CDT Policy Post 3.08 - Senate Committee Approves Key Crypto Bill

[Kent Crispin]

On Fri, Jun 20, 1997 at 04:50:16PM -0700, Declan McCullagh wrote:
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 19:44:33 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Charles Platt <cp at panix.com>
[...]
> 
> Statements similar to yours have been made so many times, scolding
> "extremists" for "not being realistic." I seem to remember something about
> extremism in defense of liberty being no vice, and moderation no virtue.
> Either way, if you compromise, you don't get what you want. That is
> absolutely obvious. So why compromise? 

Because half a million dollars is better than no dollars? Because in
real life the vast majority of choices are not binary? Because in real
life you have to live with someone as intransigent as you?

The real question is: What is the most *effective* way for achieving
your ends.  "No compromise" negotiaton can be effective at either end of 
the power scale (if you hold *all* the cards there is no point in 
compromising; if you hold *no* cards there is no point in 
compromising).  In this case your "no compromise" stand is the 
reflective of the "no cards" position -- "we've already lost so we 
might as well go down guns blazing."

However, others do not see the situation as bleakly as you do.

-- 
Kent Crispin				"No reason to get excited",
kent at songbird.com			the thief he kindly spoke...
PGP fingerprint:   B1 8B 72 ED 55 21 5E 44  61 F4 58 0F 72 10 65 55
http://songbird.com/kent/pgp_key.html