At 03:22 AM 9/25/2001 +0000, Anonymous wrote:

...

Thomas Leavitt writes: I'm tired of hearing my fellow Americans referred to as cowards, weaklings, sheep, ignorant, easily mislead - this is a profoundly undemocratic sentiment, the same kind of crap spewed by totalitarian and authoritarian types from the far left and the far right as justification for abandonment of the democratic process and the use of force to impose their ideology on the rest of us.

Well said.

There was an article the other day about the terrorists, which made the point that capitalism and fundamentalism were much alike, in that both share a distrust of democracy. The same can be said for the cypherpunks.

Is it possible that certain cypherpunks find themselves on the same side as bin Laden and his fundamentalist killers? Do they secretly support

The same can be said for the framers. That's why we don't have a democracy butthead. this murderous attacks on innocent civilians? We now face biological and chemical attacks, which are supposed to be even more "cruel and shocking" than the WTC attacks. Are these cypherpunks in favor of seeing more Americans killed by terrorist actions? I can't speak for others but I don't want to see any more Americans killed by terrorists than have been killed by U.S.-supported right-wing regimes in the past 50 years. Its only when the chickens come home to roost that the true price of our global hegenomy and "victory" against others with different idiologies will be driven home and our foreign policy adjusted accordingly.

The philosophical connection becomes even clearer with the frequent statements by cypherpunks that those who disagree "need killing", that blood must be shed by those of different political views.

In effect

Cypherpunks need to take a hard look at themselves. Anyone who feels horror and disgust at the terrorist acts should recognize that the same sentiments are found here, just below the surface. The thinly veiled

Not views, actions which impinge on our liberties. this is a call for a Cypherpunk Jihad (the word is often translated as "holy war", but "justified struggle" is as valid a translation). It is no different for Tim May to call for the extinction of his enemies than for Usama bin Laden to do so. threats of bloodshed are based on the same philosophy of violent hatred and contempt for others which motivates the terrorists. One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. Asymetrical warfare is here to stay. Get used to it! U.S. citizens feel their hands are clean because our leaders made sure Americans weren't holding the guns which slaughtered tens of thousands. They can't understand why so many now want us dead. What did we do to deserve this? Many of our mid-east puppets have used the U.S. as their whipping boy to deflect criticism from their own oppressive regimes and our tolerance of this over the past decades will now haunt our foreign policy for many years to come. If we want to stop terrorism we need to fix our foreign policy.