Re: Intl. Herald Tribune story re: Shanghai

On Nov 16, 9:20 pm, anon <a...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
A1. USBF is a private organization not representing the USA and
independent from the US public.

A2. Private organizations can act internally as they please and
cannot be bound by the regulations or moral norms of the wider
society.

I wouldn't go that far, but I would say that they have the right to
protect their product. They do have wide latitude, but certainly must
be bound by morality. Where to draw the line? Difficult to say,
precisely, but certainly a mere 1 year suspension is well within
bounds. I'm not happy with the "rat" clause, but I suppose one must
begin with a position that has some give to it if one expects a
negotiation.


Negotiation?!? What negotiation? Did you forget that the supreme
leaders "are the only ones that can determine what is acceptable or
not"? That when they reach their verdict and deliver onto us their
just punishment "they should be applauded for carrying out the rules
as they were meant to be applied"? And you are "not happy"? You mean
you question their wisdom? Did you forget the Fuhrerprinzip? May be
there is still hope for you...

I am sure you feel, like every normal person, at least a mild
impulse to vomit when you read the list of "compromise" punishments
that the players are supposed to accept gratefully. I have never
mentioned these so far because they are so utterly disgusting that I
doubt any one would even try to defend them here. It all reads like
something from the Chinese Cultural Revolution. You know the scene,
women crying, beating their chests, pulling out their hair, pleading
Mao's portrait on the wall for forgiveness. Then all pointing to the
girl in the corner and denouncing her as the duplicitous imperialist
spy who had treacherously concealed her bourgeois origin and
subverted their eager proletarian hearts to lead them on a path of
sedition. All under the stern glares of the responsible comrades.
Hey, may be the USBF drafted this with the Chinese in mind, trying
to offer them something they fondly remember from their youth. Lucky
thing the championships were not say in Argentina, then the
offenders would have been kidnapped, loaded on a plane and thrown
out over the Atlantic. After which you and Alan Falk would have
little trouble convincing the Supreme Court that a private
organization has the inalienable right to perform aerial
defenestration if not doing so would adversely affect its quarterly
intake from sponsoring private organizations.

The point is: this is outrageous beyond belief, and the reason they
can even attempt it is that people like you are ready to grant them
_by default_ the power to decide which rights you have and which you
don't and to punish you as they please. No one is saying that rights
are without limits. But you are turning it upside down. The rule is
that you can exercise your rights, the limits are an exception. The
boilerplate theater example is the exception that confirms the rule:
You can speak your mind anywhere, anytime, unless doing so is as
obviously unconscionable as yelling "Fire" in a crowded whatever. So
if someone wakes up one morning and decides that some case of free
speech should be verboten he better have an impeccable reason which
most people will immediately recognize as valid. Not some nonsense
about the Chinese being offended (when in fact they are rolling over
laughing) or that mysterious sponsors (whose names cannot be
divulged for reasons of national security) _might_ be displeased.
All of that coming post factum with Mr Falk, apparently a fanatical
devotee of the Fuhrerprinzip, claiming that the leadership can
unilaterally decide whether any single instance of speech occurring
at any point in time between the invention of language and the
Second Coming is harmful to the interests of his divinely ordained
"private organization."
.

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