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Dear Reverend Visage
- The Usual Troll Stories

This article is submitted by Doc Logger(163/110) who, thanks to the miracle of nodelist transformations, no longer requires adult supervision to submit articles under his own name.

Roll da flic, Zorch....

Dear Reverend Visage,

I don't think I have to tell you that the editors of Swamp Swine magazine were a little testy when they phoned to protest the latest petty cash vouchers that you submitted. To silence them, I passed the receipts on to Zorch, although I'm not sure that he'll understand that you needed to book 400 hours of camera time on the Hubble Space Telescope in an attempt to find the Z1C, Bob Satti. Lisa Gronke, Fidonet Minister of Antiquities, was inquiring as to your whereabouts and we can only hope it wasn't because she discovered *those* photos that were taken when we interned at the White House. (I think the best defense here is to go with total denial and claim that the huge tubs of Mazola and the walrus were just a science project. Can you get Vernon to back us up on this so we don't have to spend the rest of our lives as the Revlon cover-girls?)

I know that you'd rather have root canal surgery than hear anything about Echopol, but you truly would admire the fact that no one seems to be answering my plaintive bleats about which problems need to be fixed that would require any more policy. The cognitive leap seems like a group of people announcing that they will have a Woolly Mastodon in their kitchens and then launching into debates about which colour to paint the beast - neatly ignoring the first question which ought to be why they need or desire a Mastodon in the first place. Bob Kohl has stomped his hindpaw and tried to tell a succession of sysops that they are "off topic" for asking important questions. Even more interesting is that David Hallford who has said goodbye in the last two Snoozs failed to note that he was leaving because of his disgust with Bob Kohl R10C. (Hallford was the R10EC) Even more interesting is that Kohl appointed our beloved Snoozlord, Zorch as the new R10EC.

All the signs are pointing towards the assumption that Ward Dossche is our kind of guy. At least that is a fair guess based on the quality of his detractors. The ZCC-PUBLIC echo is rather infested with trophalactic wheazers so it is hard to decipher the significant issues. What is worth more than a few giggles is that Mr. Dwight is one of Ward's most vociferous critics. Given Mr Dwight's history as the Z2C elflord, I'd think that Ward is thanking his favourite deity that Mr. Dwight is on the opposing team. Even Zorch was <nudge><nudge<wink><winking> with reference to Ward in his editorial about "learning from history" and I don't think he was talking about abolition of dwarf tossing in France. If I wasn't so gosh darned obtuse, I'd guess that Zorch's reference was meant to evoke an unkind comparison to a 40's European politician. Mercifully, such tawdry characterizations are beneath Zorch so he must have been talking about something else.

For this week's Chautauqua I would like to discuss Puritanism which is particularly germane given that one of the topics being discussed in the FIDOECHOPOL conference is whether mail transit nodes can censor by subject matter.

The working definition of a Puritan is: one who is possessed by a profound fear that somewhere, somehow, someone else is having fun.

Bertrand Russell said in "The Recrudescence of Puritanism"

"My point is that pleasures which remain possible after the Puritan has done his utmost are more harmful than those that he condemns. Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power. Consequently those who live under the domination of Puritanism become exceeding desirous of power. Now love of power does more harm than love of drink or any of the other vices against which Puritans protest. Of course, in virtuous people love of power camouflages itself as a love of doing good, but this makes very little difference to its social effects. It merely means that we punish our victims for being wicked, instead of for being our enemies. In either case, tyranny and war result. Moral indignation is one of the most harmful forces in the modern world, the more so as it can always be diverted to sinister uses by those who control propaganda."

When I first read the essay I found myself in the paradoxical position of being "morally indignant" at censorship which puts my motives into the sinister category, while on the other hand, agreeing with Russell that Puritanism as a placebo for virtue is really vice in search of an excuse, which puts me on the side of the angels. In the case of Fidoland, the paradox asserts itself in the form where I believe that *ECs have no right to control echomail content, balanced against some *EC's desire not to involve themselves in the propagation of mail they would find repugnant.

I think the resolution of the paradox would reside in the ability of sysops to choose from a variety of mail sources, just as radio listeners can choose from several channels and avoid Howard Stern if they are inclined to be offended. In the ideal case, the recipient of the echomail makes a form of compact with the mail delivery sysop. If there are content restrictions applied by the delivering node, then the recipient should be able to find an alternative feed.

In a rigidly defined echomail system with hierarchies of mail topographies, the opportunity for a balancing of sysop desires versus *EC morality has no mechanism for resolution. Either the sysops will assert and prevail in the opinion that they can make their own decisions about what is virtue and what is vice, or, the *ECs subjugate the desires of sysops and impose *their* morality.

Naturally, I am much happier in a world where I make my own choices about what will offend me, and where the Puritanism of others is given no means to control my choices. Even if the Puritans prevail, I will always know that I am having more fun than they are and the very least I can do is let them know this. They will suffer horribly from this knowledge and hopefully take Pyrrhic comfort from the aphorism that virtue is its own reward. I hope they choke on it.

I must go Visage, your secretary's behaviour is getting out of hand. She keeps swooning about Leonardo DeCaprio whose appearance in the movie "Titanic" she has seen 567 times. I'm the only one in the universe who hasn't seen the movie yet. Quite frankly, if I'd wanted to watch a large, costly enterprise, sink slowly into the slime I'd have gone to the last Republican National Convention.

Regards,
Doc Logger
Furlang Island,
South Pacific