[Novalug] VA anti-SPAM law struck down

Kevin Cole dc.loco@gmail.com
Thu Sep 18 12:03:03 EDT 2008


On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 10:35, Maxwell Spangler
<maxpublic08@maxwellspangler.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu, 2008-09-18 at 08:45 -0400, Jon LaBadie wrote:
>> On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 02:14:54AM -0400, Maxwell Spangler wrote:
>> >
>> > Just to make sure people get my original message's point: A business is
>> > essentially a greedy, selfish organization.  So I'm OK with restricting
>> > them.
>>
>> I'm sufficiently cynical to believe that description applies
>> to many (most?) political organizations as well.
>
> I would describe the Free Software Foundation and the Electronic
> Frontier Foundation as poltical groups.  I wouldn't call them greedy,
> and I wouldn't call them selfish.  They have an opinion about many
> things and they work hard to promote it.  In this case, their efforts
> don't help big oil companies or lobbyists but you and me.

So, I'm sure we'd all like the phone number of all your friends and
relatives, so that we may expound upon the virtues of GNU, etc, etc...
 Many here are true believers.  But most of us -- I hope -- don't spam
strangers.

The point is that no one here (as far as I've seen) is advocating the
elimination of free speech, or the right to assemble, or freedom of /
from religion.  They're advocating for the elimination of the right to
use services we pay for, either financially, or through "labor" or
both, in order to broadcast that message to a captive audience.  And
by captive, I don't mean you necessarily need to listen to it or read
it, but you do need to evaluate in some way, and eliminate it.  That's
wasted effort that could be better put to other tasks.  Ignoring it
means a full mailbox, answering machine, etc.

Turning off televisions and radios are easy.  The shows don't "fill
up" anything when we're not watching.  However physical and virtual
mailboxes (text, voice or other) do. It's very difficult to live
without a means of communication -- no mailbox, no phone, no computer
-- in the modern age (although I try).  Making someone else empty
trash that they didn't ask for is wrong.

-- 
Ubuntu Linux DC LoCo
Washington, DC
http://dc.ubuntu-us.org/



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