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Re: Various and Sundry Crosspostings (fwd)


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 8 May 1995 13:55:39 -0500 (CDT)
From: Klemz Aaron <aak322s@nic>
To: smurray@coral.bucknell.edu
Subject: Re: Various and Sundry Crosspostings

On Mon, 8 May 1995 you wrote:

My comments and replies are included:
I won't -snip- anything, I wouldn't want to be accused of quoting you out 
of context.

> Dear all,
> 
> As you all know, I am rather famous for writing long dissertations on
> APDAnet regarding things I view as "controversies" which I think need to
> be addressed, point by point.
> 
> Well, here is the sum of what I feel regarding Alfred C. Snider AKA Tuna
> (just so all you cool people knew what to call him) and his posts:
> 
> Grow up.  Act like a professor and coach, not like a schoolyard bully.
> Represent peoples' ideas with integrity, not derision.  If you were to
> act the way you did in an academic setting, you would be ridiculed, your
> name equated with "insipid freak-child," and probably brought low by
> masses of FAR more qualified scholars in journals throughout the western
> hemisphere (Oh God, I only said western... I must be implying that the
> eastern hemisphere is full of morons!  Please, quote me out of context...
> PLEASE!!!!!).

Just curious - why do you feel the need to be such an ass? I read a lot 
of e-mail, and messages like the ones that were cross-posted by Tuna 
(yeah, I must be one of those cool people) are ones that draw my ire in 
personal and public (list) mail. Luckily, I have subscribed to lists that 
only very rarely cause me to do so.

Speaking of "acting the way you do in a public setting" - do you think 
that because you aren't faculty at a university you have more freedom of 
speech? See below.

Lastly, I think that of all the posts on this topic, the ones that are 
more likely to inspire one to call the author "insipid freak child" would 
be yours and the original cross posting. In none of Tuna's posts does he 

a) Engage in language that glorifies and suggests violence as response to 
   problems

b) Quote folks out of context - this assertion baffles me. Do you think 
   that the original authors intent in the OKC bombing post was 
   misrepresented? How?

c) Get on the high, holy horse of "I'm anti-PC."

Rush is Reich. Yeah.

> I sometimes wonder if how people treat others should be called to the
> attention of others.  I wonder how the deans, provost, and president of
> University of Vermont would think of their highly respected and
> respectable debate coach if we actually presented them with the sort of
> dung he ascribes as intellectual discourse on public listservs.

Oh, go ahead. That "dung" is far less odious than all this crap. If 
you're going to make threats - especially meaningless, empty ones - go 
ahead. While you're at it - you can send my mail for censure and censor 
to Dr. John Fritch, Director of Forensics, Southwest Missouri State 
University, 901 S. National, Springfield, MO 65806. Good Luck.

> You want to know why this is all I wrote on this subject, and not pages
> and pages of careful, articulate argumentation?  Because it is not worth
> it.  I am disgusted that an academic would act in such an unseeming
> manner, and then try to defend himself by claiming greater authority on
> discourse than a college student.  Shame.

a) I feel the same way as Tuna on this subject. Try making these 
   responses to me, a lowly, lowly college student. 

b) "Academic" is right. I don't see anything that has been done on this 
   thread as an appeal to authority. Maybe an appeal to morality, or an 
   appeal to decency, but nothing else.

> Mr. Snider, I invite you to open up a copy of Shakespeare's Henry V, and
> read in there Exeter's description of Harry's feelings toward the
> Dauphin.  I think after your little display, that is quite what I, and
> many others of this community, feel toward you.

Oooh, you're so cool. You can reference Shakespeare. You must be a far 
more intelligent and academic person than the rest of us. 

> And David, if Mr. Snider is what we can find as the interlopers of
> intelligent discourse "on the other side," I should hope APDA stays far,
> far away from encountering that other.  All it would seem to speak is
> poison, not understanding or even friendship.
> 
> Fed up with supposed adults behaving like barnyard animals,
> Steve

I really find this to be amusing. I think it's nice that you have 
appointed yourself the guardian of all that is true and right. Let me put 
it this way - if this is the kind of "dung" (to borrow a word from your 
prodigious and obviously superior vocabulary) that APDA calls intelligent 
discourse, the feeling on my part is mutual.

My disgust springs from the fact that you are unwilling to have views 
displayed in a public forum opened to scrutiny. Oh no, someone from 
outside your little party has taken issue with a post. Get over it and 
grow up. If you and y'all can't defend your posted opinions with anything 
besides personal attacks, don't even bother posting. If you can't stomach 
the fact that someone feels that violence, sexism and racism are wrong 
and tries to expose these evils then maybe you should stop breathing.

Let me guess, white male, right?

Me too. I'm not angry about the same things, though.

> p.s. Oh, and Mr. Snider, please feel free to cross-post this to CEDA-L...
> I think they would enjoy hearing how people not under your sway feel
> about you.  If you think you are so respected, ask those that don't fear
> your treatment of them, and then hear the truth.  My oh my, you should
> hear what some of your debaters have to say about your integrity and
> maturity.

Feel free to cross-post this anywhere you feel is appropriate. BTW, I 
have nothing to fear from Tuna - and I respect him and his stand on this 
issue.

> p.p.s. If media attention is to somehow opinionate
> us toward someone's "authority," I would say that all those junior-high
> kids doing their cable talkshows probably are more authoritative than
> most anyone.

Yeah, but not you. 

I have a very different view of what constitutes "authority". "Authority" 
is the force of one's arguments and the ability of persuasion. You lack 
both. Might does not make right - and that was the original point of 
Tuna's posts. 

Aaron Klemz
Southwest Missouri State University

aak322s@nic.smsu.edu
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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