Seth Finkelstein, reluctant cypherpunk?

[J.A. Terranson]

There's the backhanded attack Seth was talking about earlier.

Declan: this was *pure* ad hominem.

J.A. Terranson
"The Censorhappy Sysadmin"

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On Tue, 3 Apr 2001, Declan McCullagh wrote:

> Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2001 19:29:35 -0700
> From: Declan McCullagh <declan at well.com>
> Reply-To: cypherpunks at einstein.ssz.com
> To: cypherpunks at cyberpass.net
> Subject: CDR: Seth Finkelstein, reluctant cypherpunk?
> 
> It's important for cypherpunks to understand why Seth Finkelstein has 
> (apparently) recently subscribed to the list. Seth is essentially an 
> anti-cypherpunk, someone who violently disagrees with free-market points of 
> view and has spent (a conservative estimate) hundreds of hours arguing 
> against them.
> 
> Seth's claim to fame is that he popularized the "Libertarianism Makes You 
> Stupid" saying, popular among a small clutch of Net-leftists. An article he 
> wrote:
> http://www.spectacle.org/897/finkel.html
> 
> Obviously there are going to be some points of agreement. Seth is a liberal 
> and a programmer who is going to like strong crypto, free speech (only the 
> types the ACLU approves of, naturally), and so on. But on cases involving 
> free trade, commercial speech, critiques of government regulation, Seth is 
> an aggressive anti-cypherpunk and proud of it.
> 
> (This is not to say that all cypherpunks are libertarians, of course. The 
> DC cpunx are mostly Finkelsteinian leftists, as far as I can tell. But the 
> problem is that modern leftism runs up against cypherpunkly thinking -- to 
> the extent there is such a consensus -- pretty quickly.)
> 
> -Declan
> 
> 

-- 
Yours, 
J.A. Terranson
sysadmin at mfn.org

If Governments really want us to behave like civilized human beings, they
should give serious consideration towards setting a better example:
Ruling by force, rather than consensus; the unrestrained application of
unjust laws (which the victim-populations were never allowed input on in
the first place); the State policy of justice only for the rich and 
elected; the intentional abuse and occassionally destruction of entire
populations merely to distract an already apathetic and numb electorate...
This type of demogoguery must surely wipe out the fascist United States
as surely as it wiped out the fascist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

The views expressed here are mine, and NOT those of my employers,
associates, or others.  Besides, if it *were* the opinion of all of
those people, I doubt there would be a problem to bitch about in the
first place...
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