Look, I was not going to waste my time or your time by responding to Graham Toal's announcement that I am a racist and that he was thus leaving the list. But I've seen several messages dealing with this, speculating that perhaps Detweiler spoofed my account, blah blah blah. So let me make some points: 1. I wrote that message in netcom.general, a group local to Netcom, for the discussion of Netcom issues (Netcom is an Internet service provider based in San Jose, California. How Graham Toal, presumably in the U.K., got it is unknown to me.) 2. I stand by what I said, but the comments Graham cited were taken out of contect of the discussion thread in Netcom. Basically, some folks on Netcom were arguing that speech that is "hurtful" to women and other "people of color" and other aggrieved minorities should be blocked by Netcom management, and that perhaps the First Amendment needs to be reinterpreted to limit such expression. Many of us disagreed strongly with this PC (and paternalistic) ideas, and we especially disagree with the laws Catherine MacKinnon is trying to get accepted. (Look to the Homulka case in Canada for one example, to the bans on porn in Canada for another....in a delicious irony, the Dworkin-MacKinnon porn bans, aimed at stopping the "exploitation" of women, are not being used to proscute feminist and Lesbian sex material outlets...sauce for the gander, to mix some metaphors.) Here is my comment on "people of color," quoted first by G. Toal, then by others, and here by "Rodney King":
gt: >And I appreciate that Netcom has never once warned my for what many of gt: >my critics have called seditious postings. It is true that I look gt: >forward to seeing the collapse of the U.S. governement and the end to gt: >the taxation that steals from me to give to so-called "people of gt: >color."
The use of quotes in "people of color" should tell anyone who bothers to think instead of react that I was commenting on the handing out of money to any and all groups that call themselves victims of some vague past injustices. "People of color" thus implies criticism of the name itself. I make no apologies for disliking the term "people of color"--it harkens back to my childhood when blacks were called colored people. (I often provoke liberal airheads by pretending I can't tell the difference between "people of color" and "colored people"...I started doing this around 1986, when I moved to Santa Cruz, and then saw that Gary Trudeau made the same point in a "Doonsbury" cartoon.) (Perhaps proving Graham's point in a strange way, the term "people of color" was the basis of a running series of jokes at yesterday's grossly overcrowded Cypherpunks meeting yesterday (50 in attendance at various times, including Bruce Schneier, Matt Blaze, "J.I.," Perry Metzger, and others in town for Usenix. Matt described his "Black Pages" key service idea, being implemented at AT&T, and the joke arose that AT&T's affirmative action department has already nixed the name "Black Pages" (really) and that henceforth the service will be called "Pages of Color." Had Graham head this one, would he have denounced us as Nazis? As people ready for political reeducation camps? I wonder.) 3. I also make no apologies for my radical libertarian views. I generally avoid arguing political issues here on Cypherpunks, as the issues have been debated many times. For example, I stayed out of the debate last week with Hal Finney over his criticisms. I think he's wrong, but I made my points some time back, well over a year ago, in fact. In other forums, where the debate is explicitly political (as with the "should Netcom allow Neo-Nazis?" debate), I will make my points. Even if they offend the coloreds. (Cf. the earlier point if this joke appears to be "racist" to you.) 4. Personally, I don't care much about skin color, or other epiphenomenal aspects of a person's behavior. But I reject affirmative action, hiring quotas, restrictions on firing employees, etc. And I reject the notion that speech can be limited because it "hurts the feelings" of another, or because someone considers comments to be "harassment" or "virtual rape." (And with the crypto technologies already available, and coming, it all becomes moot anyway. Positive reputations and filter agents will be the way people cope with "hurtful" speech.) 5. As to why Graham Toal quit the list, who knows? To take a brief comment about "people of color" and how I believe strong crypto--the stuff I've long advertised in my sig block--will nuke the current welfare state and from this conclude that the _rest of you_ hold this view as well is.....absurd! Methinks Graham was looking for an excuse to quit the list and my comments gave him the chance to self-righteously declare himself to be disgusted with what he has concluded the list must stand for. Good riddance, I say. Anybody seriously interested in the issues of this list, whether they are libertarian or socialist, anarchist or monarchist, heterosexual or homosexual, white or red or black or whatever, is not going to storm off the list in a huff because of comments taken out of context from a discussion on censorship in a group devoted to a commercial service located 6,000 miles away! 6. "Rodney King" goes on to say:
acquaintances also pay taxes. However, given all of the questionable governmental expenditures (clipper, et. al) that are usually talked about, singling out "so-called 'people of color'" seems a bit peculiar; especially as part of a recruitment drive for a cryptography list. Surely, there are more interesting reasons to join the list.
Like I said, my comments are being taken out of context. This was not a "recruitment drive," nor did I say the main reason to support strong crypto has anything to do with attacking "people of color." For me, achieving libertarian goals (including an end to taxation, to government handouts, truly a colorblind legal system, etc.) is the main reason to support strong crypto. Graham Toal claims my goals are not his, i.e., personal liberty. Well, this is an old debate. Is economic liberty part of personal liberty? Is the freedom to associate, to pick one's friends, customers, employees, suppliers, etc., as one chooses part of personal liberty? I say "Yes." (I'm _not_ saying racial discrimination is a desirable thing, or that it makes good business sense. But what is desirable or what is business-smart is not the issue here. This is Libertarianism 101, so I'll stop this tangent here.)
(a wait that ran around 300 years or more - Patience Tim). Colored people have thought about the U.S. government quite a bit over the years.
Well...we'll see if strong cryptography is indeed Tim's "underground railroad" to the "promised land" of anarcho-capitalism.
<Rodney King>
Whether my friend "Rodney" here is really black or not is unknown--and unimportant. I, too, am hoping that blacks will wake up to the disastrous effects government handout programs have had on them. It's created a new kind of serfdom, a new "Massa" who lives in the Really Big White House (the one in D.C.) instead of just the Massa who lived in the white house on the plantation. Fortunately, some black leaders have woken up to this (Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Les Brown, several others), and even Jesse Jackson is now talking about the problems of dependency on AFDC and welfare. A hopeful sign. When I see discussions in the Netcom groups--and elsewhere--about how government needs to set limits on free speech so as to protect minorities and "persons of color," I see this as an attack on everything that this country once stood for. And I will speak out. If Graham Toal and others need to hunt down politically incorrect phrasings, and even ignore the quote marks around these phrasings, then it is best that they storm off this list, because at least some of us are not going to shy away from commenting on these important issues. I hope not to have to say anymore on this subject, so that I can get on with other things. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power:2**859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.