Anonymous wrote:

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There's a fallacy which is quite common on this list, especially among members whose positions are otherwise indefensible. It's surprising in a way because this fallacy is more common among statists.

There, the fallacy goes like this: if it is immoral, then it must be illegal. We see this all the time. People think of the government as their way of expressing moral values. Drugs are wrong, so they must be made illegal. Discrimination in employment is wrong, so it also must be illegal. We have countless bad laws based on this false premise.

On this list we see the same fallacy, turned around: if it is legal, it must be moral. Someone is attacked for posting some vicious, hateful, immoral rant, and they respond that what they said was legal, because of freedom of speech and the First Amendment. Their critic must be opposed to free speech if he objects to their words.

I didn't write this, but I wish I had. It is exactly correct, and well-done. If I had written I would've attached a nym in an attempt to accrue some reputation capital. (The author should e-mail me so I can credit her repcap account. :-) ) Monty Cantsin wrote:

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Confusing what is legal and what is moral is a dangerous game. It leads to the false reasoning of the statists. We must remember that there is a clear distinction between morality and legality.

This is a good thing to remember. However, what you seem to be calling immoral is holding a belief with which you disagree.

Actually I think we are discussing the morality of words, not of thoughts. Words are actions in my book. (ObDcashPunks: Note that the right words to the effect of "I hereby give you this cash token. Signed, Alice" _are_ the same as the action of giving the person the cash token. :-) )

What you seem to be proposing is that Tim May (or whoever) should refrain from expressing certain of their beliefs about the world because they are immoral.

I don't speak for Anonymous (:-)), but what _I_ propose is that the meme of "it was okay/justified/right for me to say it because it should be legal for me to say it" shall eradicated from cypherpunks discourse. The rightness of one's actions is independent from the legality of those actions. (Except, of course, that it is sometimes wise to avoid doing something illegal out of pragmatic concern for consequences.) If a cypherpunk is accused by her fellows of a wrong act, it is completely irrelevant and out of character for her to reply by stating that the act is legal. This is a such an obvious truth that I'm surprised no-one, including myself, has brought it up before Anonymous did. Regards, Zooko --- Software engineer for hire. http://www.xs4all.nl/~zooko/resume.html