At 08:12 PM 10/22/00 -0700, James A.. Donald wrote:
-- At 07:09 PM 10/22/2000 -0700, Nathan Saper wrote:
I think the government has a right to do whatever it needs to do to maintain the health and well-being of its population. That is the purpose of the government.
Then the government should be raiding your home to check on your consumption of chocolate, and spying on your messages to detect if you are secretly arranging for the purchase or sale of forbidden substances.
Congratulations! You've finally discovered the Secret Ulterior Motive behind the Cypherpunks Grocery-Store-Frequent-Shopper Card Exchange Ritual, which is to discourage them from knowing who's *really* buying all that chocolate and beer. (We used to do it relatively often; now it's more of an occasional thing, especially since the Albertsons/AmericanStores merger means that Lucky no longer uses cards, but Safeway still does. Safeway started doing "Thank you for shopping at Safeway, Mr. Cypherpunki" a while back, and they're currently usually mispronouncing the person whose dietary habits I'm also disparaging. :-)