I think that "cypherpunks write code" is best understood with an added layer of abstraction, e.g., "cypherpunks change the things that bother them." So I think that "cypherpunks write memes" can be a useful strategy. But I think it's important to pay attention to which memes are written - do you mean "Write your Congressperson about this horrible problem!" or "Fuck the government, fix your own problem(s)!"? Many of the exhortations to the public consist mostly of "Hey! Get involved! Vote!", even where this passive "voting" stuff created the very problems which led to the exhortations. Sure, let's write memes. But let's write memes that encourage people to solve their own problems and avoid the use of unnecessary force. The mess that Congress is making out of crypto policy and export control should provide a crystal-clear example of what we're likely to get if we expect Washington - or local legislatures - to fix our problems. Next year Congress will probably fuck with E-mail and spam legislation the way it's screwing up crypto this year. In 1999, they'll have found something else. (Also, FYI, there was an implied :) smiley at the end of my message about three-strikes term limits. It's a cute idea, but I bring it up mostly to illustrate how pathetic and weak contemporary political thought is - we're ending up with a legal system which consists of crap like that, announced at press conferences full of various sympathetic "victims", hosted & funded by lobbyists paid for by prison-guard unions.) -- Greg Broiles | US crypto export control policy in a nutshell: gbroiles@netbox.com | http://www.io.com/~gbroiles | Export jobs, not crypto.