gsmith@BOSCO.BERKELEY.EDU (09/13/87)
In article <1520@chinet.UUCP> rhonda@chinet.UUCP (Rhonda Scribner) writes: >In article <8709070142.AA00636@ragu> ragu!gsmith (Gene Ward Smith) writes: >What peaks my curiosity about this article (and others like it in a large >number of newsgroups, to which I have submitted this article) is why they >were posted at all. I doubt this. They were posted because I was annoyed, and with good reason. And I suspect you know this, whether your curiosity is still "peaking" or has already attained its customary summit. >Yes, Tim has said some things bordering >on the ridiculous, the insulting, and the asinine all at the same time. >(His comments on the genocidal nature of the state of Israel, which may have >been part of what set Matthew off, are just one example.) Careful, you might get accused of an illegal campaign of harassment and kicked off the net if you insist on making such remarks. >But which of the >net mouthpieces has not done all of this at one time or another? Which of these clanging bells and roaring sirens of the net would have the sheer, brazen gall or the hypocrisy elevated to the degree of dementia to do such a thing as to try to get another account terminated? Perhaps Tim's should be, but only because he is trying to shut other people up. If he ceases to do I would certainly want him to keep posting. >And does >having done any of this, the hypocrisy or the hostility, prohibit him from >complaining when it is done excessively and abusively to him? Of course it does. He who lives by the flame shall die by the flame; and Tim wishes to be a violent flamer. He should take it in return like a human person, and not like a small rodent which squeaks its fear to the night. >Matthew Wiener apparently has a long history of being hostile and rude to >people for no good reason. He has a long history of being rude, period. He *always* has a reason in my experience. He was more rude to you than he needed to be. He also had an excellent reason, which you failed to see then and continue to fail to see. This seems to be the reason for your own venting of hostility now. So where does this leave you? >He and his friend Gene have been quoted as being >proud of being rude. Wrong. I am not proud of being rude, I just have a very short fuse and little ability to suffer fools gladly. (Even less ability to tolerate bigots of various stripes. Thus, my flames.) >The reason he and I were communicating >in private mail in the first place was because he went to great efforts to do >to me in "his" newsgroup (sci.philosophy.tech) what Berkeley administrators >have finally done to him. Untrue and unfair. If you can't see the difference, then you may continue to expect that intellectually intolerant persons of my stripe will continue to point out the painful but obvious truths about the shortcomings in your reasoning. Matthew NEVER NEVER NEVER tried to kick you off even a newsgroup, much less the entire net. He just pointed out that you didn't know what you were doing and suggested (rudely, no doubt) that you cease doing it. >He has continued to pester me in private mail since >then. So tell him to stop. >And plenty more examples. By way of clarification, many of these examples (and ALL of the ones I co-signed) were after Tim tried to shut us up. I was especially annoyed because he tried to get me in trouble when I wasn't even in his damn war. >But what Tim did was to complain about someone's rude and >obnoxious behavior. Wrong. What Tim did was to insist that Matthew Wiener be kicked off the net, to threaten lawsuits, and to drag me into it by writing lies about me to the Math department here. >The brahms >administrators apparently saw this as yet another in the series of complaints >they have received about Matthew and Gene, and decided that enough was enough. I never had any complaints that I know of before Tim Maroney complained that I was a part of an illegal campaign of harassment. >If the issue is >really free speech, what about Tim's free speech right to complain? If he wanted to bitch, he could bitch on the net or send nasty e-mail to us. Most people react that way. What about my free speech right to write letters to Tim Maroney's employers claiming he is a drug-crazed Communist-Satanist menace to the American Way of Life? Should I exercise that? >Gene has tried to make this into a political argument, claiming that the >issue is "libertarianism." I was trying to have an intelligent discussion about some issues that got raised by this over in talk.politics.theory. If you will do me the courtesy of making a special effort, you might try to understand what I am saying. This would place you in the position of being able to repond in kind, which would be nice. 'Still, if you were at Brahms and the room flashed as another idea was captured from the ebb and flow of that vast sea of cosmic intelligence, the idea might be considered to have been "created"' -- Paul M. Koloc ucbvax!brahms!gsmith Gene Ward Smith/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720