Re: [ga] Free Speech vs. Constructive Debate

[Joe Baptista <baptista@pccf.net>]

It's important to maintain focus Joe.  The first sentence in your
statement is very out of focus.  This is not a private group.  This is a
place for public participation.

Look - stop squabbling about this.  Just get your collective nerves
together and ram this proposal through like all the others.  You'll serve
me with this platform, though you will not serve yourselves nor the
collective good.  Like I said before, it's your reputation on the line -
not mine.

Regards
Joe

On Fri, 14 Jan 2000, Joe Kelsey wrote:

> 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
>