On Sat, 12 Sep 1998, Jim Choate wrote:

I figure it's the fact that 'principles' are involved that is confusing everybody, no room to move like there is with relativism. Bottem line, he held a public office, while in that office he should commit *NO* crime or else he should loose that office. There was no abmiguity there in the minds of the founding fathers and there shouldn't be in yours either. If this confuses you then take it as an indication that you have a axiomatic contradiction in your world view and need to rethink things in a serious way.

As Jefferson said, if you hold a public office your public property.

Nail the son of a bitch to the wall, he did the crime let him do the time.

It's a pitty he doesn't have this sort of empathy for all those people he's put in jail for consensual crimes during his tenure. The man has a base double standard, let him pay for it.

I agree totally, but this has a somewhat deeper point. The idiots in government sign into law all sorts of unconstitutional or nonsensical legislation. As far as I'm concerned, it ought to be a law that for *ANY* crime they commit they are thrown out of office and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Of course it would never happen, but if it were to happen I think we'd see massive repeals of all this bogus legislation. "Senator, you have an encrypted file on your laptop. As per the Domestic Cryptography Prohibition Act, I am here to seize your computer, the office it is in, freeze your assets, and take you into custody. You will be ejected from the Senate, effective immediately. If convicted, you will spend the next five years at hard labor." "But...But I didn't know it was there! It was a virus which put it there!" "Ignorance of your violations of the law are no excuse. It says so in that Act." "Who is the idiot who passed this?!" "You introduced it, sir. It was something about protecting the children and how anybody who uses cryptography is a pedophile or something like that." Later that night, on the news: "Senator X was ejected from the Senate, arrested, jailed, and charged today with unlawful possession of random numbers. Later it was announced that former Senator X was charged with trafficing in child pornography." The next day: "In a daring no-knock morning raid, a flurry of automatic weapons fire occured and former Senator X's family was killed in the exchange. An FBI agent was quoted as saying, 'She was wielding an assault baby and we had to take her down.'" "It has just been announced that former Senator X is being charged under the Domestric Cryptography Prohibition Act, which he sponsored, with 'crypto in a crime.' This carries an additional penalty of 10 years. When asked what crime the cryptography was used in, an FBI representative answered, 'Given what Senator X argued on the floor of the senate when he introduced this bill, we're sure there is child pornography there somewhere. Like he said, the only reason to use cryptography is if you have something to hide, like child pornography or plans for widespread global armageddon. Because he used cryptography, we don't know where or what that porn is, but we're sure it's there somewhere.'" Three years later: "Former Senator X was convicted today of one count of 'crypto in a crime,' five counts of possession of cryptography without a license, eight counts of child porn (one for each encrypted file), and one count of intent to use weapons of mass destruction. In a swift action, he was sentenced to six consecutive life terms, to be served at hard labor." "Jim, isn't all this agaist the Bill of Rights?" "Well, Tom, it used to be, but since they repealed it..." *fade to black*