Private and Public

[Duncan Frissell]

To: cypherpunks at toad.com

A >the government: it protects us, provides free schools, etc etc, in 
A >exchange for which we have to pony up a fair share of our earnings. 

You should know that there are people out there who would use deadly force 
to resist government attempts to provide *their* children with free 
schools.

To avoid a political argument which some may feel would be inappropriate 
for cypherpunks -- you should consider that social systems are dependent 
on the power relationships among individuals and groups in society.  As 
technology changes, this balance of power changes.  Social systems which 
depend upon the people being weak and the government strong, cannot 
survive an increase in the physical powers possessed by the people.  This 
is a technological phenomenon.

One of the public services that groups like cypherpunks can perform is to 
give both the rulers and the ruled some advance warning of the 
transformations that are on the horizon so that both groups can adjust 
their plans.

Rather than debating whether or not the people owe the government 
information about themselves, you should argue about whether or not the 
government has the technological capability to discover information about 
people.  In the absence of such capability, government "rights" to have 
the information are merely rhetoric.

Duncan Frissell
--- WinQwk 2.0b#1165