From: Nikolai Weibull <mailing-lists.ruby-talk@...>
Date: 2005-04-16T06:39:55+09:00
Subject: Re: Practical considerations for licensing software written with dynamic/non-compiled languages/platforms

Zach Dennis, April 16:

> Nikolai Weibull wrote:

> > I was not accusing you of being a racist, but it's been really
> > tiresome lately, where Americans have gotten it into their head that
> > the US is somehow the best place on Earth and that only they can
> > save the rest of the world. 

> Hasty generalization...please don't tie all of us americans into that 
> claim. Add "where some Americans have gotten..." to that sentence, 
> otherwise you sound just as racist as what you claimed that Matt's 
> statement was starting to sound.

Since when can't I use the word "Americans" to mean a subset of all
Americans?  Is there some new law in effect that forbids me to do so?
If I wanted additional effect, I would have written "all Americans" as
it says a lot more than plain "Americans", right?  Have you perhaps not
realized that I am an American as well?  I thought it was made pretty
clear, both by what I wrote, how I wrote it, and from what my signature
reads.

> Although i dont' think you mean it that way....and I didn't get the
> impression that he didn't mean it the way you took it either.

The problem of double negatives here.

I'm sure he didn't mean what he said.  But he did say it, and that's the
problem.  It's a problem of not realizing just what you're actually
saying.  I don't hold Matt to his words, I just hope that I made him
aware of the fact that the way he expressed himself could be considered
offensive to a lot of people.

Sometimes I wake up at night distressed from realizing that I'm not
living in the states.  That's how much I miss the America of my dreams;
an America that doesn't exist anywhere but in my head, being nothing but
a romanticized version of the real thing.  I'll never let anyone take
that America from me, though,
        nikolai

-- 
Nikolai Weibull: now available free of charge at http://bitwi.se/!
Born in Chicago, IL USA; currently residing in Gothenburg, Sweden.
main(){printf(&linux["\021%six\012\0"],(linux)["have"]+"fun"-97);}