[1018] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
re: Thank you for your comments
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Shane Davis)
Tue Jul 16 10:39:08 1991
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 91 09:10:34 CDT
From: Shane Davis <shane@vm.utdallas.edu>
To: Roy Smith <roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu>
Cc: com-priv@psi.com, nren-discuss@uu.psi.com
In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 16 Jul 91 08:38:18 +0200 from <craig@sics.se>
Sorry I'm not replying to the original note here...
>.... it's a waste of taxpayer's money to be shipping
>erotic stories and images around over the Internet.
Pardon me for straying further from com-priv and NREN issues, but this
argument does not hold water. I think it was a waste of taxpayers' money to
go to war with Iraq. The fact is, most things the government does are "a
waste of money" to some. Perhaps if you rephrase you statement to be,
"... it's a waste of my tax dollars," it would be slightly more compelling
and appropriately diminishes you to one voice in 200 million. Don't pretend
to speak for me or any other taxpayer-- Congressmen are the only ones with
the authority to do that (even though they rarely speak for me ;) ).
If I don't have the right to mandate that my tax dollars be spent on something
other than a crusade to chase Saddam out of Kuwait, you don't have the right
to mandate anything pertaining to your dollars or how they are applied to
the Internet or NREN, either.
I'm not trying to argue the "pornography" point, just the logic of the
quoted statement. The "waste of taxpayers' dollars" argument is used regarding
many government spending issues and is not reasonable in any context when
coming from a individual.
Iraq-related flames to /dev/null-- not trying to evoke those, just presenting
an example of a waste of _my_ tax dollars :).
Kind regards,
--Shane
