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From: cliff@unmvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: NOT about Jeff S. in net.women.o; Ross is 100% wrong again
Message-ID: <569@unmvax.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 6-Jan-85 16:27:15 EST
Article-I.D.: unmvax.569
Posted: Sun Jan  6 16:27:15 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 9-Jan-85 05:49:27 EST
References: <637@bunker.UUCP> <8200056@acf4.UUCP>
Organization: Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque
Lines: 219

> cliff@unmvax==>
> 
> Cliff@unmax and I are having a little disagreement.
> 
> It seems that my attitude about following rules is something that Cliff
> finds distasteful.  The rule in question is whether or not men should
> post to net.women.only.

I am not concerned with a "rule in question."  One of your reasons to justify
not posting to net.women.only was because it is a rule.  From the start I have
tried to point out that it is foolish to obey a rule or law just because it
exists.  I am not saying there is no reason to not post to net.women.only (btw,
how many times have you seen me post there?).  I am saying that blind obedience
to rules has led to horrible things in the past.

> I feel that men should not, since this is a rule
> that has been inherent in the net since before either of us started
> using the net.

Ross:  Can you say 100% wrong?  I am amazed at your deductive powers...  What
ever made you believe that the rule was inherent in the net before I started
using the net?  Of course whether anyone was or wasn't on the net before
net.*.only was created is irrelevant, but the statement does show us that
YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT.

> Cliff (forgive me for paraphrasing, sir!) feels that
> by men utilizing net.women.only that this somehow should be considered
> civil disobedience on a par with Gandhi and Martin Luthor King. He finds
> my opinion reprehensible:
> 
> > I was not bitching about net.women.only!  I was bitching about your assinine
> > "well, that is the rule, so it must be abided" attitude!  I suspect I see
> > your difficulty and I will elaborate on it further down in this followup.
> 
> He then comments on me editing of his words.  In particular he brings up
> the idea that I committed a somehow tragic error by not preserving his
> comment about flaming me in net.flame.  Of course, if a person were to read
> the entire posting, I'm sure that they'll see I was commenting that
> if they wanted to flame about net.women.only, then they should do it in
> net.flame, or net.women.  The point that I was trying to make was that
> even if you DO want to flame about net.women.on the place to do it
> is NOT in net.women.only (unless you are female!).

Think hard.  I have posted a grand total of 0 articles to net.women.only.
My original response to you was in net.flame.  Do you really think it was
necessary to reply to my article that was in net.flame advising me not to
post it to net.women.only?  Maybe you should have also told me not to post
to net.rec.nude, after all, that is another newsgroup that wouldn't want
the followup that I displayed no intention to post to...

> Cliff then does on a lengthy diatribe about his involvement in many of
> the vitally important areas of world need.  He discusses his criminal
> record and what brought that about.  Actually, he discusses that he
> broke the law but was never caught:
> 
> > I wasn't arrested, but I did break the law.

You fail to show the context, it was your holier than thou attitude that I
was responding to.  I didn't say I wasn't caught; I wasn't arrested.  The
issue is interesting.  Some courts have thrown out cases of registration
resistance, since it is quite obvious that the persecutions have been
selectively chosen to try to intimidate the most vocal opponents.  If you are
interested, there is an act of civil disobedience that I was involved in that
went to trial a few (< 6) months ago... I represented myself and was not found
guilty.

> 
> Cliff then questions my education and understanding of recent American
> History, and requests that I either backdown from my stand, or
> state publicly "my distaste for civil disobedience".
> 
> Sorry, cliff. Not even close. I have a pretty good understanding of American
> History. And based upon that same understanding I couldn't back down
> from something that I found wrong.  Somehow I can't see putting various
> demonstrations against injustice, and  the civil rights movement, on the same
> par as Jeff's posting.  Just doesn't seem the same.  Without meaning to
> belittle Jeff, he just isn't as important.

Net people:  Does anyone else think it funny that rather than addressing my
comment directly, Ross paraphrases my response and then replies to his own
paraphrase?

> And then cliff goes on and on about the idea that breaking a rule that
> you don't know about somehow isn't the same as breaking a rule that you
> do know about.  I question whether we are speaking on a legal basis or
> on a moral basis.  If legal, then it doesn't matter that you didn't know
> if a rule was being broken. "Ignorance of the law is no excuse" and all
> stuff.

Again the paraphrase butchers my response.  Either you didn't understand my
last article, or you are deliberately trying to make my points seem weak by
incorrectly stating them.  First of all I was discussing intent,
not ignorance (ignorance is one type of intent) and I pointed out that the
U.S. law (this is an international net and I don't want to speak for other
countries) does take intent into account.  Indeed in some cases even ignorance
is allowable.  For instance:  In New Hampshire (where I last did significant
para-legal work) resisting arrest requres the resister's knowledge that he is
being arrested at the time.  If the defendant can show that he was ignorant
of the act of arrest then he is not-guilty.  In addition the leeway given to
juries and the powers of the judge are all set up so that intent and the sub-
case of ignorance can be taken into account.  If you want more details ask me,
but if you really knew much about the legal system you would have already
known all this.  Your little quote does fit nicely in the "stuff" category,
it reads like a quote from a t.v. cop ('though I suspect there a few real life
"peace officers" that can not pass up the temptation to use such a line when
intimidating citizens).

> stuff. If moral, then sure, it doesn't matter: except to those upon
> whom this rule breaking has the most impact -- the women on the net that
> tend to use net.women.only.  I've seen in the past how a few male postings
> there have brought traffic in that news group to a minimum.  I think that
> the newsgroup as it stands is a pretty valuable part of the net.

I am sure that the owners of the cafeterias in question thought that their
businesses were a valuable part of the community.

> I may not
> like it (I consider it a bit sexist) but as long as the women on the net
> feel that they have a valid need for it, we should abide by those rules.

As long as the white patrons of the cafeterias in question felt there was
a valid need for them then everyone should have abided those rules?

> We agreed not to post to groups where the subject matter is inappropriate
> for a group.  Inherent in its nature, anything posted by a male is considered
> inappropriate in net.women.only.  By living in a society, we have certain
> responsibilities to that society.  By neglecting these responsibilities,
> we negate the benefit of that same society.

People who live in societies that perpetuate significant oppression have the
responsibility to rectify the situation.  If I were in South Africa I would
participate in civil disobedience against apartheid.  I have participated in
civil disobedience against the draft and registration in this country.  I
personally do not find net.women.only as significant oppression, but if I did
you can bet your booties that I would have tried to dismantle it long ago.
(of course I doubt that there is anything that could be done with this net that
 I would consider significantly oppressive, the difference between apartheid
 and net.*.only is considerable).

> > In summary:  If Jeff's letter was an attempt to rectify a situation that was
> > morally reprehensible then it had it's place in there.  By Jeff's own
> > admission (I can't profess to be able to read his mind) it wasn't, but
> > your attitude "As long as it is the rule, then you SHOULD abide by it." is
> > spineless and leads to blindly following unjust laws/rules.
> 
> No, I don't consider it spineless.  The way that I feel about it is pretty
> simple. Even you might understand, cliff.  Quite a while ago there was
> a debate about whether a group of Neo-Nazis should march in a town.  The
> rules of our country dictated that they should be allowed to march.  I
> would rather that they didn't march.  But I had to agree that they had
> the RIGHT to march.  Supporting that viewpoint, even though you are
> against it, would not be something that I consider spineless.  What could
> take more courage than supporting a viewpoint that you are against for
> the sake of the larger societal implications?
> 
> I'm not trying to equate net.women.only to the Neo-Nazis march.  But the
> existance of that group and what its existance implies certainly should
> be considered before you break the rules that allow for its existance. We
> must sometimes allow for something that, as you put it, is "morally
> reprehensible", for the betterment of society at large.

Interesting, you start out with "The way I feel about it is pretty simple.",
then you follow with a convoluted analogy.  Why couldn't you have followed
with a small section of prose directly stating how you feel about civil
disobedience.  I tried to get you to explictly make a stand in my last article.
Here is my view:

    People who live in societies that perpetuate significant oppression
    have the responsibility to rectify the situation.  This may take the
    form of no longer participating in the society (isolationism) or taking
    action to remove the oppression (civil disobedience).

> There are ways
> to fight against such things, but little meaningless bits of drival posted
> in net.women.only is not the way as far as I am concerned.

I have never supported meaningless bits of drivel.  When I wrote my original
posting it was a reply to your letter.  I hadn't read Jeff S.'s.  I was
objecting to your unqualified view that if there is a rule or law then it
should be obeyed.  To refresh your memory, here is the article that started
it all:

*> There are few rules here that are considered involiate.  Rightly or
*> wrongly (flame at 11:00) there is a group called net.women.only.
*> 
*> That sorta says it all.  And then just to make sure, in the net.announcements
*> there is a posting that says "Hey you!! You with the penis!! Don't look down,
*> you know who you are! Stay the fuck outa net.women.only!!"
*> 
*> I've already commented about how I feel about such sexist groups (flame at
*> 11:30), but when I started using the net, I took net.announcements to heart.
*> 
*> Jeff did not belong there.  He knows that he didn't belong there.  We all
*> know he did not belong there.  But there he was, typing away.  That is
*> pretty crummy.....
*> 
*> But still no excuse for cursing like that at him in public, people!!
*> 
*> 
*> ------------------------------------------------------
*> Ross M. Greenberg  @ NYU   ---->  allegra!cmcl2!acf4!greenber  <----
*
*Of course those blacks that sat in at various cafeterias in the 50's had
*no place in there either.

You started out your justification by saying "rightly or wrongly (flame at
11:00) there is a group called net.women.only."  You continue to say "Jeff did
not belong there."  You never cited any reason other then the implied (and
stated explicitly one of your folloups) "it is a rule, so obey it."  My comment
was an attempt (many people understood it) to show by analogy that there are
some cases where blindly following a rule is not necessarily a good reason to
perpetuate segregation.  Rather then every trying to explain where my analogy
fell short, you followed with articles that included personal attacks,
unsubstantiated assumptions and completely (100%) inaccurate statements.

	--Cliff [Matthews]
	{purdue, cmcl2, ihnp4}!lanl!unmvax!cliff
	{csu-cs, pur-ee, convex, gatech, ucbvax}!unmvax!cliff
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