The NF Guestbook archive IV
February 27 1999 - March 1 1999
Read what others had to say, or put an entry in the Nuremberg Files Mirror Guestbook yourself. Because the guestbook is quite large, I have cut it up into smaller files:
- Archive I: entries Feb 22 - Feb 25 1999 (36k)
- Archive II: entries Feb 25 - Feb 25 1999 (52k)
- Archive III: entries Feb 25 - Feb 27 1999 (37k)
- Archive IV: entries Feb 27 - Mar 1 1999 (39k)
- Archive V: entries Mar 1 - Mar 14 1999 (34k)
- Archive VI: entries Mar 14 - Aug 9 1999 (34k)
- Archive VII: entries Aug 9 - now.
From: zeug@earthling.net [wells.general.dialup.uwa.edu.au]
Date: Mon Mar 1 08:58:15 1999
I applaud your effort in the name of free speech - with a few provisos. I don't think free speech in a democracy is about 'anything goes' but rather about what is appropriate for the time...but who is to say what is appropriate? I agree that we can't let governments decide this for us, or moral leaders, or vocal lobby groups like the anti-abortionists or tobacco companies or rifle associations etc.
Free speech is a dynamic process, and with the internet it's an increasingly democratic one I think, cos more and more individuals can have their say, whether they advocate violence or not. But what would you do if a neo-nazi posted a notice in your neighbourhood advocating violence against an ethnic minority along with a list of names and addresses? (And this has an historical precedent in Amsterdam doesn't it?) Would you argue with your neighbour who was named and in genuine fear for their life when they go to take it down? Would you insist on reposting it in full on your front door, citing all the anti-fascist justifications you've given?
It's a dangerous practice either way...suppress the evil and force it underground or actually take part in endangering the life of your neighbour in an effort to expose the problem of violence. But it doesn't matter anyways, cos true to the open essence of free speech you've taken the offending material down - presumably due to the internet community's reaction. And for me that's where free speech resides, in the constant to and fro of a multiplicity of attitudes and opinions, which is also probably what makes it so terribly fragile and so easy to extinguish.
I'd prefer it if you resurrected the site in question with all its grotesquery intact bar that dangerous list. It is my own opinion that taking any even minor part in the dissemination of peoples identities and whereabouts, especially when this may endanger them, is a dreadful perversion of 'free speech'.
But each to their own as they say...
regards, Callum McDonald
From: whopcares@aol,.com [tcr-01-27.van.du.teleport.com]
Date: Mon Mar 1 07:22:10 1999
All of you are sick christan people afraid of the dark, so you fill your pettly little lives by ,making obsene websites, you are all sick!
From: storcs01@nospam.endeavor.med.nyu.edu [mcrubs704.med.nyu.edu]
Date: Mon Mar 1 01:03:38 1999
I won't get into those comments about Roman Catholicism, except to say that I don't agree with them. Nonetheless, to assert that a zygote is a full person under the law (which it traditionally isn't; for example, in no state would the murder of a pregnant woman be considered two counts of murder) because "the identity is determined by the DNA" ignores the fact that the majority of zygotes probably do not become babies because they are miscarried--often before the pregnancy is even detected. If all of the lost zygotes are persons with all rights and privileges appertaining thereto, then we should be having funerals after miscarriages (as some Buddhists do), and possibly after every very heavy period, under the presumption that it may have really been a miscarriage.
I mention this not to poke fun at anyone's argument, but rather to point out that the question of when personhood begins (which is, after all, at the heart of the abortion debate) is more complex than many on both sides would have us believe.
From: Katz001@aol.com [tcnet02-12.dallas.texas.net]
Date: Mon Mar 1 00:32:05 1999
Sorry, KNIGHTOFTHYBVM, there is no evidence that Roman Catholicism (or Christianity in general) is anything more than a childish international costume party around a theme of preposterous, ancient legend, myth, and superstition. You were too gullible at that school in San Francisco. Time to grow up.
From: KNIGHTOFTHYBVM@HOTMAIL.COM [spider-wa021.proxy.aol.com]
Date: Sun Feb 28 22:27:45 1999
I AM PROLIFE FOR THE UNBORN BUT I MUST REMIND YOU THAT THOSE WHO TAKE A DOCTORS LIFE ARE NOT.I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ACTIONS OF OTHERS BUT AS YOU KNOW SOMEONE MIGHT USE YOUR LIST FOR THEIR OWN HIT LIST ON DOCTORS WHO ELECT THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR OVER THE LIFE OF THY UNBORN.UNDER THE LAW A PERSON MUST HAVE KNOWLEDGE OR THE INTENT BEFORE A CRIME IS PROVEN AND TO THE JUDGE I SAY THAT MURDER IS A HIGH CRIME ALSO.EACH INDIVIDUAL AT CONCEPTION IS GUARANTEED LIFE, LIBERTY,AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS UNDER THE U.S. CONSTITUTION BECAUSE AT CONCEPTION THE IDENTITY IS DETERMINED BY THE DNA.ALSO THE FATHERS HAVE THEIR RIGHTS THE BIOLOGICAL WHO MAKES UP HALF THE DNA OF THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE SPIRITUAL WHO GUIDED THE ONE IN A MILLION SPERM TO THE EGG AT FERTILIZATION.TO THE JUDGE I SAY WHAT ABOUT THE FATHERS RIGHTS AS WELL AS THY UNBORN.I CAN ONLY RELAY MY BELIEFS SINCE THEY WERE GIVEN TO ME AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SANFRANCISCO WHERE FOLLOWING THE TEN COMMANDMENTS WAS REQUIRED.IN CLOSING ALL I CAN SAY IS THOSE WHO SUPPORT THE TAKING OF A LIFE EITHER UNBORN OR BORN WILL PAY THE ULTIMATE PRICE IN FRONT OF A REAL JUDGE OUR BLESSED VIRGIN MARYS SON JESUS CHRIST.THANK YOU KNIGHT OF THY BLESSED VIRGIN MARY.
From: Katz001@aol.com [mnet01-35.dallas.texas.net]
Date: Sun Feb 28 22:03:49 1999
To no one's surprise, that foreign authoritarian dictator, the Pope, the venerable and well-meaning old fellow who, enshrined as in a museum of Renaissance stone, Baroque art, and ancient myth in Vatican City, leads a detached and celibate life insulated from ordinary human experience and devoid of authenticity or intimacy in human relationships, has produced a new, but hackneyed and totally predictable, "encyclical" (news report, 3/31/95), in which he has lumped together his aloof and slavishly dogmatic opposition to abortion (including for rape, incest, severe fetal anomaly incompatible with extrauterine life, and preserving the life of the pregnant woman), euthanasia (including the right of terminally ill people who are experiencing extreme emotional and physical suffering to make dignified, autonomous decisions regarding the timing, setting, and means of their own inevitable and imminent death), and capital punishment (including its application to multiple murderers) into yet another pious assault upon the hallmark of our American national character, individual freedom. He decries a so-called "culture of death" and "crimes against life" that he perceives as "engulfing contemporary society", as if he thinks death and dying are sinister post-Enlightenment inventions of modern times and that the mythical and legendary "good ol' days" ever actually existed.
I, too, have grave concerns about an abiding cross-cultural insensitivity to death and suffering, one that is ages-old, and the Pope is perhaps the western world's leading advocate of this death-dealing moral blindness that so troubles me. For example, we know that all over the world since human civilization began, countless "crimes against life", including many wars, have resulted from the mean-spirited and rageful intolerance of zealous proponents of opposing dogmatic and authoritarian religious ideologies, a most prominent one of which, both historically and currently, is represented by the Pope. Although many, like the Pope, are all-too-humanly in denial of it for the sake of their own false sense of security and in the service of preserving their dogmatic belief-systems, we know that a great threat to our continued survival as a species is worldwide overpopulation, with resultant overcrowding, environmental pollution and destruction, depletion of limited land and natural resources with progressively vicious competition for the dwindling remains, and violent political strife - all in the overwhelmingly perilous context of nuclear power and weaponry, as well as chemical and biological terrorism and warfare.
We also know that, in those countries where men who think like the Pope have outlawed the relatively extremely safe minor surgical procedure of vacuum abortion, many millions of desperate women and terrified little teenage girls knowingly risk death and serious injury each year in seeking illegal abortions, and we know that 200,000 or more of these actually die, often horribly and in excruciating pain, each year around the world from incompetent and dangerous abortion attempts made by often well-intended, but ill-trained, unskilled, and inadequately-equipped outlaw abortionists. We know, too, that many times than the number who die are the numbers who are seriously injured and maimed for life by incompetent abortion attempts. We know that the effects of overpopulation have long been catastrophic and that any baby who is born has a less than fifty percent chance of living to be five years old in many of these countries, in which we know the Pope regularly and consistently preaches to swooning multitudes of cradle-to-grave indoctrinated true-believers not only against abortion, but against any and all forms of contraception.
Some of us, especially older physicians, remember with stark clarity that not-so-long-ago time before Roe v. Wade when very large numbers of American women and teenage girls were among those forced by misguided law of the kind advocated by the Pope into desperately risking, and often sacrificing, their lives and health to obtain often very dangerous illegal abortions in our country. Some of us were there with them in emergency rooms around the country, trying desperately with all we could do to treat them as they bled and fevered and agonized and died. All of this well illustrates the "culture of death" that concerns me; the one strongly advocated by the dogmatic Pope, despite his good intentions.
Those who think like the Pope and want to see this kind of bloodbath revisited upon women and teenage girls by recriminalizing abortion incredibly insist upon being called "pro-life". Those "pro-lifers" in some states have begun to hear a "wake-up call" - a taste of the denied horrific downside of their detached and misguided piety and fanatical advocacy. As was thoroughly predictable, desperate little teenage American girls have begun to seek the services of incompetent "back-alley" illegal abortionists, and to encounter injury and death, as the know-it-all, sanctimonious, right-wing politicians (almost all of whom are of course politically-obligated males pandering to their constituencies) in some state legislatures and governor's offices have been successful in their foolishly misguided efforts to require parental notification by minors seeking safe legal abortion services in order to legally qualify for those services. Tragic and bitter past experience has richly demonstrated that, when restrictions are placed upon access to competent abortion services, incompetent outlaws rush in to fill the gaps. Have we so soon forgotten the past, and are we therefore doomed to repeat it? Must we require that the broken lives, suffering, and deaths of American teens remind us? There will be no excuse for this. We could and should know better than to allow sectarian belief to dominate secular law.
From: no [pool-209-138-0-178.nwrk.grid.net]
Date: Sun Feb 28 19:29:25 1999
You know, if I were to dedicate a site to the reasons why the pope or the president should die and where opportunities to kill him exist I would be arrested. The same thing should be held true for anyone else that uses the net or any other form of media to encourage the killing of someone that they don't personally or politically agree with. Come on, this is not a free speech issue. To me the free speech issue ended when someone was killed due to this web site. Are we really turning into a society that is willing to make exceptions for anyone who encourages other people to be killed? The punishment handed down to those who were responsible will bever compensate for the life of any abortion doctor.
From: lafollet@netaxs.com [dyn-4.blackbox-2.netaxs.com]
Date: Sun Feb 28 19:22:53 1999
Thank you for your courage and willingess to mirror this thoroughly distasteful site, even though briefly. While the content was truly hate filled, it is, I think important for several reasons to continue to make the point that the expression of ugly, hate filled thoughts is worthy of protection. First, suppressing publication of hate does not make it disappear, but only hides it. We are better off acknowledging the esixtence of such hatred and exposing ourselves to it to the point that we can begin to physically believe in its existence. Secondly, and more important, I fear that if I give up a freedom in the hopes of gaining security I will lose a freedom forever and probably lose security as well. It is not enough to honor those who gave their time and lives in wartime to help secure our liberties. We must ourselves be wiling to sacrifice our well being, even our lives, to protect our freedoms-- indeed even to protect the freedoms of people whom we may not like or admire. Again, I thank you.
From: yeahright@youbet.com [recept.voice.umt.edu]
Date: Sun Feb 28 14:31:03 1999
I bet that you'd feel differently if someone had all of your personal info on THEIR website, and hinted & encouraged YOUR elimination.
You are very, very, sick. I am glad you lost in court.
From: struijk@ibm.net [gate.valmet.com]
Date: Sun Feb 28 12:34:36 1999
Karen, Geweldig en moedig wat je gedaan hebt! Je "motivatie" is een prachtige verdediging van vrijheid van meningsuiting. Ik ben het volledig met je eens. Ik ben voor het recht op abortus en voor het recht van tegenstanders op het uiten van hun mening. Ik sta niet voor vrijheid van meningsuiting uit menslievenheid of uit altruistische overwegingen. Vrijheid is in mijn eigenbelang. Als vandaag onder druk van de publieke opinie deze mening niet verkondigd mag worden, dan is morgen die van de buurman aan de buurt en overmorgen is mijn opinie aan de beurt. Het is jammer dat je onder de publieke druk hebt moeten besluiten de Files te verwijderen. Denk je nog steeds dat een dergelijke site onder Nederlands recht wel toegestaan is? MVG, Ad
From: fuckyou@sickmothers.com [proxy2-external.hoover1.al.home.com]
Date: Sun Feb 28 11:23:56 1999
I am going to give you a little free speech.You NF folks are a bunch of crazy sick bastards. You are the motherfuckers who should be murdered.Maybe someone will start a hit list against you sick cocksuckers,and your sick Dutch friend who doesn't really understand what "free speech" means.
From: timnolen@compuserve.com [atl-qbu-zpm-vty15.as.wcom.net]
Date: Sun Feb 28 04:26:36 1999
You are no hero, because you took down your page! I believe in free speech. I'm sort of a right-wing Christian myself, but I believe God's way is freedom, and freedom to choose. Without freedom, how can you ever win a heart or a mind to your point of view? Unfortunately, I have not been able to see the site, but I think that it probably does great harm to Christianity and even to the anti-abortion movement. I do not think a person who could produce such a site could be a true Christian at heart.
From: storcs01@nospam.endeavor.med.nyu.edu [mcrubs704.med.nyu.edu]
Date: Sun Feb 28 01:21:26 1999
I don't think the mirror had much of an effect on the situation of abortion providers in the US, as it was up, I gather, for only a few days. I missed the mirror, but I have seen the original site. It was (and probably is, somewhere), to say the least, disturbing--not so much because of the inaccurate (the doctor from Texas is absolutely correct in pointing out its numerous factual errors/distortions), gory depictions of abortion as because of the unmistakable hit list at the end. I'm torn about its right to exist. It's certainly not the only Web site spouting inaccuracies, and there are almost certainly more comprehensive hit lists being compiled underground, but on the other hand, it does encourage violence with its graying and crossing out of names, and to tolerate such a borderline exhortation to violence is to send the wrong message to the world.
The true lesson in all of this is probably that the regulation of speech on the Internet, desirable or not, is just about impossible. Everyone with a modem can now be a publisher, so all bets on the accuracy and impartiality of information presented on the Internet are off.
Therefore, we are now probably undergoing a difficult transition period as we discover we have to be far more skeptical readers than we once were, and as we learn to read in such a critical manner.
Und dem Elternteil in Erfurt muss ich sagen: Es tut mir echt leid, aber das Leben ist so. Wie ekelig die "Nuremberg Files" auch seien, gibt es viel, viel Schlimmeres im Internet. Es geht einfach nicht, ein Kind vor so etwas zu schuetzen. Deswegen ist es sehr wichtig, mit dem Kind zu sprechen, zu sagen, dass die Menschen, die Sachen im Internet veroeffentlichen, aller Sorten sind: gut, boese, und alles dazwischen, und daher soll man nicht alles glauben soll, was man liest. Und bitte entschuldigen Sie mein sehr schlechtes Deutsch!
Thank you, Karin, for furthering the debate on the limits of free speech!
Rebecca
From: broberts@gladstone.uoregon.edu [d75-45.uoregon.edu]
Date: Sun Feb 28 00:09:38 1999
Karin, I like what you've done. I wish I had gotten to your site sooner because I wanted to see the Nuremberg Files for myself to determine whether it was horrific or just hysterical. These people are nuts. Vindictive, spiteful, self-loathing nuts who obviously don't value life. Yet being a nut is not, in theory, prohibitive to having the right to free expression--far from it. Where does freedom of speech end; how far can it go? The people who amended the US Constitution to ensure free speech had an expression that it should be unlawful to yell "fire" in a crowded theater. Were they being literal or metaphorical? I mean, who is psychotic enough to wish death by trampling upon theater-goers? You have employed an expression which stated that speaking to an angry mob on the doorstep of the doomed qualifies as an incite to violence, something too mean to be covered by the First Amendment. Scenario: what if a number of people who were incenced by the deeds of a particular person came together for a rally at a certain time, and what if the speaker at that rally showed them pictures--gruesome pictures--and said to this emotionally fragile, delusionally righteous crowd that the particular person they had qualms with was resopnsible. What if the speaker at the rally told them that God was on their side, that they had to do His will if He called them to it, and then, up on the projection screen was displayed this fated individual's home address, just a couple blocks down from the convention hall? The speaker at the rally could sit back and take a nap behind the podium while the angry mob marches down to this man's house to dispense what they call justice.
I have a question: how many doctors were murdered after that site went into effect? Were they being murdered at a higher rate than before the site went up? These questions alone, according to my understanding, are pivotal to the question of whether this site went outside the realm of activity covered by the First Amendment. If it is true that more doctors were killed after the website went up--and please, nobody even try to argue that you can't definitively link the success of the site to the number of doctors killed, or the results of the site to the intent of the author, because that's bullshit--then Neal Horsley is guilty of inciting others to murder. Fining his disciples millions of dollars completely skirts the issue.
From: no [li-6-53.cytanet.com.cy]
Date: Sat Feb 27 23:31:01 1999
I always find it an amazing contradiction that Americans protest so strongly about the right to free speech, yet insist in carrying guns to oppose those who don't agree with them. It sort of smacks of "Hey, I don't mind you talking about how you'd like to rape my 12 year old daughter, but if you try it I'll kill you!"
Similarly the debate rolls on about whether an American "hit-list" can be published in the Netherlands. Forget the abortion bit. The precedent goes much further. Can the Internet allow someone I don't know publishing the times and route my daughter takes when walking the dog, and then wash it's hands when she is found raped and dead 6 months from now?
The Internet is to inform, educate and entertain and occasionally to make us re-think our attitudes. It isn't a showcase for pychotics to scream hate and incite violence.
From: tillo@xs4all.nl [dc2-isdn174.dial.xs4all.nl]
Date: Sat Feb 27 18:11:15 1999
Putting names of people on the internet without there approval is wrong. Regardless of free speech or "criminal abortion".
Free speech is about voicing your opinion, not about endangering people who's opinion you don't like.
Doei, Martijn
From: Whitner@mailexcite.com [out3.shellus.com]
Date: Sat Feb 27 17:07:43 1999
Well you know folks, I was under the 'impression' that the site called Nuremburg Files was a protest against abortion and not about freedom of speech. So, there are only a couple of things I can add....does anyone know what the leading cause of death is? Birth. Also, irregardless if you get 'borned' or 'aborted' ...you're gonna die.
From: andree@xs4all.nl [dc2-modem1156.dial.xs4all.nl]
Date: Sat Feb 27 12:34:52 1999
Die dodenlijsten weghalen is geen persoonlijke nederlaag, in tegendeel. Je meining wordt verder gerespecteerd. Maar je laatste beslissing is juist.
Vriendelijke groeten, Sylvain Ephimenco
From: repeelm@hotmail.com [tn161-100.dialup.seed.net.tw]
Date: Sat Feb 27 07:50:28 1999
Ms. Spaink,
How twisted you are, morally and intellectually! In the name of your notion of an absolute right to free speech, you have become an accessory to the authors of the Nuremberg Files and the bloody results that their hatred engenders. Surely, you have become as guilty of murder as those whose right to free speech you defend.
There is no right to free speech as you simplistically imagine! Had the authors of the Nuremburg Files simply posted those horrible pictures of bloody fetuses, even as disgusting as I found them, that would have been an instance of exercising the right of free speech. However, when they added the names and contact information to their presentation, they implicitly incited the viewers of these pages to murder and in doing so became accessories to the deaths of those murdered. Just as there is no right to yell 'Fire' in a crowded theatre, similarly there is no right incite others to murder. With the exercise of free speech there always goes the responsibilty for the results of its exercise!
Shame on you!
Peter Lee
From: hollyoak@intrepid.net [pm3mbr4-150-18.intrepid.net]
Date: Sat Feb 27 05:04:16 1999
Karin and others,
3.5 million human unborn lives and counting snuffed out brutally and violently in the US alone. Why doesn't that bother you.... If you see antiabortionists as bastions of hate, aren't you a little warped. I personally know many antiabortionist and I've not known ANY to SUGGEST violence against another person. How many antiabortionist do you know personally, really.
People who perform abortions are quacks and cannot be considered medical doctors. Babies are people - born or unborn, wanted, or unwanted, convenient, or not. They have been the real blunt of our selfish and heartless society.
They(the unborn silent millions) were sentenced to legal execution for the horrible crimes that they have allegedly commited: genetically imperfect, mother was too young, parents had too many children, their father was a rapist, the father wasn't the husband, their skin wasn't the desired color, the wrong sex, on and on....
No trial, no hearing, no due process....
If you think they are just "blobs of flesh" as abortion advocates claim, I suggest a course in biology 101 to find out the truth.
Abortionists may disqualify themselves a Medical Doctors, but they are people, too.
Abortion SHOULD be the UNTHINKABLE option.
Violence isn't the answer, compassion is.
Towards the deluded abortionists, as well as towards their millions of innocent victims.
From: fiatlux.NYET.SCHPAM@thehub.com.au [myponga0.connect.com.au]
Date: Sat Feb 27 05:00:57 1999
Karin, I congratulate you on your moral courage - a quality far more precious and rarer than physical courage. It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it.
However, I must say I feel saddened by many of the guestbook entries. They seem to fall into two group:
(a) Anti-abortionists who feel this mirrored site is a support for their belief. Think again boyo; Karin's words on the front page speak another story. Where were you when God handed out the written comprehension skills? (And WE know that you DO believe in God.)
(b) Pro-"right-to-abortion"-ists who are claiming that FREE speech is not absolute. Perhaps, but I'd put the cutoff point in extreme, well, MORE extreme cases; I'd criminalize paedophillia photos, but little else. Anyway, don't the "pro-choice" people have any sense of history? The "free speech is relative" argument is a double-edged sword, with the edge a lot sharper towards the Left.
Anyway: congratulations, Karin - on your courage and faith in Free Speech.
From: jpitts@regis.edu [209.101.106.195]
Date: Sat Feb 27 04:56:12 1999
What is missing from this entire debate is the subject of INTENT. A list of names is certainly not INTRINSICALLY a threat or a weapon, it only becomes threatening (and potentially criminal) if that is the intent of its author(s) -- likewise, one is only complicit in a murder if one's intentions are of the wrong sort. And, in the United States, we do place limits on speech in the case of threats, and we may (Constitutionally) intervene in the activities of those conspiring to commit murder. So, although it is extremely difficult in circumstances such as these, the intent of the author(s) must be established before the banner of "Free Speech" may reasonably be raised in protection of the Nuremberg Files.
It would most certainly violate the spirit of our Constitutional protections if simple 'political controversy' were used to justify a prohibition on the publication of names. But, to suggest that such a simple justification is behind the move to prohibition in this case, is to prop up an obvious straw man.
We MUST confront the complex relations holding between three things: (1) the danger of threats, (2) the responsibility of information gatherers to avoid complicity in murder conspiracies, and (3) the necessity that we protect freedom of expression. Only then will we be in a position to decide upon appropriate governing principles. And, even then, unless and until intent is made clear, it is unlikely that we will know how such principles would apply.
From: A_Holovacs@hotmail.com [ppp-31.ts-1.hp.idt.net]
Date: Sat Feb 27 03:21:38 1999
The Nuremberg page is extremely offensive to me. I applaud your courage in posting them here. I do not feel there is any value whatsoever, in the Nuremberg site but everyone has a right to be heard. The people of the United States have worked long and hard to acquire and retain the freedom we have.
The issue of free speech has already been decided in the US courts of law-
"...the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action."
Per Curiam Opinion, Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969)
The issue with Nuremberg is how this is interpreted. As far as I can tell, NOTHING in the site suggests shooting anyone. Even terroristic threats can be prosecuted, under some circumstances, however, the X's on the photos were placed after the fact.
This judgement sets a very bad precedent. It sets up the rationale that someone can be prosecuted for providing information. This is one small step away from prosecuting poets who write about suicide, or movies that graphically portray violent acts.
Censorship is like cancer, if you overlook it in the early stages it will become impossible to stop. Censorship of a bad idea is still censorship.
A. Holovacs, http://www.freespeech.org/freethought/civil rights.htm
"Give 'em a yard and they'll take a mile" or "If ya don't watch out it'll turn around and bite ya in the ass"
From: loneparanoid@monmouth.com [sl-max-ppp76.monmouth.com]
Date: Sat Feb 27 02:36:32 1999
"Free Speech is not defined as the right to shout 'Fire' in a crowded theatre or public place, for the pretense of a lark..'
Oliver Wendell Holmes said that, or a close approximation of it. I wasn't there, but having kept on top of this whole sickening Nuremberg thing I find it curious and repellent that you have decided to revive this thing and give it life.
If you are not acquainted with Neil Horsley, let me remind you of his "Army without leaders", these invisible prolife psycho goons who cyberhunt the web like hungry white trash in heat, looking for something or someone representative of the culture they despise to attack or defile..
Well, if that's too complex for you Ms. Spaink, the nuremburg gallery thing is just a flimsy excuse for gutless lowlife pseudo-intellectual 'white christian patriots' who don't have the courage of a turd to sit back and egg on those even more mindless than he to acts of violence and hatred towards any who fit the definitions spewed out by his electronic sepulchera...
In an ongoing 'dialog' with Mr. Horsley, the free speech group which I belong to engaged him in a definition of what Jesus would want us to do. The most eloquent statement we got from Neil was only the vindictive assumption that any Jesus that us liberal, left/pinko pansy alternative weirdo intelligentsia would worship would have to be "A Doofus".
So with that example in mind, I shudder to feel the necessity to remind you that the basic core element of the Christian Right and Prolife extremist movement does not rationalize with the intricacy of rocket science;
To these people, the term and/or 'existence' of something we label "Free Speech" is little more than a pretext to do mostly very bad things to relatively nice people. This IS a very simplistic matter of 'Us and Them', having been involved as a writer and a 'regular Joe Shmo' in Pro Choice issues who has endured pro-lifer harassment, both public and anonymous, I feel that I have earned the right to speak strongly about this issue, and offer my brand of admonishment to you.
I understand exactly where you seem to be coming from, 'in principle' but there are times, when people's lives are literally threatened that principles must go back in the bag with the lovebeads and aloe vera and common sense takes over. I do think you omitted mentioning the parts of the Gallery site where they actively solicit, request, encourage any and all interested parties to send in names, info, etc on clinic workers etc. And they have a list of judges, too.
Hmm, what if it were YOUR friend, lover, doctor, etc..? And you have the luxury, living in Europe of overlooking the fact that this whole ball of shit has gone far beyond the confines of "Cultural War" and that the Pro Life world is in serious guerilla warfare mode.
I suggest you further investigate Prolifer links to even more intensely fanatic White militia and Religious hate groups; it's there, and documented by Planned Parenthood and many independent 'zeens on the subject. (Videos are even available)
As an example, alright, I have no real burning problem with the site as it is, dormant. I assume you are not receiving names, info from Right to Life Hq and freshly posting them as a matter of course.
I will bookmark your site and again, I only wish to offer a thoughtful but honest opinion of what I see is going on here, and plan to check out your other writings. I will also share it with my comrades of the MBCBS network(MBCBS=My Brain Can't Be Saved!), made up of mainly working and ex-journalists..www.mbcbs.index.com..
Thanks for Listening...., Chris
aka 'The Lone Paranoid'
Ocean Grove NJ USA
From: voice@ofreason.com [vts-ral1-S25.vnet.net]
Date: Sat Feb 27 00:17:50 1999
I would like to applaud Karin for her mirror of the NF site in protest of our recent silly American trend toward restricting "hate speech". What's especially disappointing is the tendency of the American political left, historically champions of free speech, to now try to restrict speech that they want to censor.
The problem with the oft-cited causality theory of "hate speech" is that it ignores the fact that individuals do NOT have to act on the speech! INDIVIDUALS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR OWN BEHAVIOR. They are not "clockwork oranges" that only "monkey see, monkey do". However, this is the apparent subtext of the Left's "hate speech" restriction arguments.
For example, what if someone "out there" identifies a doctor off of Karin's mirror and kills him/her? Then THE KILLER IS RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS/HER ACTIONS, same as it ever was.
This looks to me to be obvious, and as a (social) liberal, I'm really pissed off at the Left for trying to push this "you are a victim" narcotic under the guise of helping people. Getting hooked on this narcotic doens't help people - it cripples them.
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