Re: Bell, Detweiler, Ravings, and Whatnot

[jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>]

At 11:58 PM 3/10/96 -0800, Timothy C. May wrote:

>There are many things I find terrible, disgusting, dangerous, wrong, etc.
>But I have never been persuaded by people ranting at me and insulting me,
>so I doubt that rants and insults from me will be effective. (I'm not
>claiming to always be calm and non-insulting, just claiming that the style
>of ranting is rarely effective, and I try to avoid it.)

I think your criticism is unrealistic, at least by trying to suggest that 
I'm "ranting."  I'm responding to a number of claims (the most recent one 
was from Bill Stewart) that the wart in this bill won't be abused, or at 
least not seriously.  The people who make these claims frequently use wildly 
faulty reasoning; I challenge them and (I believe) support my position with 
accurate examples and commentary to prove my point.  

Admittedly, if you were on the receiving end of my persistent efforts, you 
might feel unhappy, but that doesn't make my comments "rants."

>Screaming insults at people, resorting to ad hominem attacks on their
>personality (such as Jim did with Padgett Peterson)

I know nothing about Peterson's "personality" other than by his writing
style and 
content.  I find his commentary to be highly dishonest, because (as he fully 
admitted) he avoided  responding to the points that I had made, which had
accurately contradicted his original claims.  I'm not complaining that 
didn't quote me; it's that he ignored the issues I'd raised in challenge to 
his claims.  Further, he tried to disguise his failure by taking it off the
list.

>, ranting about how people are fools and worse,

When these people stop acting like fools...   

Look, Tim, if I'm right about the ambiguities and threats in the Leahy bill, 
then it's a serious danger to us all.  And that means that if an 
organization which is supposed to protect our interests soft-pedals the 
negatives, they are actually adding to the problem.  When I saw a number of 
organizations lap it up like a cat slurps milk, I began to wonder if they 
were really paying attention to the issues at all.

In addition, I've seen two separate comments (not on CP) by people who just 
about proudly claim that they "never" agree with me, but are actually quite 
pleased and are in agreement with my comments on this bill.  Maybe this 
should tell you that I have a point, on this issue if nowhere else.

In addition, "everybody" seems to agree that the positive parts of the bill 
are "positive," and most people can correctly identify the negative part.  
The issue is basically, "how negative" it is.  A few days ago, all we saw 
was a few press releases by these organizations falling all over themselves 
to praise the bill, and having mild criticism for the bad part.  I was the 
person who raised the issue of the serious danger of this bill to remailers 
and ISP's, which I still believe to be an accurate and very serious criticism.

Contrary to the pessimistic opinions of some others, I believe that one of 
two situations are true:

1.  The bad part is "easy" to delete, and we should  and can do so.

or

2.  Somebody REALLY wants that bad part in there, in which case we should 
carefully investigate who it is, and why he wants it there.

>Read the archives covering the several months when Detweiler (aka V. Z.
>Nuri, aka S. Boxx, aka Pablo Escobar, aka about 20 other pseudonyms) was
>foaming at the mouth about how people were mutating his brain, how the
>crypto anarchists were ignoring him, how the snakes of Medusa were hiding
>in his keyboard, and so on. Then note the similarities to Jim Bell.

Sounds like a deliberately faulty association, Tim.  I'm not responsible for 
Detweiler, and I think it's an unfair tactic to try to suggest that my 
comments are "similar."  The moment I start talking about "mutating my 
brain" or things like that, I will have earned that kind of criticism.  If 
you can show that my analysis is faulty with respect to the Leahy bill, you 
will have gone a long way to supporting your claims.  As of now, your 
disagreement is simply with my debating style, which is admittedly on the 
"hardball" side.

As for reading the archives, I'm never tried to do that, and I don't even 
know how (where) to get them.  If I felt I could learn something from it, I 
would, but you've already listed commentary by Detweiler which sounds
sufficiently 
wacky that it has to be far beyond anything I've said.  How relevant are HIS 
comments compared to anyone else you've ever disagreed with?

Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com