[rain1@airmail.cc] Delete abortion joke

[Maurizio Manfredini]

On 5/8/2018 9:27 PM, Alexandre Oliva wrote:
> On May  8, 2018, Torvald Riegel<triegel@redhat.com>  wrote:
> 
>> it seems pretty obvious now that the majority of people who
>> have spoken out are in favor of removing the "joke"
> You've been a lot more involved with glibc day to day than I have
> lately, but it seems to me that you're confused about the governing
> rules adopted by this community.
> 
> The stepping stone is not tiranny of the majority, but rather consensus
> building.
> 
> This means that if there is opposition to a proposed change, it is up to
> the proponent to listen to the involved parties and attempt to find
> middle ground so that opinions converge, or at least that objections be
> withdrawn.
> 
> Is that not so?
> 
> 

Hi,

I am not used to get involved in this kind of discussions, anyway, 
having followed this thread, I feel to say my opinion on the matter, 
although it may be not relevant to the FSF or the GNU project (I am only 
a user and interested bystander).

First, the matter at hand, the joke:
Obviously, abortion is a very divisive subject, and people from the two 
sides of the aisle have fundamental differences in opinion about the 
subject.

Yet on one thing they both agree: abortion is no joke.

Therefore, my opinion is that such an attempt to make fun about it 
should be removed as inappropriate (even more in a software manual, 
where it is entirely off-topic), if not even rude to the awareness of 
both pro-life and pro-choice people, i.e. pretty much anyone.
I would like to emphasize the excellent point made here:
https://sourceware.org/ml/libc-alpha/2018-05/msg00291.html


Second, defense of human rights:
I am totally in for defending freedom, including freedom of speech.
I also think that, especially when it is about divisive matters, a bad 
defense can be sometimes as counter-productive as an offense.
I think this joke falls under the category of bad defense, despite the 
intentions of the author, because of the above.


Finally, tyranny:
 From what I have read of the thread, I have seen no tyranny. These 
terms are IMHO the result of the heat of the discussion.
I believe that the controversial could be solved with some level of good 
old common sense: the joke is a bad joke, and is best removed.
It is right to build opportunities to promote freedom and human rights 
in an effective way. I think this joke is not one of them.

Thanks,
Maurizio