isn't involved in this matter.
> [snippo]
> > fans of his team. Screaming at the top of his lungs about the quarterback
> > for a totally different team fumbling the ball in the 1970 world series.
> [snip, snip]
> A vastly more accurate analogy is that the "Doctor" is not in fact inside of the bar,
> as none of the cypherpunks are inside of anyone's home but their own.  Vulis is some-
> where else, sending his brand of beer to the bar in competition with a number of
> other "vendors".  Customers and vendors alike complain that Vulis' bottles have
> offensive portraits on them, possibly famous sports figures in an unflattering light.

     Side note: Could you please set your mail reader to format messages 
to < 80 columns? I, and I assume several others here use Unix CLI based mail
readers that wrap your text weirdly.

> So the bar owner bans Vulis' beer, but he sends it in anyway through a third party,
> and several patrons discover that they can easily remove the outer label from the
> bottle and see the original portraits.

      He isn't "putting different labels" on his horse piss, he can still 
post under his own name. 

     Your analogy makes no sense. 

> There are similarities to Prohibition here.
> Now the bar owner, being the owner, can throw out anyone he wants to anytime, and he
> gets away with this with little or no trouble lawsuit-wise, since the courts are much
> more lenient with owners of bars and rock-n-roll venues that with, say, Denny's
> Restaurants.

     Not really. Any establishment has the rights (and in some cases the 
responcibility) to remove patrons for their _actions_. If you go into dennys 
and act like a total ass, abusing other patrons, and daring the Management to
throw you out, you will most likely be eating at McD's. 

     Bar and Club owners probably do have more latitude to pick and choose
who they allow _in_ to their establishment, but both have the right to eject
patrons who start shit. 
 
> As I've said before, all forums on the net can be arranged at some point in the future
> to be "privately" owned, and the question is, can there be a free speech forum where
> you won't be arbitrarily banned?

     Yes. You start your own forum. When Perry was looking for a home for a 
new list, I offered a machine that I have up as a server, it is already running
a mailing list that offer to a certain group, on that list I have very 
few rules, but they are enforced. Outside of 2 areas, anything can be discussed.I put those 2 areas (Politics and Non-subject related Commercial posts) off 
limits to keep traffic down. When one of the users and I started to get into
politics, I noted the problem (It had been over a year since I had put the 
rules into place, and I even forgot--it never came up) and started another 
list (which promptly fell over and died) for that express purpose. 

     I and not a rocket scientist, but maintaining a low use unix server and 
majordomo are not that difficult (I wouldn't want to deal with a list the 
size of CP, but that is a different matter), and 
----------------Here is the big point--------------------------
as long as you have access to A PRESS of any kind, you are not being censored. 

     Vulis is probably much more intelligent than I, hell I couldn't get a 
masters in Math, much less a Piled Higher and Deeper. He probably makesa a 
good deal more money than I do, so he shouldn't have much difficulty setting
up his own server, with it's own web site, remailer, and Mailing list in 
competetion with this one. 

     Let him start his own bar as Mr. Metzger is doing. 


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