RE: Greg Burch: Time to Act

Timothy Bates (tbates@karri.bhs.mq.edu.au)
Thu, 17 Jun 1999 12:14:58 +1000

I think that all of this business is way too thin skinned. People disagree violently about these issues. So the discussion will be vigorous. Get a helmet.

Think global act local.

Global - ideas are the path to the future: make sure they can flow without restraint.

Local - filter your ideas source to maximise your velocity into the future.

We don't need no stink'in censorship - we just need to exercise our personal right not to read.

You can't fix anything by begin dictatorial. You can't fix anything by "silencing" alternative voices. If your only answer to people you disagree with is to censor them - you are the enemy of the future. If you think that you being offended is justification for a gag order on someone else, then either you or I are on the wrong list!

And frankly, nothing is broken hear except the broken record of censorious PC authoritarians - which my kill file has fixed nicely for me ;-)

If it becomes clear to you than some parties are not actually having a discussion but rather have some ulterior motive (just annoying you, laying down a hailstorm of misinformation to cause you to doubt your position while providing no real evidence for their own position etc) ... then your answer is simple - get a decent e-mail client and drop that subject into your kill file. If they are clear idiots, drop them into the kill file.

tim

> But e-bludgeoning me into silent submission the moment I
> questioned your dogma was exactly what you and your minions
> tried to do, Mike, and you cared not whether you employed
> falsehoods, stigmatization and character assassination in order to
> accomplish same (but oh, how you howled mightily when you
> received a dose of your own mischaracterizing medicine - tis true
> that it is the bit dog which barks).