Xref: utzoo soc.culture.jewish:8466 news.misc:2188 news.sysadmin:1747 Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!pacbell!ames!pasteur!agate!violet.berkeley.edu!era1987 From: era1987@violet.berkeley.edu Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish,news.misc,news.sysadmin Subject: Re: Anti-Semitism (Jew-hatred) on the network. What should be done? Message-ID: <17569@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: 30 Nov 88 16:53:10 GMT References: <1748YZKCU@CUNYVM> <577@oravax.UUCP> Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: University of California, Berkeley Lines: 131 In article <577@oravax.UUCP> harper@oravax.UUCP (Doug Harper) writes: >Can it be done? Perhaps. Should it be done? Never. >The expression of all views is protected by the Constitution. The Constitution does not protect your right to express the view that the President should be assassinated. In estabishing Justice, insuring domestic Tranquility, and promoting the *general* welfare, the Constitution CANNOT guarantee absolute protection to anything that would interfere with those goals. Americans come in all shapes, sizes, colors, races, religions, and other categories. We cannot secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity unless we recognize that the Constitution cannot protect racism, bigotry, hatred and divisiveness in an absolute manner. Expressing a view is protected. I could say, with Constitution protection, that I think allare . But when I direct a written or verbal attack at a specific person, that is *not* a view that I am expressing, it is an attack against an American citizen, and it does not promote domestic tranquility or the general welfare. For political purposes, some have suggested that participation in Usenet makes one a public figure. It is permissible to make verbal attacks, to a certain extent, on public figures, for political purposes. But merely participating in a Usenet discussion does not give anyone political power, any more than participating in a New England town meeting or a Quaker meeting does. In a democracy, we have to protect free speech and further the participation of the electorate in the political process, by permitting people to discuss issues in a public forum without them automatically becoming public figures as they would be were they elected to an office or published in a highly paid and widely read periodical. >Mr. Kayman, your urging of censorship is just as abhorrent as any >expression of racism. Please reconsider: accept your responsibilities >to this great country along with your freedoms in it. There will be >things said that you don't want to hear. You in turn will say things >that others don't want to hear. Let's all respect one another and >merely turn away when we don't like what's being said. What we don't want to hear *is* censorship. When somebody tries to silence others, particularly for discriminatory reasons, *THAT* is censorship. Directing hate mail attacks at people can intimidate them and cause them to leave the discussion. If you don't like what I say, respond to the issues. If, instead, you sent me hate mail telling me to shut up and calling me obscene names, it will be obvious to everyone that you are a bigot, cannot argue in a reasonable or logical fashion, and are attempting to stifle discussion and censor another person by means of ad hominem attacks. That is directly opposed to the purposes of Usenet. If you oppose the medium, leave it. If you attempt to destroy it, don't be too surprised if you are relieved of your access. Destroying discussions is no different from destroying the machines that carry them, and is not likely to be tolerated by those who have worked hard to permit this system to exist. >I think you should show your colors, Mr. Kayman. Are you in fact >asking for censorship? Your posting can certainly be read that way. Mr. Kayman asked for a remedy for censorship. An attempt was made to silence a Usenet participant by directing obscene hate mail at them. But a recent incident might also shed some light on the definition of censorship. When a proposed tv program depicted violence against a bisexual who was knowingly transmitting AIDS, a group called ACTUP disrupted filming and forced the producer to change the script. The rationale given for this was that only the government is prevented by the Constitution from censoring public expression, and ACTUP is *NOT* the government. Neither is Mr. Kayman. >I deplore vicious personal attacks and hate mail. I strongly deplore >racism of all forms. Even more strongly, I love our freedoms under the >Constitution. I'm so glad you "deplore" everything horrible. So are the bigots. So long as our government "deplores" Apartheid, the bigots can continue to profit from it. Were our government to OPPOSE Apartheid, the exploitation and subjugation of human beings on the basis of race, might become less profitable. >The senders of electronic hate mail should be treated the same way the >senders of poison pen letters and the makers of harassing telephone >calls are treated. When they break specific laws, they should be >prosecuted. Punishment of specific offenses, not broad censorship, is >the answer. Senders of poison pen letters and makers of harassing phone calls can be sent to jail. It is more difficult to prove an electronic communication was sent by a particular individual and not forged, so I know of no case where someone who sent hate mail has been imprisoned. It is interesting that you favor criminal prosecution of anyone sending hate mail, but won't you consider a lesser remedy? If we had a mandatory death penalty for rapists, it would be even more difficult to get convictions. In the interests of furthering the existence of Usenet, might you consider some lesser penalty for the many bigots who sent hate mail to Usenet participants? I would favor a warning the first time, a suspension of access the second time, and revocation of privileges if there is a third offense. That means that all sites would have to agree to this, in order to be able to carry the net, but without some form of discipline we will continue to have a skewed participation since many women and people of color have been frightened away or made to feel unwelcome by hate mail from bigots, and current participation does not reflect the actual percentage of women and minorities with access at most large corporate, government, and university sites. We should act to remedy this situation so that someday some federal agency does not step in and remedy it for us. >Racism cannot, alas, be legislated away. Neither can it be shouted, >nor even bullied away. Teach your children well, set a good example, >and hope for the best. Morality cannot be legislated. Racism can and must be. The only way we abolished slavery was through law. The only way we managed to integrate schools was through law. You seem to feel that the shouting and bullying that intimidates women and people of color from participating in Usenet is Constitutionally protected, but you don't want the oppressed to use similar means to defend themselves. Unless the response is protected to the same extent as the attack, you do NOT have freedom of speech, nor can you have balanced discussions. Labelling Mr. Kayman's response to the attack on Nancy Gould, "censorship," and advocating criminal prosecution instead, does not seem to be a constructive solution. You can't just hope that hatred will go away. Many people in Germany tried that and it didn't work. Why not look around you, Mr. Harper, and ask yourself why there isn't more female participation on Usenet. Then ask yourself if you would want your daughters, if you had any, to post if they would be subjected to hate mail when they did. Stop wishing and hoping and deploring, or insisting on only the most extreme and severe remedies, and try to seek a reasonable solution to a very real problem that is impeding free and open discussion on Usenet. --Mark