At 10:31 PM -0700 6/20/00, Lizard wrote: > >If I tell you should not see a movie because it stars Woody Allen, >when, in fact, Woody Allen is not in the movie, the issue is not my >telling you to not see the movie, but my lying about the contents. Lying in general is neither a crime nor a tort, absent a contractual arrangement. >If I tell you "Do not eat at Joe's Diner, the food stinks", that is >my right -- if I tell you "Do not eat at Joe's Diner, he serves dead >alley cats in his meat loaf", then I am committing both fraud and >defamation. (Assuming that Joe does not use felines as an ingredient >in his cuisine, and that I knew this.) Possibly, though most libertarians disagree that such speech acts should be crimes or torts. The Exotrope situation certainly doesn't rise to this level, in any case. > >If I declare that a web page 'contains pornography', when it does >not, I am committing an act of fraud (lying about the contents of >the page) and an act of defamation (stating the page owner is >distributing pornography). No, Exotrope and other filter services claim to have filtered it, by their own criteria. Even if they have effectively contracted to do such filtering, any disputes would be between a customer and them. It is no different from Tim's Movie Review Magazine declaring "Shaft" to be pornographic. In a free society, speech acts are not criminalized. If you disagree with a speech act, utter your own speech. > >If someone were to attempt to sell a perpetual motion machine, even >the most libertarian of folk would consider it to be inherently >fraudulent. No contract made for such a device can be considered >legally or morally valid, because one party CANNOT, as a matter of >universal law, fulfill the terms of it. Libertarians don't interfere in the choices of others to buy useless gadgets or to believe foolish things. Where did you get the notion that "most libertarians" would advocate intervening in such matters? As far as perpetual motion machines go, they are no less realistic than are the claims of most of the world's religions. I don't see libertarians intervening to block Catholics from believing in the miraculous powers of drinking the blood of Christ at mass, nor do I see them stopping Holy Rollers from handling snakes in tent churches. > >Anyone is, indeed, free to give advice about what to do or not do, >see or not see, read or not read. They are NOT free to blatantly lie >about goods or services, especially not to the detriment of the >provider of such services. In a free society, there are many lies, all the time. Get used to it. > Point blank -- it is time the censors knew fear. Let them cower and >quake for once. Nonsense, "lizard." You hide behind this nym while encouraging intervention in the free choices of others. Despicable. --Tim May -- ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
