On 14 Sep 97 at 18:54, Martin Minow wrote:
Anonymous, signing as Monty Cantsin, [wrote]:
Perhaps we can elaborate on this. Judging from their actions, what they want is a full blown police state. They've seen the product, now they want one of their own. This is obvious to everybody on this list, but sometimes people are coy about it, probably in an effort to appear to be "legitimate".
Sorry, it isn't obvious to me. The most paranoid I can work myself up to is to assume that some (not all) of our leaders want to restore their half-remembered 1950's Dick-and-Jane, big car, Eisenhauer suburbian childhood...
And I think that a tremendous obstacle here is a fairly widespread and definitely human tendency to ascribe innocent or misguided motivation to what are, objectively, consummately *evil* deeds. Those are not bumpkins up there in Congress. Some may question their IQs but of those congresscritters are crafty lawyers. The few who aren't lawyers are just crafty. That's how they got there and that's how they build their power and wealth bases once there, in jobs that don't pay enough to make any honest person rich.
The new cryptography makes the Internet safe for child pornographers, for revolutionaries, for criminals,
Virtually any resource one could name could be similarly demonized, as the beleaguered gun owners well know. Criminals enjoy safe and comfortable transportation by car, bus, train and jetliner. They sustain their mortal coils with food. They breathe air. Anything that is commonly used or useful can be said to nurture, further, encourage or protect the criminal element. The logical response is, "So what?" The emotional, PR knee-jerk reaction of a public only superficially involved with anything outside the confines of their complicated little sitcom-and-sports lives is to nod in robotic agreement and sit still while breathing permits are passed into law, to be revoked only when one of those nasty, awful bad guys uses air in furtherance of a political crime. By the time breathing permits are routinely revoked for expired car tags Joe Lunchbucket is in way over his head. This stuff is serious. This pattern is not new -- it is just new *here*, a development of the last 20 years. Similar slippery slopes have been traveled in other countries, in other times. These times are getting way too interesting for comfort. TJ | Sign up now for the | | Cypherpunks Retirement Plan | | Provided free of charge by the U.S. Government | | Open Enrollment has begun |