werner@utastro.UUCP (Werner Uhrig) (09/28/88)
Freedom of Speech is not endangered if some/all groups are moderated, but it may well prevent USENET from losing in value or, maybe, fall apart completely. Freedom of Speech means just that: I am free to say and publish what I want (and I'll ignore community standards and national security, etc, for the moment).... ...but not WHEREEVER I WANT. I print, I pay!! and I should not be prevented from making my information and opinions AVAILABLE to others (NOT FORCE ON THEM) - in PUBLIC places to whoever is interested - in PRIVATE places to which I am invited! PRIVATE places will of course want to know about me before they are going to invite me in; on the net, I'd be invited to submit to the moderator who'd "invite me in" by distributing my submitted article. Of course, given my ideological preferences within a democratic framework towards anarchy, wherever SAFELY possible, I would even argue that the net should always have ONE forum, at least, where the only limitation imposed by the moderator on any one individual should be the size and number of submissions accepted and distributed (and personally, I have no problems with either secrets or pornography, but acknowledge that one would have to worry about it somehow - but who would want that job?), but I would not mind if some/all backbone sites ON THIS EXISTING NET would refuse to carry such a group. However, knowing that there actually exist a certain, respectable number of machines that distribute such a "barely moderated" group would certainly make this "old-timer" feel proud of being part of it all ... thank you for taking time to read this "melancholic drivel" ... -- --------------------> PREFERED-RETURN-ADDRESS-FOLLOWS <--------------------- (ARPA) werner@rascal.ics.utexas.edu (Internet: 128.83.144.1) (INTERNET) werner%rascal.ics.utexas.edu@cs.utexas.edu (UUCP) ..!utastro!werner or ..!uunet!rascal.ics.utexas.edu!werner