On this "defamatory remarks" humbug . . .

Gil Hardwick (gil@landmark.DIALix.oz.au)
Sat, 03 Dec 1994 04:32:50 GMT

This received by a friend of mine, Jarvis, since he had asked me to
send him a copy of the Court judgement I had only myself received
recently, after prolonged hassling of the system to have them stop
and think for a moment that I am fully entitled to it myself.

Comment by an Associate of the Chief Justice, BTW, on receiving my
complaints about the difficulty; "[censored] stupid people in the
system!"

Anyway, to wit:

>I received the judgement text today. Much of it was quite laughable,
>in my not-so-legal opinion. I can't help but think that any judge
>who was forced to read a big chunk of Usenet for a week would quickly
>learn to scoff at any writs derived therefrom.
>
>The only thing I saw that anyone would blink at was the allegations
>concerning sexual misconduct -- and this was by no means explicit.
>If I am remembering correctly, within that department, Rindos was
>the first to cry "sexual misconduct" however.
>
>And I'll tell you, if it's really true that Rindos was severely
>hurt by those remarks, it must have been because they hit too close
>to home. Well, that's my opinion.
>
>

My attitude to all this, as you ought to know by now, is that one can
only be de-famed if they are famous to start with. Highly regarded,
and respected as notable public figures having served well over a long
period. I can think of several ex-Prime Ministers, Governors, and
others we are currently referring to as Emminent Persons, are such
people. Solzhenitsyn is another. They don't need lawyers, since the
infinite wisdom of the populace at large recognises them for who and
what they are.

This particular individual is on the other hand, IMHO, along with the
rest of you panic-stricken hysterics, nothing more than among the most
pathetic of Victims In Their Own Lunchtime. By contrast, whatever the
lawyers want to be jumping up and down frothing at the mouth about,
they nevertheless fail to drum up enough support for them to actually
have their "precedents" implemented in reality. In short, nobody out
here in the real world cares about such humbug; such sophistry, cant
and hypocrisy.

It continues to strike me as such an odd paradox that you lot, who are
the most affluent, greedy, profligate and wasteful consumers of the
planet's resources; of material things, of energy, and not least of
intellectual properties, nevertheless regard yourselves as so very
vulnerable, so sensitive to the least slight, so ready to launch into
the most mindless, scurrilous attacks against anyone else who dares to
defy you, to stand up to you prepared to defend their own sovereignty
and integrity, however "uncivilised" and poverty-stricken they may
appear at first glance.

You Americans will NOT take this drummed-up scandal at UWA or any
other place as a pretext to invade the sovereignty of another nation,
physically, electronically, or otherwise.

Whatever you think you can do by invading Viet Nam, or Somalia, or
anywhere else to finally be made fools of by the ingenuity of the
locals, remember ALWAYS that we here who must make the best of what
we have available will not tolerate it.

Get the message yet? Show respect, and you will be respected. Show
some sign that you understand the discipline of cultural integrity
and sovereignty, and maybe sometime down the track the rest of us
will relax a little, and show you the courtesy I expect to which all
of humanity, all of eternity in fact, is entitled.