Thought Police

[Lord Zentei]

ZERO TOLERANCE OR ZERO BRAINS

This will bring a chill to your day. Reader Nick Hand, who describes himself as a skeptical molecular biology PhD, sends us to an http that requires time and reflection. He writes:

Long time admirer – saw JR speak at Princeton University several years ago – magnificent (amazing even!).

I thought you might get a kick out of this account of a Baylor student, who was subjected to a police interrogation after sending a parody email. It touches on many favorite JREF topics – humor, science, religious fundamentalism, the decline of common sense… http://90percenttrue.com/index.php?p=41

This is an important document, folks. Please distribute it as you see fit, and choke back the embarrassment that must accompany the act. We need to know that this sort of thing is taking place. They’re at our doors….

Go here (linka) and reflect. Then chime in here.

[Surlethe]

Holy shit, that satire was funny. The aftermath, though, wasn't. How the hell could the cops not realize the thing was fucking satire?

[DPDarkPrimus]

"You aren't in an English class, therefore you aren't allowed to write parody."

What dumbfucks.

[Zero]

Stupidity at its finest... well, can you honestly expect police to be terribly intelligent anyways? I mean, I'm not saying that all cops are morons. My father was one, a while back (a police officer, not a moron). But police officers aren't taught to discern right and wrong, only to enforce the law. Even if it was a parody, it was a threatening parody, and moral arguments have nothing to do with law. It seems sensible, however, that the professor, once he knew it was a parody, would drop all charges, and that there would be no point in his fellow being arrested.

I hate that arguments have nothing to do with law, though. One time, me and my mother got in a fight. She smacked me, and I grabbed her arms because I basically didn't want her to hit me again, and she called the police. Technically, what I did was assault. What she did was parenting. Fucking pissed me off... fucking law...

[BloodAngel]

While I understand that he wasn't serious, and found the parody to be pretty damn hilarious myself, the way he executed it was pretty stupid. How could you be entirely sure that everyone in the class had a sense of humor? Especially given a time now that writing a fake death threat could put a really big fucking magnifying glass on you for a long time.

He should've thought a little more before writing this.

[Drooling Iguana]

And why should people always have to worry that the wrong people might interpret what they say the wrong way? Freedom of speech should not depend on whether or not everyone who hears said speech has a sense of humour.

[Wicked Pilot]

That is funny, and my own college experience also involves run-ins with overpaid donut chugging campus police who have way too few legitimate crimes to investigate, so this is not hard to believe at all.

[Anguirus]

I think the inherent problem with satires of fundamentalists is that it's incredibly hard to tell whether any given document is, in fact, a satire. Sheer outrageousness is not a reliable predictor of how serious the author is.

[BloodAngel]

And why should people always have to worry that the wrong people might interpret what they say the wrong way? Freedom of speech should not depend on whether or not everyone who hears said speech has a sense of humour.

Understood, but he sent the e-mail recklessly without knowing further details that could've helped him, such as the names of who the original writer sent his letter. An analogy would be finding a protest rally notice posted on a building's billboard, then printing a set of bomb threat letters similar to that notice and posting hundreds of them in the building. The ones who read the rally notice may find it amusing and not take it seriously, but those who didn't read it would take it very seriously and thus, well, react.

[brianeyci]

It doesn't seem like he used a listserv since the professors didn't get it. He e-mailed everybody in the class, or nearly everybody, so either he got around, or maybe the professor e-mailed everybody and he took the e-mails off the "send to" list. When my university e-mails me something though, I only get the sender e-mail, not all the other e-mails that it was sent to. Incredibly rude thing to do, if he really did pluck the e-mails off a professor's legitimate e-mail.

Understood, but he sent the e-mail recklessly without knowing further details that could've helped him, such as the names of who the original writer sent his letter. An analogy would be finding a protest rally notice posted on a building's billboard, then printing a set of bomb threat letters similar to that notice and posting hundreds of them in the building. The ones who read the rally notice may find it amusing and not take it seriously, but those who didn't read it would take it very seriously and thus, well, react.

If you read the following and don't realize the e-mail is a joke,

The reason I walked out of class today is because I am a Christian. Zealously so. And after Friday’s performance by “Dr.” Patton I had prepared myself to do just that very thing if my beliefs were once again attacked by logic and reason and scientific claims that can be proven. Sure enough they were, so I left.

Then you're either slow, a dimwit, or aren't paying attention.

Brian

[BloodAngel]

If you read the following and don't realize the e-mail is a joke,

<snipe quote>

Then you're either slow, a dimwit, or aren't paying attention.

Brian

I quote, from my previous post:

While I understand that he wasn't serious, and found the parody to be pretty damn hilarious myself,

Can you pay more attention? I found it funny. But the way he did it implies that he could've had knowledge of the senders before he sent out his letter:

Amazed and amused by such staunch stupidity, I wrote a parody email and sent it to everyone in the class, including the professors. At this point, I had not yet realized that Christopher Stone did not send his email to everybody.

About this time I noticed my email was sent to certain email addresses that did not receive Mr. Stone’s original email. This led to some confusion. I forwarded Mr. Stone’s email to everyone I could–including the professors–but the damage was already done.

It could've been an accident, carelessness on his part, but that was his problem.

[McC]

Evidently he didn't know about 'reply to all.' Should've done that and saved himself some trouble. Perhaps forwarding it to Dr. Patton too.

In any case, this is a bunch of bullshit anyway. The fuck kind of world do we live in when this kind of shit happens?

*etches another mark on the 'Number of Reasons I'm ashamed of my country' tablet*

[brianeyci]

Can you pay more attention? I found it funny. But the way he did it implies that he could've had knowledge of the senders before he sent out his letter:

I was using you in the plural sense, as including the cops and everybody else who thought it wasn't funny. I knew you thought it was funny, the comment was more directed to the cops. It wasn't my intention to call you a dimwit though, so apologies if you thought that's what I meant. That's why I used the "If".

It could've been an accident, carelessness on his part, but that was his problem.

The language is quite explicitly satirical even without the first e-mail. I stand by my comment that the cops are dimwits. Granted, without the first e-mail, you wouldn't understand the parodic concept of the e-mail, but the e-mail is absolutely dripping with irony that even a 10th grade high schooler should be able to see through. If this parody was a flyer of a bomb threat like you first mentioned, then you would have a point, but this is a long, involved articulate e-mail which is not something that can easily be misinterpreted as a real threat to the professor's life given the structural irony of the e-mail, except of course by a dimwit.

Brian