Democracy is our enemy

Karsten M. Self kmself at ix.netcom.com
Mon Sep 24 22:50:09 PDT 2001


on Tue, Sep 25, 2001 at 03:22:34AM -0000, Anonymous (nobody at hyperreal.pl)
wrote:
> Thomas Leavitt writes:

> 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.

I can think of a number of differences as well.

> The same can be said for the cypherpunks.  No wonder that so many here
> have expressed vitriolic criticism of the U.S. government response
> (which has been almost zero), while there has been little mention of
> the horrific evil of the terrorist acts themselves.

As trolls go, about a 6.5.

Terrorists are not in a direct position to deprive us of rights to
privacy, free speech, encryption, and computing platforms.  Should their
cause prevail I've no doubt access to such freedoms would be far starker
than under any regime pledged to the US Constitution, with little
recourse for appeal.

There is little on-charter discussion possible of the terrorists.  There
may be speculation of methods they did (or didn't) use.  Outcomes of
their actions are going to generally be abhorred.

The response of the US and other govnerments worldwide is a different
issue.  These are largely institutions of or answerable to their
peoples.  There's also a long tradition in democratic (both proper
democracies and republican governments) political experience of making
rash decisions, often curtailing the freedoms of democracy.

I see no problem with focussing discussion on these matters.

> The philosophical connection becomes even clearer with the frequent
> statements by cypherpunks that those who disagree "need killing",

IMVAO we're cut from manifold different weaves of cloth.  None of us
speaks for all, self included.

Peace.

--
Karsten M. Self <kmself at ix.netcom.com>        http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
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