Just to clarify, I have nothing particular against poor people, having been one myself and all. My problem is with the mentality which says that as long as one is sufficiently “downtrodden” or “oppressed”, one can do damned near anything one wants with impunity; law, ethics, and respect for other people’s rights be damned…

It sort of stretches that “stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving family” cliché a bit thin, doesn’t it? Simply being poor (or homosexual, or African American, or Muslim, or an animal rights activist, or whatever) does not give one carte blanche to behave like an asshole. Or like a criminal…

Eight days without a cigarette now, and no one’s been killed yet. I’m rather proud of that fact..

Wanna get annoyed? Read this article on the difference between “good spammers” and “bad spammers”. OK, maybe it’s not that simple, but the tone of the article raelly bothers me. Apparently, it’s OK to send unsolicited email spam if you (a) consider yourself a “legitimate business” and (b) were cash-starved and out of work when you started spamming…

Despite their best efforts to craft polite messages and to respect opt-out requests, these small-time online marketers say they are branded with the same scarlet letter as their mass-mailing counterparts.

No doubt that’s because they’re doing the SAME FUCKING THING as their “mass-mailing counterparts”. If someone pisses on you and afterward asks politely if you minded being pissed on, you’re just as wet and smelly whether you answer in the affirmative or the negative…

The e-mail blast sent by the 34-year-old Santa Cruz Web designer was about a holistic Web site and a database of medicinal plants. Out of work and down on his luck, Johnson had hopes of combining his interest in alternative medicine with his computer skills to create a viable small business… Johnson knew that spam was considered unsavory, but given his finances, there didn’t seem to be an alternative for promoting his site. “The only way anyone will find out about it is if I send them an e-mail,” he said.

Hmmm. I’m starting a business. I can’t afford to advertise it in a legitimate and ethical fashion. Should I (a) reconsider my business plan and whether I have the necessary capital to go into business, or (b) throw ethics out the window and become a slimy spamming huckster? Tim Johnson, certain that his poor finances and message of <tone=”hushed and reverent”> holistic health </tone> were more important than ethical behavior and common courtesy, chose the latter option…

Despite his self-righteousness and his moral indignation at being lumped with the “bad guy spammers”, he’s essentially the moral equivalent of a Viagra peddler. The scary thing is that, here in the Bay Area where poor people always have the moral high ground and can do no wrong, ever, he’ll probably get lots of sympathy for having to deal with the “stigma” of being exactly what he is…