Re: Return of the Living Zundel, from The Netly News

[Steve Thompson <stevet@myofb.org>]

In local.lists.cypherpunks-moderated you write:
>http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/editorial/0,1012,1561,00.html
>The Netly News Network (http://netlynews.com/)
>        "A lot of people think this case is about censoring the Net,"
>   said Bernie Farber, national director of community relations for the
>   Canadian Jewish Congress. "It isn't. It's about a Canadian violating
>   Canadian law. In Canada and in every other Western democracy but the
>   U.S., there are limits to free speech and one of those points is
>   vilification. I should feel I have as much right to get on the Net and
>   not feel demeaned because I'm a part of a particular group."

I took a short 'course' on hate-crimes in downtown Toronto where this goof was
the speaker.  In very short order, I had decided that his agenda was merely to
be in some small position of authority.  He's a pro-censorship freak who wants
to protect the chiiillldreeeen from views he doesn't like.  It was quite
amusing to pin him down a little -- he squirmed and stated that he _did_ want
the government to protect him from things he didn't want to hear; in a rather
shrill tone.  It made me laugh in retrospect but at the time I was, I confess,
shocked -- having encountered such idiocy only in print or on USENET.

I wish that I had been better at articulating my thoughts during some of the
discussions during the 'course'.  It was difficult to portray the idea that
well-supported arguements are the only _fair_ means to debunk someone else's
ideas with which you disagree.  I suppose that I should not have been suprised
that the other participants in the course were sympathetic to Bernie's
right-wing leanings, but there was a woman who owned or ran a feminist
bookstore who admitted that many books ordered by her store had been held (or
outright banned(?) by Canada Customs based on content; and yet, she was
more-or-less in agreement with this proto-tyrant with respect to the issue of
supressing the ideas of white supremists.

It boggles the mind.

-- 
Steve Thompson  Misanthrope  System Admin        O.B. Spam: bogus@myofb.org
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lately every time you turn around somebody's saying: "The eighties are
coming!"  Like at the stroke of midnite on New Year's Eve it's all gonna be
_different_!  And when you tell 'em, "Come on, you know everything's just
gonna keep on slowly sinking," they get downright _mad_!  -- Lester Bangs,
December 1979