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From: mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: "Abuses" of the net
Message-ID: <21076@styx.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 14-Dec-86 16:14:08 EST
Article-I.D.: styx.21076
Posted: Sun Dec 14 16:14:08 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 17-Dec-86 07:28:01 EST
References: <21062@styx.UUCP> <678@uwmacc.UUCP>
Reply-To: mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch)
Organization: Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, Livermore CA
Lines: 43

In article <678@uwmacc.UUCP> anderson@uwmacc.UUCP (Jess Anderson) writes:
> In article <21062@styx.UUCP>, mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch) writes:
> 
> > I'd appreciate it if Mr. Mozes, Mr. G. W. Smith, Mr. Harnad, and Mr.
> > Ellis could conduct their pissing match by private correspondence
> > or even in talk.philosophy.misc rather than this newsgroup.
> 
> > Michael C. Berch
> > News/mail administrator, styx
> 
> Mr. Berch is entitled to his own opinion, but since his signature tells
> us he is a news/mail administrator, maybe his vote counts for more than
> one. It could also be that my vote counts for less than one.
>    Be that as it may, it has not seemed to me that the persons referred
> to were carrying on a "pissing match" at all. Still less does it seem
> to me appropriate to move the discussion they and others have been
> having to another group. Indeed what I find least comprehensible in
> Berch's request is its timing; it's been very quiet on this topic for
> some time now. I was despairing of ever hearing another word about it.

I am mystified by this. I posted my article after wading
through eight or ten articles of the type I referred to. Today there
were four more, sandwiched around Mr. Anderson's article. Perhaps uwmacc is
simply not receiving these articles, in which case Mr. Anderson's remarks
might make sense. 

His lengthy diatribe notwithstanding, the issue is not censorship nor
freedom of expression. The articles to which I referred, and which are
still in full flower, are puerile exchanges of the form "X hates
Objectivists. No he doesn't. Yes he does. No he doesn't. Well, Y is a
Randroid then. No he isn't. Yes he is. Does this belong in 
talk.philosophy.misc? No it doesn't. Yes it does. No it doesn't. But Z
thinks that Objectivists should be banned from the net. No he doesn't.
Yes he does. No he doesn't. But Y is an Objectivist, so when he says
'abc', he really means 'def.' No he doesn't. Yes he does. No he doesn't."

If Mr. Anderson (or any of the rest of you) can find anything of
meaning in these articles, please clue me in. Perhaps I'm missing
something of lasting importance.

Michael C. Berch
ARPA: mcb@lll-tis-b.arpa
UUCP: ...!lll-lcc!styx!mcb   ...!lll-crg!styx!mcb  ...!ihnp4!styx!mcb