On Sat, 13 Dec 2003, John Kelsey wrote:
Of course, there's a more fundamental problem with surrendering to the lone warriors. Imagine that there's such a wave of pro-life terrorism that we finally agree to ban abortion. You're a fanatically committed pro-choice activist. What's your next move?
Two moves possible. The violent, far less effective and possibly somehow counterproductive one: attacking the ones who enforce the measurement, by letal or nonlethal means, to act as deterrent. The nonviolent one: developing and deploying the technology necessary for underground clinics to provide higher quality service, and for their clients to find, order and pay for the services without being likely to trace down by the Whateveriscurrentlythelaw Enforcement. Causing bad press for them, keeping public awareness that alternatives to the law-compliance exist. Learning from countries with similar bans in action, both from the present and from history, how the alternatives developed there, and building on this knowledge. Direct attack is not always the best route, however tempting. A house can be brought down from the outside by a bomb, or from the inside by white ants. Insect survival strategies are distributed and largely successful; I am pretty sure we can learn a lot from there. One "Patriot Ant" doesn't have to fight in any big way, doing heroic deeds or big sacrifices; enough people who just provide "samizdat" for few friends, know what files to mirror, when to look away, what to be "unable to remember" when questioned by the Authorities, who know the newsbits that aren't officially reported and tell their friends can make big difference. The strength of Patriot Ants isn't in their individual strength, they don't make headlines - they just eat the System from the inside, one bite at time.