Re: Young people peering

Blue-Maned_Hawk <bluemanedhawk@invalid.invalid> wrote:

Sn!pe wrote:

You appear to be advocating censorship.  Usenet is a rare bastion of
free speech.  All shades of opinion are given equal weight in the court
of its readership, including those opinions that some do not like.  This
is in the nature of debate.  Valid arguments will win debates, others
will fail.

Ignoring the fact that even free speech has limitations,

Free speech and censorship are concepts related to action by GOVERNMENT,
not by individuals. Under United States law, speech by individuals is
unlimited (but there are certain restrictions upon false claims made in
advertisement in commercial speech). Speech, in and of itself, is never
criminal. There are consequences in very limited circumstances. Person A
may sue Person B for defamation but person B's the extent that Person B's
statement was truthful is always a defense. Defamation isn't merely having
taken offense. In criminal cases, the controlling standard is government
cannot punish inflammatory speech unless that speech is "directed to
inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or
produce such action". Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969)

Usenet is not remotely an example of free speech-newsserver admins can
freely downshut anything they don't like, and many servers require a
fee to use, prohibiting the impoverished from using them.

This is a misunderstanding of the nature of freedom of the press. That
isn't government abridging rights. A News administrator enjoys freedom
of the press because he is providing his own resources. He has set up a
News server and has connected it to the Usenet network. An individual
user does not and cannot enjoy freedom of the press on someone else's
News site. However, if he sets up his own News site, then press freedom
belongs to him.

The conceptualization of discussion as "debates" to be "won" is
regressive.

That's meaningless.

All members of a discussion come in with the goal of
expanding their knowledge, and whether or not their original position upon
entrance is correct or not is wholly irrelevant to the final outcome.

That's simply not true at all. Plenty of people willfully post STOOPID
to provoke a reaction with zero interest in honest debate and without
offering well thought out arguments, as you have done in this very
sentence.