[ga] Free Speech vs. Constructive Debate

[Joe Kelsey <joe@zircon.seattle.wa.us>]

Many posters to this list seems to confuse the concepts of free speech
with the legitimate right of private groups to limit attendance in order
to accomplish specific goals within the group.  The personas attempting
to disrupt this list trumpet their suposed freedom of disruption, loudly
proclaiming that they are merely using thier inherent right to freedom
of speech.

They are simply wrong and are attempting to gain sympathy from the more
libertarian members of this group by cloaking themselves with this
deceptive sloganeering.  Please take the time to re-evaluate their
arguments from the following perspective:

What if these same personas decided that they wanted to disrupt a
particular religious observance?  They would walk freely into the chosen
church and start yelling obscene and offensive remarks during the
religous observances.  When the church member politely asked them to
leave, they loudly trumpet their free speech rights and their personal
ability to disrupt any private conversation that they disagree with.

The law in any democracy on this planet would step in and prevent these
disruptive personas from following their own personal "free speech"
agendas because they were disrupting a religous observance.  How
different is that from these same personas walking into a private
business meeting and doing the same thing?  Anarchy and chaos do not
contribute to rational discussions.  Every monkey in front of a keyboard
is bound to produce random sequences of characters that someone might
interpret as cogent thoughts.  Does that mean that everyone else who is
trying to carry on a rational debate has to put up with the monkey's
rantings merely to provide future historians with the ability to look
back and say, "By god, the rantings of this monkey totally destroyed any
progress this group of earnest people wanted to achieve.  However, this
one sequence of rantings had a slightly meaningful sense.  Too bad none
of those participating in the list saw it due to the fact that they all
gave up on being able to achieve their original goals due to this same
monkey's interference."

Please sit back and really think about what the definition of "free
speech" really is.  It does not allow someone to yell "Fire!" in a
croweded auditorium, and neither does it allow someone to employ a
bullhorn in a private meeting to drown out the business of the meeting.

This is a private meeting which is open to anyone willing to agree to
discuss the business of the DNSO.  It is not a forum for personas who
have proven themselves to be selfishly oriented toward the goal of
disrupting whatever forum they happen to have stumbled upon.

It is simply in our best interest to institute reasonable rules which
limit the discussion occurring on this list to a specific set of
topics.  Please let Harald's rules go into effect and let's get on with
real issues.

/Joe