CompuServe Messages

Hi, Todd– It does not come naturally to me to break laws, whether enforced or not, thus for me a law is not OK just because it will not be policed. Such a law does not hamper the scofflaws, thus it accomplishes little besides breeding disrespect for laws in general. Regarding insults: if you are referring to Nathan's message, wherein the closest thing I saw to an insult was "Let's not rationalize this aesthetic Nazism…", observe that the adjectives are applied to ideas you expressed, rather than yourself. _Everyone_ comes up with ideas that deserve criticism now and then – which ideas are so deserving is a matter of opinion, but forbidding such criticisms would leave little room for reasoned arguments. In my opinion Nathan stayed this side of the forum rule against personal attacks; your most recent responses to him are the ones that trouble me most regarding that rule. Note you were the first to refer to someone else's remarks as "rationalizing", which is within the stated bounds, but not an invitation to an overly polite response. You seemed to think that Nathan's message also accused you of communism – all I saw in Nathan's message before you used the word was "John (locke) and Karl (Marx) would have even agreed on this one." I think that Nathan was making a point having nothing to do with some of the attributes of Nazism that seemed to concern you (racism, etc.) – it seemed to me he was saying something like "justifications for government involvement tend to overlook the failures of a wide range of intrusive governments ranging from Nazism to 'communism' and to some degree share with such regimes an attitude of 'we know better than you what is best for you'". Was there some other message, private or CISmail, that crossed the line? I am too junior a sysop to have much notion of what remedies there are for such things – CISmail me a copy of what you have in mind and I will ask around. –Doug