Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!blake!ogccse!verdix!mark
From: mark@verdix.com (Mark Lundquist)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: Legislating courtesy
Message-ID: <129@verdix.verdix.com>
Date: 29 Nov 88 22:23:31 GMT
References: <63028RWC102@PSUVM>
Sender: netnews@verdix.com
Reply-To: mark@verdix.com (Mark Lundquist)
Organization: Verdix Western Operations; Aloha, OR
Lines: 30

In article <63028RWC102@PSUVM> RWC102@PSUVM (R. W. F. Clark) writes:
>Nancy Gould writes:
>
>[Referring to how wonderfully liberal and enlightened thing called censorship]
>
>>It's called politeness and consideration for the feelings of
>>others.
>
>Neither politeness nor consideration for the feelings of others
>can, or should, be legislated.  One might think that referring

"Legislated?"

	Legislation means enacting laws, in particular laws that pertain to how
individuals are permitted to behave.  What's at issue here is neither any
kind of law nor the prohibition of any individual behavior.  It's simply
that moderating a newsgroup is a matter of judgement, and some of us think
that the moderator _ought_ (in the ethical sense) to exercise a certain kind
of judgement.

>There is no law against being offensive.  If there were,

	There's that 'law' thing again!  Looks to me like a misapprehendin' of
the issue.  This isn't the first argument that has tended toward this kind
of equivocation, starting with some sentence that we all agree with ("You
can't/shouldn't legislate courtesy") and invoking it in a situation that is
really quite different.  (straw man mode on) OK, maybe you really meant
'prescribe'..."You can't prescribe courtesy"...But that might change the
character of the argument substantially (like, it might begin to look highly
question-begging).