Vladimir Z. Nuri writes:
the Tao of bad government: if you really want to get rid of a law, act and think at all times as if it doesn't even exist.
I accept that that's one way of going about things, but I challenge you to demonstrate conclusively that it is the only means to generate political interest in opposition to a law.
it was not my point at all to "demonstrate conclusively" that ignoring a law helps create opposition to a law. actually, I was not talking about opposition to a law at all. my main point was that for a law to work, people must *actively*support* it. by not supporting a law, it effectively ceases to exist. in other words, what you consider "opposition" to laws in fact may be playing into the hands of the NSA. by taking the laws very seriously (such as the preposterous ideas that bureacrats are allowed to prevent companies from even exporting software with "hooks" in it, and effectively allowing spooks to vet every piece of crypto code written in this supposedly free country) you are doing NSA's "heavy lifting" *for* them. these laws would be no problem if nobody followed them, if nobody gave a damn about them. *opposition* in many ways is the wrong mindset. by opposing the laws, you implicitly reveal that you believe they are legitimate, that they are enforceable, that they are important to conform to, etc (all the things that cpunks publicly deny). by ignoring them, you put your reality where your mouth is. it sounds paradoxical, but ignoring a law is far more destructive to it than opposing it!!
I happen to disagree with this, and I refuse to accept the wacky notion that by explaining to somebody that what they're doing is in violation of a pointless stupid law, and explaining why it's only through wide exposure of that pointless stupidity that the law and others like it can be struck down, that I am unwittingly strengthening the law. Balderdash.
"when the wise hear of the Tao, they are intrigued. when the skeptical hear of the Tao, they scoff. when the stupid hear of the Tao, they laugh loudly".