Slight tangent, then on to the meat of the thread.
I am not now, nor have I ever been, affiliated with the CP-USA. I wouldn’t touch that group of paleolithic Stalinists with a ten-foot pole. If you want to point me out as a high-profile leftist on the SDMB, Sua, more power to you. But get your facts straight first.
So - are Chumpsky’s actions morally or ethically justifiable? I don’t know, myself. I certainly applaud the fact that he’s willing to act on his outrage over an attempt to strengthen the US government at the expense of the country’s population - on that grounds alone it could be ethically justified.
But what are the effects - the consequences? Could Poindexter really be convinced that the TIA is a bad idea based on an increased volume of phone calls? Probably not. Letter-writing campaigns aren’t very effective, either.
Furthermore, you now create the opportunity for a caller to get busted for harassment - I’d always heard that harassment over the phone was a federal offense, but I don’t have any cites for it - which means that someone who could be expending their energy on other protests and activism now has to spend the majority of their time defending themselves in court.
Overall, then, publishing Poindexter’s contact info on the SDMB - policy violations notwithstanding - doesn’t seem to me to be ethically justifiable. It doesn’t stand a chance of achieving the intended goal, and in fact can weaken the side seeking to achieve it.
Shodan: Read the post.
Read the post.
Read the post.
OK?
It says: protest at the abortion clinic.
You say: protest at the abortion clinic.
Find me where we disagree.
BTW, in the abortion case, it was not simply an issue of publishing aborion providers’ personal information. The website basically said “Here is the personal information of some abortion providers that have been killed by anti-abortion activists. Here is the personal information of some abortion providers who have not been killed yet. Not that we’re suggesting anything. Wink, wink.”
Minty Green, I have to defend Chumpsky here. You have misrepresented what he said. Take another look at the syntax of the sentence. I can’t read his mind to know what he meant by that line, but looking strictly at the placement of the word “only”, there is no implied threat there. If he had instead said, “And what makes you think my purpose is to *only *harrass Poindexter?” then that would imply that he intended to harrass Poindexter AND do something else to him. But the way it is written, it means he simply had other motives, not that they involved Poindexter directly, if at all. His other motives could have been higher than the petty harrassment that Sua ascribed to him.
I would have defended myself from her remarks as well, if I were him.
And by the way, even the words you’ve put into Chumpsky’s mouth fall way short of the definition of harassment that you provided. When you look at what he actually said, instead of what you said he said, only a lawyer would go screaming for prosecution.
So whether it’s on just a technicality of syntax, or a clear failure to meet the legal definition, I’d laugh you out of court if I were presiding.
