On Thu, 25 Jan 1996, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
Rich Graves writes:
On Thu, 25 Jan 1996, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
I am a funny sort of person. I don't believe that governments should be able to do anything that individuals cannot. If it is bad for me to steal, it is also bad for a government official to steal. If it is bad for me to listen in on my neighbor's phone calls, it is bad for the government, too.
Er, I believe the above was clearly intended to mean "for one government to read another government's mail."
I'm funny in more ways than one. I don't believe in the existence of "Governments".
I agree. This post was very funny, in the normal sense of the word. ...
In any case, we are here expected to believe that it is okay if the Secular God of our land mass, our Government, spies on the Secular Gods of other land masses. However, viewed from my perspective, when "the Government" of our land listens in on "another Government's" communications, from what I can tell what is happening is that individual humans in the guise of High Priests converge at their temple in Fort Meade for the purpose of listening in on conversations between individuals humans elsewhere who are associated with other Government cults in some sort of ordained capacity. One might argue that this discourtesy between the followers of rival cults is not something for we, the arch-atheists, to care about, but I must note that in principle what is going on is the same -- people are listening in on other people's communications -- not the Divine Governmental Being itself listening in on the communications of other Divine Governmental Beings. These Divine Governmental Beings don't exist. Only the humans claiming the authority of the Divine Governmental Beings exist.
Therefore, to ordain myself Devil's Advocate Being, is it not wrong, in principle, for us human beings to inquire into the affairs of the humans claiming the authority of Divine Governmental Beings? Are not the actions of the Fort Meade Beings a matter for their own personal conscience, absent any immediate, *direct* impact on us that would justify an appropriate reaction, be it fight, flight, or encryption? Please assume no funny theological beliefs in the existence of other Non-Divine Beings, or sympathy therewith. Of course, on individual principle, I quite agree with you, which is why I do not believe I could ever become a cleric or even disciple of any odd religion. I'd really suck as a soldier, too. However, of Hobbes, Rousseau, Marx, Motesquieu, and Locke, I find Hobbes the most logical. People just suck, and ethics aren't enough. Karl Marx and Jim Bell talk about the withering away of the government, but what they're really talking about looks like a new and more onerous form of government to me. There is a need for force, and I much prefer a balance of powers to either unified world government or unorganized individual force. Clearly there is room for maneuver as to how to organize the threat and use of force, and most people, myself included, do not like the current alignment of forces. We can choose multilateral disarmament, or deterrence. Any time you talk about the organized deterrence of "Bad" behavior, whether it comes from the NSA or the Cypherpunk Cabal, you're talking about a system of government. -rich Fucking Statist