Subject: Re: the naggum-mine claims another victim From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net> Date: 2000/12/03 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3184844512630634@naggum.net> * "Coby Beck" <cbeck@mercury.bc.ca> | No. Manners are about self control, freedom is about control by | outside forces. They are 100% disjoint. As long as manners are supposedly about _self_ control, you must hold the position that you should control somebody else's "self" if their manners are not to your taste, otherwise it would not even be valid for you to be concerned about the manners of others. In other words, you are _actually_ favoring dictatorship and tyranny of "manners", in which everything that you disagree is "good manners" is subject to a fantastically stupid ad hominem attack: "Because you don't speak nice, your arguments and everything else you might say, is worthless." This is a kind of snobbery that has been used to suppress people for ages. Your façade of good manners cannot hide what is inside: You truly believe that people who have what you consider bad manners are bad people, and probably (even though this is so idiotic it hurts) that people of good manners are good people. The opposite is true: Bad people _need_ good manners _much_ more than good people need them. | I'm sorry, but I see absolutely no grey area with lines like "you're a | disgusting little fuck, Aaron Johnson." Discussing whether this is or | is not abusive is as interesting as trying to prove I'm not a | duck-billed platypus. So discuss, with your excellent manners, how it came to be that that single line apparently embodies everything this forum has to offer to your anal-retentive need for good manners. Cause and effect are of no use to you as long as you find a lack of good manners, right? | This is certainly not *my* goal. I would only try to improve the | atmosphere through my own actions and be sure I am not sanctioning | atrocious behavior by my silence. Your "improvement" is that of good-mannered passive agressiveness, which you should have been smart enough to realize pisses people off like nothing else if you have tried it in real life, instead of only in your good-mannered fantasies. People who walk into fights, wearing halos and notions of moral superiority through their refined manners, have a bad habit of getting killed in real life. The reason is quite simple: Their _condescending_ manners are not at all good manners. #:Erik -- "When you are having a bad day and it seems like everybody is trying to piss you off, remember that it takes 42 muscles to produce a frown, but only 4 muscles to work the trigger of a good sniper rifle." -- Unknown