At 02:12 PM 4/28/96 -0700, jamesd@echeque.com wrote:

...

When you cut off someone's air supply, even the nicest, gentlest person will go into an unrestrained, murderous frenzy. I expect something similar will happen to even the most "civilized" governments within the next few years, as popular crypto begins to cut off their money supply.

False on two counts:

First "frenzy" is exactly the opposite of what the government needs to stay in one piece, to continue to be a government.

Secondly, when you cut of someones air supply, they do not necessarily defend themselves.

While that's obviously an imperfect analogy he gave, I think it's inadvertently instructive for an unobvious reason: Governments are _supposed_ to be products of the will of the people (at least, in so-called "freedom-loving" societies they are). If that's the case, then if society decides that governments should be reduced or even eliminated, those governments should have no objection. To whatever extent they DO have an objection, it can only be because the government is no longer representing the population as it was supposed to do, but has started to represent the vested interests of people whose livelihood depends on that government. And to whatever extent this is happening, that's all the more reason to get rid of that government. Unfortunately, that's exactly the position we find ourselves in today. Jim Bell jimbell@pacifier.com