At 7:46 PM -0700 4/11/01, Publius Q. Citizen wrote:
You're both correct, but you don't mention one point which you both surely know: the net spans all kinds of cultures. Including those where
........[examples of thoughtcrime elided]
In my lil' noggin (not speaking for the Movement (tm)), one cypherpunk (tm) ethic is that sticks and stones (and the occasional govt informer) will break your bones, but bits will never hurt you. A post-internet corollary is that somewhere someone will offend you, and you need to get used to it. (Those of us who have allowed ourselves to review popular media are already used to the chronic offense.)
Sorry to state the obvious, its for our federal observers.
Yep, all obvious stuff. I hope, though, that our list does not degenerate to the point of attempting to convince the Feds who are monitoring us of our views. That's a hopeless task. For one thing, they're not even participating in the debate--they are merely looking for juicy one-off remarks they can introduce in court. For another, if they didn't absorb the message when they were young, by reading Orwell or Rand or Heinlein or whatever, and they chose to be come public persecutors of thoughtcrime, then a few essays here and there will not make any conceivable difference. As Declan said, the list has now become a training ground for local prosecutors trying to get fools to tell them "how to make bombz" and for Feds looking to puff up their resumes by finding evidence of thoughtcrime. And probably some of the Feds are busily notifying their chain of command that they have accomplished their Prime Objective: "We have squelched debate on a terrorist list. We have frightened people into not talking to the subversive so-called journalists like Declan McCullagh, Adam Chiralsky, and others. And we have infiltrated unacceptable political parties like the Libertarian Party. Long live the State, long live the Two Party System!" In the form the list has been in for the past decade, they have won. Time for Plan C. --Tim May -- Timothy C. May tcmay@got.net Corralitos, California Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns