From: stats@MCS.COM (Joseph B. Dunphy)
Subject: Re: NAMBLA Needs Psychiatric Help
Date: 07 Oct 1995 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <456rsl$kt8@Mercury.mcs.com>

more headers (*)

Oh, another standard net trick for silencing the opposition got trotted out, and I thought that I should mention it, as a preemptive response to a followup that I expect to see.

The trick is to take something that someone said or did, attach a misleading label to what was said or done, and count on people to react to that labeling without being careful enough to read what is being dishonestly described, before reacting. Like the politically correct, who will refer to ANYTHING that they disagree with as being racist, sexist, homophobic, antisemitic (as a fallen away Jew, how badly that one makes me cringe out of embarassment), etc. "Gee, you aren't in favor of bigotry, are you? Then you'd better not disagree with me, or I'll make everyone think that you are, damaging your career and getting you ostracised in the process. But please don't suggest that I'm undermining your freedom of speech, because then I'll have to tell everyone that you're a fascist."

Or, if one tries to report something that someone did that LOOKS funny, simply reporting what one saw and heard, presenting conjectures and suspicions as being just that, not as proven facts, offering the reasons behind each, emphasising that one doesn't really know that anything wrong has been done, but simply urging people to look into it to ascertain what the truth is - what is the response? Yes. It gets called slander, and who could be in favor of that? Opposing that sounds a lot more reasonable that saying "I am opposed to you discussing your concerns openly in public, and trying to find out if they are warranted." It goes on, though, and it is becoming a socially acceptable way of stifling public criticism, and blocking scrutiny of questionable actions, along with the threat of wrongful prosecution, even when the facts given are not contested. (Remember the biosphere dispute?)

Posts on the net that argue with a group consensus, are referred to as "being inappropriate for the groups they are in", even when they are directed toward topics that are relevant in that newsgroup, and are censored on that basis. As if freedom of expression was supposed to be subject to a majority vote. As if the ability to get a group of one's cliquemates together, back up your demands, and browbeat anyone who disagrees with you into silence, is proof of a majority vote. Will someone go on the net in public, and criticise such an effort? His post might be the next to be deemed "inappropriate".

In my case, I had some idiots persistantly e-mailing me, even after I told them to stop mailing me, and go away. After someone sent his fifth post in a row, ignoring this demand, I informed him that if he didn't cut it out, I would write to his sysop, and urge him to take appropriate action. Further, that if he persisted in this sort of action, that I would take legal action against him (e-mail harassment is now illegal), that I would make it very public, and that the full sordid details of the case would come out. Namely, that he had been engaging in harassment in order to bother someone for having said something nasty about a group of people who, a few pages into their FAQ post, mention that they think that society is oppressing them by making it illegal for grown men to sleep with 8 year old boys.

Take due note. The act that this "threat" is conditioned on is an illegal one (continued harassment). The action threatened (a lawsuit, a complaint to his sysop, and a truthful account of the whole incident be given the local media in his area) is a legal one. In fact, the last part is constitutionally protected. Truth is an absolute defense against any libel or slander charge. So, legally, this is not a threatening remark, and it would be ludicrous if it was.

"Yu hona, I wants dat ya shud arrest da chif of police. He tretened me. He sez, if I knocks off annuda bank, heez gonna arrest me. Dats a tret!"

No, it isn't. We couldn't enforce the law if it was. The whole point of having a system of laws is to allow people to inform those who would engage in some prohibited form of abuse, what the consequences will be if they do so, BEFORE someone becomes a victim. "Obey the law, or face the legal consequences, and the resulting damage to your reputation when the truth comes out" is always a legitimate thing to say.


So, what happened ? More of the same. The inflammatory misuse of an accusation to shove someone into a desired emotional response. The person that I was writing to complained to my Sysop about my "threatening note". Suba, as I have already mentioned, was manned by practitioners of the "don't make a wave" philosophy. Like others of their kind, reality for them is whatever people say it is, even when one can easily see that what other people are saying is bullshit, just by looking for oneself.

If someone says that a note is threatening, that makes it threatening, in their eyes. Even though they were sent copies of the allegedly threatening note, they didn't bother to read them. All they did was react to the unjustified label placed on it. I get a message asking me if I am going to agree to "stop sending threatening messages". I call them back, get their answering machine, leave a message detailing the situation, and saying that of course I agree to abide the terms of the user agreement that I signed, but that I had never violated it in the first place. I would certainly never send someone a legitimately threatening note. Their message, by the way, had been buried behind ABUSERGOD's mailbomb, which had already arrived.

At this point, should mention that Suba, in that user agreement, in print, promises to not censor its' users posts. The promise to not do so is part of a contract with their signatures on it.

Within the hour, they had suspended my account. I made sure to call them, and mention that since the appropriate authorities had already been contacted, that any purging of the contents of the account (I wouldn't wipe the mailbomb until the next day) would constitute destruction of evidence, and that they shouldn't do that. Also, I expressed my shock and outrage that they would violate their contractual obligations in such a fashion, or that they would see fit to reward a mailbombing effort, asking them what sort of precedent that was to set. To this day, in fact, since I've come back on, the mailbombing threat is one that has been bandied about quite freely whenever I've been flamed, being offered in an almost gloating fashion. Quite futily, I may add. Karl Deninger is now my Sysop. I doubt that he'll prove too sympathetic to an effort to harass someone into silence for posting something controversial. Nevertheless, an offensive precedent was clearly set in this case.

I finally caught up to them, and their excuse was that they didn't consider a phone call to be a response, even though the answering machine, which they acknowledged to have heard my messages on, is in the same store front office at 2945 N. Broadway, here in Chicago, as the terminal that they use for logging on. So, the guy couldn't walk 20 whole feet to pick up his messages, apparently. A personal visit was necessary to even get them to offer an excuse, and pay lip service to the idea of honoring their commitments.

Very, very strange. As you can see, freedom of expression is not quite what it should be around here. Suba did agree to give a refund check after the "breach of contract" issue was brought up, but that didn't make up for the loss of time.

This crap shouldn't go on.



................................................................................... Joe Dunphy

A few choices, take one ...

1. Check the original of this post in Dejanews.
2. Go on to the next post in this series.
3. Return to my first time with Fred Cherry
4. Return to the Petro incident.

What?! You came from somewhere else? You have missed so much. Maybe you'd like to return and hear more about those moments when I first got to know Fred. Your answer?

1. Please, I'm intrigued.
2. No, I've had enough fun. Get me out of here.

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