At 08:21 AM 4/28/96 -0400, mkj@october.segno.com wrote:

Modern military technologies, especially in the U.S., make the prospects of a sucessful popular uprising dubious.

By this argument the Soviet Empire could never fall. Governments are rarely overthrown. Rather, they collapse. Governments continually struggle to maintain cohesion. Sometimes they fail. They do not naturally have cohesion. A government is not naturally a single thing, not an entity by nature, the way a person is an entity by nature.

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. I think I may have reported in cypherpunks my little experiment in Cuba when I cut off a cop's air supply, to test my hypothesis that even the cuban cops have a slave mentality. People frequently fail to defend themselves, when suitably intimidated, and this is basically what governments rely upon. If governments have to start pulling guns all the time, they will fall. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd@echeque.com