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From: tim@unc.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: Farters Rights and unclean hobbits
Message-ID: <5598@unc.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 21-Jul-83 22:48:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: unc.5598
Posted: Thu Jul 21 22:48:41 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 27-Jul-83 22:57:36 EDT
Lines: 112


    Here is a letter from my little friend Frodo.  Dear, sweet Frodo
has threatened to piss in my dinner, as you may recall.  I can
certainly understand why the poor dear feels that I am victimizing
him.  Certainly if I threatened to mix my processed bodily fluids with
a person's repast in a urinary fashion, I would feel quite bad about
the person having attacked me.  What could the provocation possibly
be?  We can see the hairy little devil thrashing here on the horns of
his dilemma.

            In your attack on myself and jrf, you did just
        what you accused both of us of doing.  Attacking,
        without understanding what we were trying to say.  The
        quote that you pulled out of my article was a tail end
        comment directed in general, not necessarily toward you.

    Poor guy.  It really breaks my heart when someone goes out of
their way to be nice to somebody else by mixing his kidney-transformed
liquids with the other's hard, indigestible meal, only to be met by
a totally irrational outcry.

        The gist of the article was a response to your
        statement that unless there was "substatial evidence"
        (or something like that), you would oppose
        laws...etc..etc...which I understand.  I just can't
        believe your logic.  From your article in defense of
        smokers' rights, I concluded that you were a smoker.
        An obvious conclusion, since you did not state that
        you were a non-smoker.

    Obvious if you are attempting to show that your view of the issue
is so limited that you can't conceive of any rational disagreement,
that is.  But with you, I guess we can take that as a given.

            Frodo is not a "half-witted, deformed little
        beast".  I think you will find many people that will
        disagree with you.  If you want to attack me, attack
        ME.  I put my real name in the articles.  There is no
        reason to attack a Hobbit.

    Now, search your memory here, small guy.  Who attacked whom?  Now,
can the cute widdle hobbit really expect that if he takes gratuitous
pot shots at someone, that someone will become his good friend and
treat him real nice?  Or, to put it in human terms: I'll treat you
well until you take a pot shot at me, after which I'll feel free to
enjoy myself.  Oh yes, and I hardly consider "hou5f!jrt" to be a "real
name".  Or did they forgot to give your mother the Thorazine that day?

            In your attack you argue that you are against
        restricting the "liberties" of anyone, in spite of the
        fact that there is a general consensus.  Gee, there is
        a general consensus that murder is not appreciated.
        You must feel that there should be no laws restricting
        anyone's "liberty" or "right" to murder, even though
        most people feel that murder is bad.

    I do not think that murder laws should be considered to be just
simply because of the fact that societal consensus supports them.  I
think they should be considered to be just because murder is depriving
someone else of his or her liberty wantonly and without sufficient
cause, in an objectively observable fashion.  Similarly for rape,
slavery, etc.  Societal consensus is notoriously repressive and cruel.
It is not a fit basis on which to restrict liberty.  That approach is
nothing but social behavior control, with people imprisoning others
for what can be considered at most an unwillingness to conform.  There
must be a need for a law.

    I have deliberately avoided mention of "rights" because the word
carries a lot of philosophical baggage around; "liberty" is an exact
statement of what I mean.  Liberty is the ability to do a thing.  To
restrict someone else's liberty, there must be a need.

        I agree with you on one thing (yes AGREE), that people
        should not be restricted in their liberties and
        freedoms.  I differ from you in that I do feel
        liberties and rights should be restricted when they
        infringe upon the freedoms and rights of others.  For
        example the right to life, or the right to breath
        CLEAN AIR, etc.

    What do you think I am, some kind of marauding ogre???  I consider
this statement to be extremely insulting to my intelligence, probably
deliberately so on your part.  Have you read any of the seemingly
hundreds of articles I've posted recently on this subject?  IF SO,
THEN WHY DO I HAVE TO KEEP REPEATING THINGS, GOD DAMN IT?

    I favor environmental legislation.  Dumping your poisons on
someone without their consent should be considered a crime because it
deprives the person of liberty by shortening their life, reducing
their mobility, etc.  No one has yet produced evidence that AMBIENT
cigarette smoke is a poison worth the restriction of liberty.  It is
not clear that the studies on direct ingestion of the smoke should be
considered generalizable to the ambient case.

    How the hell am I supposed to get anything said if people won't
listen to me?  There is nothing, no thing at all, about smoking in
this article which I haven't said before.  That's why I'm so pissed
off.  Frodo shows no signs of having even read any of my submissions
before charging to the attack.  Apparently he already knows what I'm
going to say, so he doesn't have to confuse himself with the facts of
what I actually am saying.  The anger in my article is not just show,
it is very real.  I hate repeating myself, you hairy-footed fool, so
don't expect me to be nice to you when you refuse to grant me even the
courtesy of your attention, and don't cry when I respond to your
attacks in kind.

______________________________________
The overworked keyboard of Tim Maroney

duke!unc!tim (USENET)
tim.unc@udel-relay (ARPA)
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill