for the List [was neo-Nazis on the Net]

[Vaska]

David Dassinger writes:
> The free speech argument has been done to death by writers
>with far more skill than I, but if you'll take a look at usenet,
>you'll find things that trouble me more than alt.rec.music.whitepower.
>I'm not saying that the presence of an alt.binaries.erotica.children
>justifies tolerating a neo nazi group, but I refuse to give you or
>grant myself the authority to exclude those groups that represent
>unpopular or even dangerous views.

The only right -- and not any authority at all -- at issue here is my [as
well as your] right to vote.  Please allow me to bring that point to your
attention once more:

        To create such a group, [you] have to win a referendum that is
        always organised when a new usenet group is created. All
        persons with an email address, and only those, can vote in
        this referendum.

I don't know the procedure used in establishing the kiddy-porn group you
mention.  If it involves a voting process of this kind, then all I can say
is that it is truly tragic and unforgivably shameful that we, as a society,
care about our children so little as to find it too bothersome to send an
e-mail vote which might work to protect them from the more perverse and
predatory expressions of human sexuality.  

>Besides, I believe censorship and suppression empower groups like
>this. It's easier to raise money and attract the marginalized
>when your under fire. 

Unfortunately, this is no more than a belief.  I wish it weren't, so none of
us would have to give it another thought.  As it happens, the Zundel
material has been found in the possession of several of the neo-Nazi groups
responsible for some gruesomely hideous race murders that have taken place
in Germany over the last 4+ years.  What I have just written is a matter of
public record, not of anyone's belief.  

It is also a matter of record that Zundel and his cohort have found it
EXCEEDINGLY hard to go on raising *any* money or attracting new members ever
since they were slammed with a court order against further publication and
dissemination of their anti-Semitic, white-supremacist propaganda here in
Canada.  They have also been barred from using the postal system to send any
kind of hate-literature abroad.  This is why he and other like-minded types
are trying, once again, to gain a foothold on the Internet and are doing it
under the guise of a rec.music usenet group.  

Finally, and at the risk of being accused of blowing my own horn here, I
will now say that I am probably the last person on this list who needs to be
reminded of the value of free speech.  I have supported and actively worked
for the right to free speech in places where doing so can land you in
prison.  Even in Toronto, and because of the work I was doing to protect
free speech, I've had my phone conversations monitored by a *foreign*
government very eager to know what I was up to.  For all I know -- since I
have no means of tracing that -- they may still be reading my e-mail: and
getting some insight into Thomas Pynchon's writings, at least.

Sincerely,
Vaska