karl@osu-dbs.UUCP (Karl Kleinpaste) (05/17/84)
I have just recently finished reading the entirety of Tim's assorted mail correspondence in the "Censorship: A Case History" articles. I have a couple of things to say on the subject. First, I fear greatly that I am at least partially responsible for Tim having been evicted from the net. At the time of his (then unexplained) disappearance from the net, he, David Norris, myself, and a couple of others had been debating several facets of the Egyptian plagues. This was all built out of the original comments from "Even if I DID Believe" (or at least I think that's where it started). During the course of this particular debate, there had been many wild and non-understandable departures from the discussion itself, generally leading off to the all-too-common arena of personal attack. The last article which I saw from Tim on the subject was a response to myself and David Norris on several particular points about Pharoah's free will and related topics. Tim's article went along its logical way for a while, but it ended with a paragraph which went something like [apologies for errors here, I am working strictly from memory]: "I would like to thank David Norris and Karl Kleinpaste for helping me to understand the Plagues of Egypt. The next edition of 'Even if I DID Believe...' will have a much longer and far more condemnatory paragraph on the subject." I, personally, consi- dered this just plain too much; I wrote a response article, in which I addressed Tim's points proper, followed by this quote, and pointed out to any who would read it that such comments do not do one darn thing for a logical discussion, and that they only demonstrate general into- lerance. I finished by saying that I felt the hate level in net.reli- gion was awfully high, and could everybody please tone things down a bit. Well, I never saw another article from unc!tim again in net.religion. It seems that it was at approximately this time that Tim was censored from the net. If my article, titled [I think] "Re: Plagues of Egypt... and an objection to net.religion," was responsible for this bad series of events, then I am truly and emphatically sorry. Tim and I have made the rounds on the net and in the mail a few times, but at the very least he always made me think. I missed his rather acerbic articles quite a bit. As I once said in response to someone's (Avi's?) survey, I used to read Tim's articles just because they were infuriating. Second, if it isn't already clear by what I've already said, I think the administration at UNC computer science department overreacted. I think a strongly-worded warning against being generally abusive on the net would have been more than sufficient. (Yes, I believe that Tim was at times just plain abusive, which I don't like. Tim probably isn't going to like that opinion, but I can't change that.) At least then Tim would have had some outside force to convince him to tone things down, and he would have been able to stay around. Third, I don't know *anyone* who ever thought that Tim in any way represented anyone whatsoever but himself. The one comment by (I think) Dr Brooks which dismayed me the most was something to the ef- fect that it was not permissible for Tim to represent the UNC Comp. Sci. Dept. to the world-at-large in such ways. That, I feel, was way off base. Tim was never representing anyone else at all. I think everyone was aware of that. Fourth, I think Tim vastly overestimates the degree to which the UNC Comp. Sci. Dept. administration & faculty was influenced toward his censorship by certain of its members' Christian views. Consider this fragment from part 4: >(5) Given the Christian worldview, religious censorship is completely >consistent with moral requirements, since souls could wind up damned if the >censorship is not imposed. Phooey and nonsense. Censorship does not produce Christians; it pro- duces p*****-off people. I was upset with the attitudes which Tim put forth at times, regardless of my religious beliefs. I just don't like to see personal attacks, which Tim *did* use at times. His dept's ad- ministration apparently didn't like it either, so they did something about it. Unfortunately, they did too much. Well, I guess that's it. Now I guess Tim is in Pittsburgh. Does he work for or go to school at C-MU or Pitt? Tim, are you out there? -- Karl Kleinpaste @ Bell Labs, Columbus 614/860-5107 {cbosgd,ihnp4}!cbrma!kk