At 12:41 PM 1/29/96 -0800, "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com> wrote:

when you choose to be in fear of it, the bureacrats win.

On the contrary. Fear is a right and proper response to irrational demands made by people with lots more force and public support than me. Fear becomes bad only in our response to it. If I get scared into inaction, _then_ the bureaucrats win. If I take the fear as motivation to improve my own security and reduce my dependence on the whims of others, then the bureaucrats lose. It is fear of the risks I run in an unsecured state that motivates me to work on my own privacy, and to pass the info I learn on to others. But fear, in this case, is merely the acknowledgement of the vast potential for harm. Denying it is just foolish.

sheep on the planet, all the way up to the head sheep TCM, who writes long explanations of why the police state is inevitable and nothing we can do will stop it,

You must be reading an alternate universe's version of Cypherpunks - check to make sure that your quantum stabilizers are in order. In _my_ universe, Tim May is a prominent advocate for freedom and self-government, who has written well on why the collapse of the police state (and all states) is inevitable, and what we can do in the meantime. Side note to list owner: perhaps we need a majordomo hack to check this cross-universe traffic problem. It seems to be becoming increasingly common. Bruce Baugh bruceab@teleport.com http://www.teleport.com/~bruceab