From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sat Feb 01 2003 - 22:55:04 MST
Alex writes
> I've concluded that your opposition to protests is aesthetic. Which is fine,
> and I respect that. Just like I have an aesthetic opposition to eating meat,
> smoking pot, crossdressing, or drinking alcohol (though I invariably stick up
> for the carnivores, potheads, transies, and drunks when some goody-two-shoes
> moralist opens their big mouth [agree!].)
Well, no! I object to their *demonstrating*. They aren't following
the Golden Rule, sort of. They are violating Kant's Categorical
Imperative.
> You basically don't seem to be denying that people have a right
> to *peaceably* assemble.
When I think of *assembling*, I think of people meeting in their
homes or in rented auditoriums---not taking to the street in
symbolic violence, and certainly not disrupting traffic and
creating disturbances.
But I certainly agree that they should have a legal right to
do so, provided that they get a permit to "march", which
should mean that they cannot do it if the police deem it
to be too much of a public disturbance (and give sufficient
reasons for their judgment).
> By the way, what do you think of more creative forms of protest? Such as
> registering a domain name that sounds like the bad guys (whoever your bad
> guys happen to be) and directing it to a site that makes fun of them (or
> even pretends to be them and says outrageous things on their behalf)?
I'd shy away from making a general prescription about this for two
reasons. The first is that it would depend too much on the particulars,
perhaps such as whether they were costing their target money, whether
it was done in poor taste, and whether it was just a dirty trick.
The second, however, is that I'm getting more and more fond of humor,
and more often see satire and ridicule as deserved on their own merits! :-)
> Or patenting/copyrighting something crucial to the bad
> guys' plan (which through some oversight they forgot to
> nail down) and then prohibiting them from using it?
I would say that this too would depend too much on circumstances.
For example, what might seem unethical might simply mean that
the originators of the patenting needed to have better lawyers.
On the other hand, I will complain as much as anyone when some
people do this---but obviously, we can hardly outlaw it.
Lee
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