(c) Copyright 1999 Daphne Xu This is not a story. It is a reply I started on, then eventually gave up on, in response to a flame war on ASSD a year ago, where everyone ganged up on me. I don't need to mention names; you know who you are. ------------------------------------------ Random Old Skewerage (no-sex, no-plot, flame,language) Daphne Xu -- daphne@nym.alias.net Joe and Grampa are out walking. Someone horribly offends Joe's Grampa. Furious, the teenage boy Joe picks up the brick and is about to throw it when Grampa says, "Now, now, boy. Count to ten." The boy stops, slowly counts to ten in his mind, and discovers that he has calmed down dramatically. Grampa continues, "Now throw the brick. You'll aim better." No. I have the right to say that that's a damn lie, and you don't have the right to force false beliefs on your child. The law may disregard my right; the law may routinely violate my right, but I still have my right. You threaten to get a court order to keep me from speaking to your child. Fine, get one. I won't stop until you do. The injunction will violate my right, and I will fight it tooth and nail, on every ground I can think of: Free speech, freedom of thought (the child's of course), public policy (education, scientific literacy, truth), abuse of legal process, etc. I will treat it as a SLAPP lawsuit. The threat of jail alone would give me every incentive to fight it to the limit. I will implead your child as a necessary party if possible, or at the very least have her to the witness stand and inquire about her views of being censored and lied to. I'd explore her knowledge of academics such as physics, astronomy, and geology. If the issue is whether the earth is flat, I will have the court take judicial notice that the earth is round. (I've heard that if you say that the earth is round in a legal brief or memo, you have to cite a geological reference.) I would also call you (as the parent) to the witness stand and explore your own knowledge of the subjects. Hopefully, you will come across as a loudmouthed, bigotted know-nothing. Of course, this might not overturn the injunction. But at the very least it will make sure the judge knows precisely what he is ordering. After all appeals fail, I suppose I would have to quit my job, move to another city, etc. The injunction WILL work. It will work the way a mugging works. And it will be as wrong as any mugging. But you can be sure that I will publicize this case widely. Your child will learn far better through this process than she could ever learn from me personally, that her parents' views are worthless, that she has every right to rebel against them. You will have won the battle but lost the war. So every time a public-school science teacher tries to teach evolution, do you take her to court for interfering with the parents' beliefs? No wonder teachers are so afraid to teach evolution these days. No wonder textbook publishers put the subject at the end of the textbook where few classes reach. No wonder that scientific illiteracy dominates the US. And if a public librarian suggests books to children or teenagers that... Of course, we all know that, as a lawyer, you don't give a damn about truth, don't give a damn about accuracy. Lawyers are trained and paid to argue whatever position they take with smooth-tongued rhetoric, regardless of logic, regardless of the accuracy of the position. I wouldn't be surprised if you were among those family lawyers who falsely and maliciously allege sexual abuse of children in divorce cases. Lawyers are paid to be creative and argue new theories. Here's a creative new theory for you: the cops and prosecutors who worked closely with the murderer of a police officer in Dallas to frame Randall Adams for the murder are guilty of Capital Murder as parties to the crime. My first version of this response had me calling you "Fuckhead" at your talk of throwing me in jail. Now, of course, had I continued with that, most of the readers would have blanked out on what you wrote as provocation (namely, the jail threat) and berated me for not responding with eloquent, rational argument. [Of course, I'm not allowed to be mad... furious... frightened at the prospect of receiving a court order and the threat of jail. It doesn't matter how I respond...] If I am ever jailed, Fuckhead, you will have made an enemy for life. If I can't get you for false imprisonment, I will get you some other way. At the very least, I will cause you public embarrassment and humiliation. As I said, you have every right to tell your views to your child. I have no obligation to respect or reinforce them, and I have every right to give my own views. I must also reply to the inanity that analogizes the Internet (as "Information Superhighway") to actually driving a car. A car is a dangerous weapon. One can kill Those of you who replied to my paragraph constrasting cars and computers need to brush up on your reading comprehension and knowledge of computers and cars. Better yet, learn to see what's right in front of your nose. Computers have none of the major dangers cars have. A major collison on the Information Superhighway very rarely if ever injures someone badly enough to send him to the hospital. You seem to have forgotten the law of self-defense and defense of third persons. If I see anyone, including a parent, beating a child, I have every right to intervene. Someone sarcastically asked me to give him the codes to launch the missiles. The problem is that if it proves anything, it proves too much. Censorship of those missile codes is justified regardless of the age or maturity of the person censored. Those codes (or any private encryption key) contain no ideas whatsoever. Knowledge of the codes proves the person has the right to set the missiles off. Therefore, persons who don't have the right to set the missiles off must not know the codes. Remember: "Substance is nothing; procedure is everything." I will make the procedure sufficiently nasty... Remember how companies settle lawsuits not because they were in the wrong, but because it would be a long drawn-out, expensive mess to litigate. The basis behind opposing Brian for giving the technical information to a minor is that the minor will see something that SOMEONE doesn't want her to see. I have no reason to silence myself in favor of someone who I think is totally wrong, whom I have no respect for. Calling it "Indoctrination" was a masterful case of psychological projection, as if it were indoctrination to provide information that subverts one's own indoctrination. Baloney. Providing information isn't indoctrination. Indoctrination is a form of non-rational persuasion of an idea, irrespective of the truth of that idea.