From: Digital Revolution TM <drtm@dev.null>
Date: Sat, 28 Jun 1997 18:52:44 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Nutly interview Donna Rice-Hughes
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Subject: Re: Nutly interview Donna Two-Names

Declan McCullagh wrote:
> http://www.pathfinder.com/news/netdecency/rice.html
> Interview with Donna Rice-Hughes, Enough is Enough
> The Netly News
> June 26, 1997
 
> You have a lot of people who have been using the
> Internet for years for the contructive purposes for
> which it was designed. Now it's becoming more
> commercial and you have pedophiles, pornographers and
> people who are just posting their private collections
> of pornography and polluting it, exploiting that
> technology.

  Why isn't Donna Rice-Huges telling us the _names_ of all
these pedophiles on the internet? Better yet, why isn't she
telling law enforcement authorities the names of these
pedophiles?
  If legislators and crusaders are aware of large numbers
of pedophiles using the internet or any other medium for
promoting child pornography then why aren't they taking
steps to enforce the existing laws against this behavior?
 
> A few bad apples are spoiling it for
> everyone else. If it wasn't for that then we wouldn't
> be having this problem.

  Excuse me? A 52 billion dollar a year (and growing) industry
would seem to me to be an indication that a significant number
of those included in the "everyone" that Donna Rice-Hughes has
taken it upon herself to speak for are willing and active 
participants and consumers in the growing portion of the 
internet industry which is fulfilling the needs of people of
various sexual proclivities.
  Not having seen Donna Rice-Hughes naked for quite some
time, I cannnot comment as to whether naked pictures of her
could be regarded as "pollution" but I would submit that the
thousands upon thousands of ordinary men and women who choose
to share erotic home photographs of their bodies with others
do not regard their physical vessel as a form of "pollution."

> Long before any of this it would have been great if
> the Internet community had said, "Hey, don't pollute
> this technology," and had imposed their own controls.
> But that didn't happen and it isn't happening.

  This is the "Big Lie" that censoring fascists such as Donna
Two-Names would have us believe.
  The InterNet community imposes the same control that I myself
impose--namely, *self-control*.

  I do not post naked pictures of myself to the cypherpunks list,
or to the health lists I particpate in. Nor have I ever posted
long discourses on cryptography to alt.sex.picures.Rice-Hughes.
  I have no plans to become a pedophile because of the CDA being
declared unconstitutional. (Likewise, I find it hard to believe
that anyone would stop being a pedophile because of the CDA being
passed.)

  Millions of ordinary citizens are imposing the self-control
needed to direct their InterNet activities toward forums which
are formed to promote and enhance that form of activity.
  No doubt some children's forum will at some point receive a
sexually graphic picture from a sex-spammer (or government
agent / religious agent provoacteur). I hardly regard this as
a good reason to enact invasive and oppressive laws aimed at
people who are engaging in activities they enjoy in forums
created for that purpose.
  The fact is that sex-graphic spamming of children, if it does
occur, can be handled by dealing with the person who performs 
an action such as this, which may be highly inappropriate. The 
Fascist Censorship Coalition, however, would have us believe 
that such actions would go "unpunished" unless invasive and 
oppressive laws are passed which would inhibit and/or 
criminalize activities which a significant portion of the 
citizens find to be of value in their lives.

  Another of the "Big Lies" that the Fascist Censorship Coalition would
have us believe is that their main concern is preventing minors from
having easy access to what is considered "adult" material.
  Donna Rice-Hughes makes it plain that she considers activities she
wishes to support and engage in "constructive," while activities she
does not wish to support and engage in are "pollution." I find this as
normal and natural as considering ASCII art spams to the cypherpunks
list to be "pollution" of the list (except for the really funny ones).
  The problem I have with the Fascist Censorship Coalition is not just
that they want to embark upon the same censorous path that John
Gilmore ill-advisedly trod (though I will forgive him once Tim McVeigh
has died for John's sins), but also that they desire to do so with 
armed force (laws/prison).
  Those claiming the moral high-ground do not merely want (by way of
analogy) to unsubscribe Dr. Vulis from the list because they disagree
with his views and attitude, but also want to prevent him from speaking
on *any* list, and imprison him if he should do so.

  "Big Lie #<random number> uses loud proclaimations of pedophilia and
bestiality (the four 'dicl-licking' horsemen) lurking on every corner, 
when their real agenda is to suppress and criminalize activities which 
they regard as "immoral" regardless of the fact that millions of
citizens
consider those activities acceptable.
  For the record, I do not, as a matter of practice, stick crowbars up
my ass. Neither do I spend time seeking out pictures of those who do.
I also have no particular interest in doing a Yahoo search on "home
hardware" only to retrieve a multitude of pointers to websites dedicated
to pictures of people sticking a crowbar up their ass. When it happens,
("The YOUNGEST TEENS on the Net--Sticking CROWBARS up their ass!!!")
I regard it like I do ASCII art-spams and I ignore/delete them (unless
I see indications of "redeeming social value" or a really superlative
"cheap shot").

  "The answer to noise is more noise."
  Unfortunately, all the Fascist Censorship Coalition has is a hammer,
so everything looks like a nail to them. ("The nail that sticks out
gets hammered down.")
  Donna Rice-Hughes is free to join with others having similar interests
in order to _create_ "constructive" noise of her choosing in order to
drown out what she considers "pollution." Instead, she sets her sights
on the destruction of noise which a significant number of citizens
consider to be of value. She and the other members of the Fascist
Censorship Coalition choose to be "destroyers" rather than "creators."

  Saddam Hussein could come to America and claim the moral high-ground,
denouncing Donna Rice-Hughes as a harlot for showing her bare arms,
or ankles, or whatever his definition of "immorality" encompasses.
  He could likely parrot every moralistic stance taken by the Fascist
Censorship Coalition and make the same claims for the need to enact
laws to censor and/or ban much of what the Coalition values.
  The question is: "*Which* 'scum' needs to be 'cleansed' from our 
common environment?"
  The answer, (according to the Fascist Censorhip Coalition) is:
 "The _free_speech_ scum."

  The bottom line is that the Fascist Censorship Coalition's goal is
to force their moral(~religious) values on the "everyone" that they
claim to be speaking for.
  Not only that, but they also wish to use armed force (laws/prison)
to suppress the display and expression of those concepts and activities
which fail to meet their own moral(~religious) criteria. They not only
don't want themselves and their children to be exposed to certain "bad"
materials/speech, but they don't even want the existence of that "bad"
material/speech to be acknowledged in their moralistically protected
corner of reality.

  My guess is that the reason Donna Rice-Hughes has a problem with 
other people putting a crowbar up their ass is because it reminds her
of the painful stick that she has up hers.

~~~~~
TruthMonger
     ~~~~~~

p.s. - singling out the Bible-thumpers, in particular, my personal
theory is that when they do a search on the word "christian sex" in
order to find religiously oriented sex-education material and then
receive 20,000 pointers to URL's with names like "Naked Teenage 
Christian  Sex Slaves," that this is merely divine retribution for
all of those "social events" they invited me to that turned out to
be prayer meetings at which the "sins" being railed against all
seemed to be lifted from my personal diary.