Re: [REBUTTAL] Censorship on cypherpunks?, from The Netly News

["George A. Stathis" <hyperlex@hol.gr>]

At 12:19 �� 15/11/1996 -0600, snow wrote:
(in the end)...
>     That is what freedom is, the ability to _do it yourself_ not the 
>requirement that others do it for you, or allow you to use what they 
>have already built. 

Hey man, do they sell "FREEDOM KITS" in American Supermarkets? :-)
ROTFL!


(and started saying):
[...]
>> Just as suddenly, the classic anti-free-speech arguments of "if you
>> don't like it, start yer own" begin to surface. (Anyone ever notice
>> how this resembles the "love it or leave it" mentality of certain
>> American patriotic organizations?)
>
>     It still isn't censorship. Censorship, at least in my dictionary, 
>refers to censor, which uses the word "Official" several times.

You mean that if... Dr. Dimitri Vulis hires a Mafia-man to kill ya, 
(to silence you) this wouldn't be censorship, since it would not be
"Official"  ? :-)

>Mr. 
>Gilmore is not an "Official" in a government sense, he maybe in the EFF
>sense, but this is not an "Official" EFF organ, so that doesn't count. 


OK, any bombs thrown in the offices of the Ecological Party are not
official censorship either. It was _unofficial_ censorship by... "Motor
Oil Corporation" trying to stop the Flow of Information (about their
oil leakages polluting the Mediterranean Sea)... See what I mean?



>     He is the OWNER of this list, and the machine it runs on. If he chooses
>(which he didn't) to keep someone from using the list, it is his right.

If I own a building and invite you to an open meeting inside this building
do I own what you _say_ or your rights to _say_ it? 





>     "Editorial Control" means that someone decides who get's published and
>who doesn't. From your opposition to it, I guess you think that a magazine
>dedicated to poetry should print all poems submitted, or as many, selected
>in some sort of non-judgemental order, as they can fit. Or that a magazine
>should print any writings submitted to it. 

See my other posting about why the "Editorial" analogy has serious flaws.

I don't see 'em mailing listes hangin' over the kiosk in the centre of
town, ya know. Nor does the list-ownere make his bread out of 'em. And
finally, we readers aren't as stupid as to forget that we are also the
WRITERS of them mailing listes! :-) :-)




>> Mr. Gilmore, and other like minded parties, might want to consider
>> what would happen if one parent company owned *all* communications
>> media. Would they they be so supportive of the ideology of ownership
>> and communciation they espouse?
>
>     How would this happen? Setting up a press is fairly easy, at least 
>a small hand operated press. Start your own magazine, start your own
>mailing list. 

Bulshit!  If this happened, nobody would exist to allow us to express
ourselvers. Even if we build own "Resistance Movement" (or an alternative
kind of Internet) the damage would be serious and irreversible!

Are you telling us that setting up an entire _PRESS_ is fairly easy?

Listen man, it's not. My printer (who printed the boxes for my software)
will tell you this!  He'll also explain why my major competitor in Greece
owns an entire Printing/Publishing house just for Computer Manuals
(Singular S.A.).

Setting up a mailing list is not _that_ easy, but it's still much more
intricate and difficult than accepting the Basic Principles of Free
Expression: DON'T KICK OUT GUESTS YOU INVITE TO "OPEN MEETINGS".
(In the Internet or anywhere else in fact). If you don't like 'em
guests don't invite them in the first place, or don't call your
meetings "OPEN".

e.g. Just as aga tolerates me and vice versa, so should Gilmore
tolerate Dimitri Vulis. 



Cheers
George