From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lee@piclab.com)
Date: Thu Jan 30 2003 - 16:45:54 MST
>> But if all they do is speak, all I can do is speak in return,
>> and hope that humans with reasonable minds judge us both
>> reasonably.
> Unfortunately, lies can become rumors, which can become "common
> knowledge", which then lead to actions. Like "if vietnam falls, the
> communists will invade the US". Or "if the amis come here, they'll rape
> all german women". Or "Saddam has WMDs", rsp. "Saddam is really dangerous
> for us". See the book "The Wave" for an example, how fabricated "truth"
> can influence reality.
When, and only when, it rises to action can one morally act, other than
to speak in return; otherwise you fall into the same counterproductive
idiotic authoritarian nonsense as attempts to prevent drug abuse by
banning needles or stop gangs by banning leather jackets, or stop
violence by banning toy guns. Yes, I have no doubt that lies can lead
to behaviors, and I'll even concede that there's one entity--the
government itself--whose speech /should/ be regulated, but that's not
contradictory at all to my contention that free speech is a fundamental
human right, because governments don't have human rights.
>> Your contention that any kind of speech must be supressed
> Ah, waitaminute. I said "unlimited lying".
Yes, speech. Lying is speech.
> This term contains two words.
> The first means "without any restrictions or boundaries", the second
> means "distribution of untrue allegations" :-) Together, it means, I'd
> like to have a way to stop _only_ the unrestricted distribution of untrue
> statements about my person.
Yes, that's exactly what I'm accusing you of--wanting to supress
false speech about yourself with force, rather than with competition.
We're both in total agreement here about what you and I are suggesting,
we just don't approve of each other's suggestions.
> We don't live in an ideal, rational world. People do judge by rumors and
> reputation, which is almost never true, objective or rational. You, for
> example, judge me -whatwasit- to be "left-wing", "anti-american",
> "naive", etc. without any knowledge about me but the few words I've
> written here.
That's true too, and you are free to call me on it, and I'm sure there
are others here and elsewhere who disagree. You can only be harmed by
my evaluation of you in the minds of those who already give me more
credibility, in which case the harm is already done anyway. Likewise,
you can only damage my reputation among those who prefer to believe you,
and I am generally unconcerned about how I am perceived by them.
> Example: "Lee Daniel Crocker is a child molestor. Protect your kids,
> force him out of this town". What would your defense be? Ask for
> evidences? Have you ever seen a witch-hunt? Remember McCarthy?
Yes, we remember McCarthy well. What we learned was to not to hang
witch-hunters instead of witches--what we learned is to recognize
with-hunts for what they are and better use our own judgment. It
wasn't new laws that took down McCarthy, it was good reporting by
men of integrity and courage like Edward R. Murrow.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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