At 7:08 am -0500 on 11/14/97, frissell@panix.com wrote:
But in many ways, this is good news. The war is coming faster than I thought.
The judge in this case has committed a capital crime.
was *not* a threat against a judge?
Right, Tim, if you say so.
The phrase "capital crime" (literaly "head crime") just means "worst crime". It does not imply punishment. Punishment for capital crimes varies with time and place. Saying someone is guilty of an infamous crime is not a death threat. It's not even a death threat to say, "I think X should be arrested, tried by a court, and gassed." You are merely expressing opinions about criminal guilt and perhaps capital punishment but you are not making a threat.
C'mon, Duncan, you know you're equivocating here, and you know better. Tim says we're going to war. He says that a judge commits a capital crime, by whatever definition he, or you, choose to use. Most people, and it doesn't have to be you, or me, or even Tim himself, would call that a threat, and, in the above case, against a judge. "Most people" especially includes those folks with aptly-named "criminal justice" degrees, too much military hardware and not enough understanding of rhetorical nuance. *That's* the kind of threat Tim made, and the kind of people who will interpret it. At this point, I guess, it's moot. Tim can bay at the moon all he wants. It is, after all, a free country. "Consider it evolution in action", as Tim's favorite Pournelle quote goes. But, up until he made that remark, I still had some respect for him. What he said there was the breaking branch which turned loose this entire landslide of disrepect for him on my part. As far as I was concerned, he crossed the border into loonyland, and I decided to call him it. "Call a spade a spade." Or a loon a loon. Now, frankly, Tim still says stuff here worth reading, but I'm finding, more and more, that other people say the same things I used to hear him say, and they say it much better. At the moment, I expect, someday, to put him in my own killfile, just like Chrispin, or Vulis, or Detweiller/Nuri, or even poor Phill Hallam, who can't help himself ;-), just to keep me from going off on him like I did this time. I'll try to restrain myself a little bit better in the meantime.
Tim was *not* threatening to set up his own court and try anyone himself and carry out a punishment.
No, he said that war was coming, and that a sitting judge had committed a capital crime. You figure it out.
You sicken me.
Um, well... Take a pill, maybe?
Cheers, Bob Hettinga
Bob, Tim's is just a different approach. It shouldn't sicken you.
Watch your attributions, there, Duncan. Tim's the one who needs to take a pill, not me. I'm fine. I *was* mildly apoplectic, but I feel *much* better, now. :-).
Tim and I are members of the same birth cohort and I think you are a little bit younger but it seems to me that he has absorbed the major message of modern education better. You know -- Multi Culturalism. Or as Mao said "let a thousand flowers bloom". Tim's a very Multi Culti guy. Individuation. Big time. Micro Cultures. He believes in letting other people explore the rich diversity of their lives and experiences as long as they let him do the same. He's trying to make sure that everyone is aware that Multi Culturalism is *real*. Too many proponents of same treat it as some bland mush. Tim is keeping them aware of the spice.
Or as my grandfather said "It doesn't matter what your race, creed or color is. You can still be a son of a bitch." True equality requires true liberty.
I agree with everything you said there, Duncan. All of it. Except the part where Tim, metaphorically or not, calmly goes out into the street one nice afternoon and throws rocks at cop cars to get their attention about how fascist they all are. That's not revolution. It's the act of a loon. Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/ Ask me about FC98 in Anguilla!: <http://www.fc98.ai/>