Bob Morris wrote:
This wouldn't be the first time that those on the fringes of the left and the right saw a common enemy - encroaching government with control in their hearts.
I don't think mayists should be categorized as ultra right-wingers. Save that epithet for those in favour of both unrestricted market capitalism AND a strong government and judicical system to keep the small guys in leashs, sort of an oligarchy and very far from anarchy. And I don't think any ultra left-wingers are lurking on cypherpunks. That epithet should be saved for people believing in strong military-style bureaucracies to implement 'equality' but, as we all know, this is just another form of oligarchy, far from anarchy (and historically separated from anarchy in the 19th century). One thing these two fringe beliefs have in common is the trust in gun barrels for political power. There is a way to privacy (through crypto-anarchy) separated from unrestricited anarcho-capitalism that might be defined as more to the left (depending on your semantics of course). I don't have a good name for it, but a vision. Taxation only of hardware (in a broad sense) production might be enforcable in spite of strong crypto and could pay for a minimal standard of living for all citizens of an industrialized country-unit (at least if population growth stops) including the lame or lazy. And some environmental issues are too important to be decided by private enterprise. National parks do not have to cost anything if we just decide that unexploited land is not to be owned by anyone (well, the present owners will be poorer but every political change has it's victims). But such a pinko-green approach to privacy does not, and should not in my humble opinion, have to extend to public funding of education, libraries, minorities, arts, infobahns or other soft issues. And it gives no one a right to pry into my software collection or drug cabinet. Mats Bergstrom