Re: Anonymity and cowardice

[tzeruch@ceddec.com]

On Wed, 14 May 1997, The Spectre wrote:

> > So you're calling John Jay, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton
> > cowards
> > (anonymous authors of the Federalist Papers)?  Many others have
> > (also used
> > anonymity to further the cause of liberty.  I doubt your real
> > name is "The Spectre" yet that is the name under which you are posting.
> >  Are you calling yourself a coward?
> The difference in all these cases (save mine) is that the people you listed
> would have been persecuted, if not prosecuted, for their actions.  Now
> people are hiding out of fear and paranoia of something that in most cases
> doesn't exist.  The people you mentioned never had to deal with this level
> of abuse, either.

The authors of the Federalist Papers would neither be prosecuted, nor
persecuted.  Read the history about what happened about the debate over
ratification of the constitution.  Since you are wrong about this bit of
history (i.e. no serious personal consequences to the authors), I would
like to know if you have a better reason.

It is not cowardice for someone to hide their identity to not prejudice a
reader.  People might read "publius" and evaluate their arguments on their
merits, but if they knew the authors were specifically A Hamilton and J
Madison they might be dismissed as already knowing where they stood.

Why do authors like Richard Bachman / Stephen King use pen names?

Why do musicians like John Cougar --- Mellencamp alter their names?

Are they all cowards too?