Sender: •••@••.••• (joe donnelly) how about sending the original, uncensored message, labelled as "Uncensored", followed by your altered version? Readers can select the one which satisfies their preferences/prejudices. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Sender: •••@••.••• Steve, In a message dated 95-10-25 19:15:50 EDT, you write: >Any seconds? The seconds are ticking away...in fact, some have already ticked off & left! But, for what it's worth, I think you're 100% right. Who knows, I might even participate again. (Tho I'm not sure anyone left here will see that as a plus.) YXX hXvX mX PXV, mX fXrst cXntrXbXtXXn tX thX lXst Xn 6 wXXks Xr sX, thX fXrst tX mXkX Xt pXst thX cXnsXr sXncX XXgXst! CFTU XJTIFT, QBVM @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Sender: •••@••.••• Subject: Re: Summary and looking ahead [cr-95/10/19] In a message dated 95-10-25 19:21:55 EDT, you write: >Sender: •••@••.••• (Kurt Guntheroth) > >I am not deeply offended to have my words censored. It is however an object >lesson in the dangers of censorship. I selected those words deliberately >for their shock value. The entire artistic point of the paragraph was that >people were shocked by the stereotyping of people as <ethnic slur>s, but >were not shocked by the stereotyping of information as lewd or immoral. > >When you get right down to it, both are equally reprehensible. We are in >the unfortunate position of having to retrain an entire population to a new >kind of sensitivity to perjorative labels. Come on Kurt, nice try, but we are the generation that COULD have retrained an entire population to a new kind of sensitivy but, sadly, are choosing not to do it. Instead some of us continue to use hurtful and nasty words for "shock" value thereby helping to keep them alive and well and their use thriving for those who use them strictly for their hate value. If we did not use them and made it known to our children, family, friends and everyone else we ever talked to that we would not tolerate their use, we could probably wipe many words out of our society's vocabulary in a very short time. Unfortunately, this is naive thinking and I know it. Andy made a stab at letting us know he did not approve, but if he were acting as a true censor, he would have simply cut the words out and left blank spaces. Instead he chose to use a combination of letters and **'s so that we all knew what the words were anyway. He gave us all his opinion without totally censoring and just maybe we could all take a lesson from him whether or not we think it is appropriate behavior for the moderator of a lis ton Cyber-rights. As electronic media users and a vast global community that hopes to survive truly uncensored by the US Government (or anyone else) maybe it is time to stand up and be counted! Mature adults should be able to recognize inhumanity to our fellow man and pornography when we encounter it. I can't help but feel that we need to take some responsiblity for not only our own actions but those of members of our community. It IS possible to communicate and express an opinion without using certain words for shock value and punctuation. If pictures, names, addresses and home phone numbers had to be on everything that went out over the Net I wonder how much of a concern censorship would even be. How much of a problem would child porn (or any generally conceived borderline porn) be if all the community could easily identify who posted it and who was downloading it. Anonymity brings out the worst of society and not the best. ::::hopping down off soapbox now:::::: •••@••.••• •••@••.••• ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~ Posted by Andrew Oram - •••@••.••• - Moderator: CYBER-RIGHTS (CPSR) You are encouraged to forward and cross-post messages for non-commercial use, pursuant to any redistribution restrictions included in individual messages. ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~
