This crowd is ignorant and foolish, and should be disregarded.
Usenet nodes are private property. Those who own them have a right to
control who uses them and how. If there is traffic that the owners choose
to block, they can and should do so. No one has any right to demand that
they carry anything they don't want.
>These same people are blind to control from below,
>blind to the fact that our very ability to speak is being
>stolen from us by the anarchy we endure.
The control lies where it has always lain: with the owners of individual
sites, and the sysadmins who carry out their policies. If some of them
choose not to exercise that control, they have no one to blame but themselves.
>This is the half-principle: blindly resist control from
>above, blindly accept control from below.
I would describe the half-principle a little differently: it's the myth
that an absolute right to "free speech" exists on Usenet, and that this
"right" requires sysadmins to do nothing while their resources are seized
and misused by terrorists. No such right exists, any more than total
strangers have a "right" to engage in "free speech" in your living room in
the middle of the night. If you don't want to let them in, you are not
obligated to do so.
>To me, losing my right of speech to terrorists is just as
>bad as losing it to dictators. At present, Usenet is in
>far, far more danger from terrorists.
Especially since there are no dictators in evidence. No one is trying to
have people shot or jailed. A reassertion of control over one's own
property is completely legitimate.
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