On Friday, November 16, 2001, at 03:42 PM, Faustine wrote:

Good question. I guess it's just that I love to argue, and you could hardly ask for a better assortment of intelligent and colorful characters to mix it up with. I enjoy the back-and-forth; putting out documents people here might find useful and interesting--and most importantly, being able to give my unvarnished opinion without, well, worrying too much about being rigorous and objective.

For instance, if anyone wants to tell someone here to go fuck themselves, they just come right out and tell them to go fuck themselves. How refreshing, positively theraputic! Expressing a little heartfelt hostility isn't always a bad thing...LOL

The list has only 5% of the content it had in its glory years, 1992-95. And perhaps only 10% of its content in its declining years, 1996-98. It's now at about half the level of its senile years, 1999-2000. This past year has been the worst. There are many reasons for this decline, discussed as early as 1994. Any newbies who think this list is now interesting or exciting has my sympathy. --Tim May "If I'm going to reach out to the the Democrats then I need a third hand.There's no way I'm letting go of my wallet or my gun while they're around." --attribution uncertain, possibly Gunner, on Usenet

On Fri, 16 Nov 2001, Tim May wrote:

The list has only 5% of the content it had in its glory years, 1992-95. And perhaps only 10% of its content in its declining years, 1996-98. It's now at about half the level of its senile years, 1999-2000. This past year has been the worst.

Agreed, with the notation that we are *all* guilty as charged...

There are many reasons for this decline, discussed as early as 1994.

Any newbies who think this list is now interesting or exciting has my sympathy.

While the "original content" may be sparse to the point of being a notable event worthy of a note on the calendar, the list continues to serve purposes worthy of it's continuation. For instance, this is without doubt the best of the "I hate {cops, government, other authority figure}" forums (in my perfectly humble hate-group inspired opinion :-). It's also great fun watching Jeff and company pretend to be even dumber than your average @home luser. But the real value here, and on this point I am serious, is the the list is responsible for the actual [political] education of many lurkers. I realized this recently when "shooting the shit" with one of my newer vendors. The team in question was the standard pair of Salesman and Sales Engineer ("SE"). The salesman was one of the most naive people I have *ever* met, while the SE turned out to be a long term (since mid nineties) CP lurker. As a frequent poster here, the SE recognized my name, and we started talking - and the salesguy sat there with his mouth hanging open, stunned at the content of the conversation. That was about three months ago. Last week we met with this team again, and the salesguy, the *naive* one who was anti-gun, anti-drug, pro-whitehouse, etc., has just purchased his first firearm, and begun to take active steps to protect his privacy. It seems he was so fascinated by the conversations between me and the SE, that he did a little homework, read a few hours/days/who-knows worth of older CP archives, and then found jesus so to speak. Yes, the glory days are gone. No, that does not mean we are wasting our time here.

--Tim May

-- Yours, J.A. Terranson sysadmin@mfn.org If Governments really want us to behave like civilized human beings, they should give serious consideration towards setting a better example: Ruling by force, rather than consensus; the unrestrained application of unjust laws (which the victim-populations were never allowed input on in the first place); the State policy of justice only for the rich and elected; the intentional abuse and occassionally destruction of entire populations merely to distract an already apathetic and numb electorate... This type of demogoguery must surely wipe out the fascist United States as surely as it wiped out the fascist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The views expressed here are mine, and NOT those of my employers, associates, or others. Besides, if it *were* the opinion of all of those people, I doubt there would be a problem to bitch about in the first place... --------------------------------------------------------------------

On Wed, 21 Nov 2001, Petro wrote:

On Saturday, November 17, 2001, at 07:36 AM, measl@mfn.org wrote:

...

(in my perfectly humble hate-group inspired opinion :-). It's also great fun watching Jeff and company pretend to be even dumber than your average @home luser.

What makes you think they're pretending?

*Never*, _ever_, underestimate the Enemy. JeffCo are an awful lot of [mostly bad] things, but truly stupid is not one of them. -- Yours, J.A. Terranson sysadmin@mfn.org If Governments really want us to behave like civilized human beings, they should give serious consideration towards setting a better example: Ruling by force, rather than consensus; the unrestrained application of unjust laws (which the victim-populations were never allowed input on in the first place); the State policy of justice only for the rich and elected; the intentional abuse and occassionally destruction of entire populations merely to distract an already apathetic and numb electorate... This type of demogoguery must surely wipe out the fascist United States as surely as it wiped out the fascist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The views expressed here are mine, and NOT those of my employers, associates, or others. Besides, if it *were* the opinion of all of those people, I doubt there would be a problem to bitch about in the first place... --------------------------------------------------------------------