>"Societies get the government they deserve" and all that rot. Societies
>that prefer high crime to individual liberty will get just that, and
>lists that prefer mentally unstable individuals posting rants and
>excretory comments demonizing other list members will get a list full of
>just that sort of person.
Unfortunately, most people won't wade through the flame-war to figure 
out who is right.  They will paint everybody with the same brush as 
being one of those involved.  Like Bill Cosby said about squabbling 
children, "Parents don't want justice, they want quiet."  I do 
believe you are the reasonable one is this issue.  I just thought 
your explanation of deliberately baiting Joe seemed a little 
excessive.  I do agree that you were acting in self-defense.
I'm trying to retain a reasonable position on all of this.  I don't 
like the (mis)representation that the gun topic is exiled to your 
list.  Although I was vocal in trying to hush the flame-wars and 
personal non-general-interest postings about guns, I would hate to 
see anything censored by topic in the extropians list.  I think 
rational discussions about guns are interesting.  I would hope that 
such discussion on extropians would go more toward theory and future 
developments of weapons rather than personal stories or current 
politics.
-- Harvey Newstrom <HarveyNewstrom.com>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:56:19 MDT