From: utzoo!decvax!yale-com!glaser
Newsgroups: net.college
Title: Re: J. Kirkpatrick at U.C. Berkeley - (nf)
Article-I.D.: yale-com.925
Posted: Sat Feb 19 01:38:42 1983
Received: Sun Feb 20 09:27:46 1983
References: ucbcad.612 yale-com.924

(this is a continuation of previous message.  My apologies; our inews
interface flakes out from time to time.)

[reasons for NOT heckling:]

(2) Even in those cases where heckling is morally defensible, it is
    tactically inadvisable 98% of the time.  Why?  consider Johnson's
    reaction:

	      Frankly, booing someone off the stage (also chanting them off,
      threatening them off, etc) is repulsive to me, simply because the hecklers
      are demonstrating that they do NOT want to hear a discussion, they want
      to be bullies.

    Any attempt to heckle or prevent "free speech" must be evaluated
    pragmatically in light of this kind of probable reaction.

(3) I do have my days when I consider myself something of a civil
    libertarian.  When in doubt on a free speech issue, I say let
    them speak.   Note that this is a relativistic view; I would
    feel perfectly right, indeed, morally obliged, to shut up a Hitler.

Finally, Zig Mednieks asks,

	What is it about leftists that makes them blind to reason?

I consider myself a leftist.  Am I blind to reason?

Rob Glaser
Yale University
(decvax!yale-com!glaser)