Okay, here's an analogy: picture a college lecture hall; prof up front,
100 students or so in the audience. (I know; with a big lecture like
this, you're not liable to get a prof, but a TA. All analogies have
their limits!)
Five students are scattered around the hall running boom boxes at top
volume, listening to Metallica or Eminem or Bach or...
Three students are engaged in a paintball game...
Nine students are throwing spitballs, paper airlines, pencils at each
other...
Two are looking at and exchanging hard-core pornography...
Four are talking on cell phones arranging for pizza to be delivered...
etc etc etc
What happens to the poor lecturer and the handful of students who are
actually trying to conduct class? When does one student's 'freedom
of speech' impede another's?
And part of my job IS to catch individual students who are violating
University network usage policy. Usually, I catch somewhere below a
couple dozen a day, referring them to consulting for a talking to. One day
(shortly after that Christmas break), I reaped >>93<< students.
I would like to humbly submit that part of the !@#$% socialization
process is to learn how to co-exist, cooperate and live within the
rules. Otherwise, somebody might come along who could damage your
self-esteem badly because s/he got REAL ANNOYED with your preaching
freedom of expression while stomping all over theirs.
Shelley
USC ISD
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