On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 9:24 AM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Most of the egregiously bad deletions were quickly overturned, and Jimmy was the one re-deleting the images. Now that he has agreed to stop, most of the poor deletions have been re-reversed. I doubt Jimmy approves; there's absolutely nothing in his actions over the past few days to suggest that he does.
I think you do Jimmy a disservice if you think he did not anticipate precisely this result.
To the extent that Jimmy's intervention has triggered a healthy debate
about
policy, I think the powers he used, and the decisions -- not individually but taken as a whole -- that he made are justified.
Huh. I never thought I'd see the day that Mike Godwin would be supporting an attack on free speech and free ideas through censorship.
You're misunderstanding what I wrote here. The words "not individually" were chosen for a reason.
Let me put it this way -- sometimes a police officer has to use physical force to stop further violence from having. If you inferred from this statement that that I favor police intervention as a first resort, or that I favor physical force, you would properly be criticized as misrepresenting my views.
Similarly, I don't favor "attacks on free speech" -- but like Nat Hentoff and other free-speech theorists, I recognize that free speech depends on active intervention and rule-making sometimes. I know you are trying to be provocative, but what you write here suggests that you don't actually understand much of the nuance of free-speech principles.
I don't say "censorship," lightly: Jimmy deliberately deleted historical pieces of art and illustrations in his rampage. And you think this is a good thing?
No.
Mike, it looks like you've compromised your ideals in favor of toeing the
party line, and for that, I'm pretty disappointed.
It is inconceivable to me that you have ever not been disappointed in me. I'm familiar with your other writings, after all. It is your nature to be disappointed.
--Mike