From: "William H. Geiger III" <whgiii@openpgp.net>
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1998 11:37:15 -0700 (PDT)
To: Dan Stromberg <strombrg@nis.acs.uci.edu>
Subject: Re: LACC: Re: Is hate code speech?
In-Reply-To: <35E44AD1.442F@nis.acs.uci.edu>
Message-ID: <199808261844.NAA016.34@geiger.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


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In <35E44AD1.442F@nis.acs.uci.edu>, on 08/26/98 
   at 12:50 PM, Dan Stromberg <strombrg@nis.acs.uci.edu> said:

>William H. Geiger III wrote:
>> 
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>> 
>> In <Pine.SUN.3.91.980825155854.3483A-100000@baker>, on 08/25/98
>>    at 04:19 PM, Xcott Craver <caj@math.niu.edu> said:
>> 
>> >On Tue, 25 Aug 1998, William H. Geiger III wrote:
>> 
>> >> <sigh> Now we have to worry about PC variable and function names. What a
>> >> crock.
>> 
>> >       Oh, yeah, you really have to worry about *accidentally*
>> >       calling your variables getwatermelons and somefriedchicken.
>> >       Reminds me of this one guy in our neighborhood who was just
>> >       jogging by our house, bent down to tie a shoelace, lost
>> >       his balance and accidentally planted a huge burning cross
>> >       in our front lawn.  Woops!  Those damn PC-mongers are
>> >       making it a crime to jog!
>> 
>> Yes and if I want to name my variables getwatermelons and somefiredchicken
>> who are you to tell me I can't?

>A company worth working for will have a policy that tells you you cannot. 
>(Ok, those variables are a fuzzy issue - Very bad taste. The violent
>stuff mentioned in the original article is clear cut, however)

Company policy and federal law are two different things. A company should
be able to set their policy to whatever they want, don't like it don't
work there.

Also please explain exactly what "violent stuff" you are in reference to
and how it is "clear cut".

>> >       One note:  I don't see why this lawsuit would be hard to win
>> >       on the grounds that source code isn't necessarily "speech."
>> >       If co-workers left a big wooden swastika on her desk it
>> >       wouldn't be speech either, but I'd call that actionable.
>> 
>> But they didn't. There is no proof that any of theses variable names were
>> written to be directed at her and the majority of them were written
>> *before* she ever started working there!!

>So what's your point?

>Creating a hostile environment with the expectation that you'll never
>hire someone who's black is "ok"?

1st off the whole notion of "hostile environment" is bunk. It is a loosely
undefined term to mean anything the PC crowd wants it to. If you do or say
anything that might "offend" a PCer then you have a "hostile workplace".
As I said in previous posts you do not have a right to not be offended not
only that but thanks to the 1st Amendment I have the right to offend you.

One should be very carefull of this whole notion of protecting people from
being offended. Not only does it erode the rights protected under the
Constitution but it can very easily be turned against those who are
promoting it. Political tides are turning and the country as a whole is
getting fed up with the PC crowd. I can see lawsuits in the not to distant
future against the Pcer for creating a "hostile workplace" by pushing
their PC dogma.


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