From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lee@piclab.com)
Date: Tue Dec 11 2001 - 09:49:43 MST
> Pulling a gun in the middle of an argument is not tolerated.
> Physically beating up your opponent in a debate is not tolerated
> at all. So why should verbally abusing your opponent, their
> character, intelligence and so on something that you want to
> leave leeway on? Why is one form of violence introduced in a
> debate more tolerable than any other?
Um, because some of us don't confuse words with violence.
Terms like "verbal abuse" beg the question of whether there
is such a thing, and I happen to think there is not. If you
are harmed by words, that's your problem. But even if we
concede that there might be such a thing, its existence
and definitions are necessarily vague and subjective. One
man's abuse is another man's humor. It is disingenuous to
suggest otherwise.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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