Patriot Ants (was: Re: Zombie Patriots and other musings)

[Thomas Shaddack]

On Sat, 13 Dec 2003, John Kelsey wrote:

> Of course, there's a more fundamental problem with surrendering to the lone
> warriors.  Imagine that there's such a wave of pro-life terrorism that we
> finally agree to ban abortion.  You're a fanatically committed pro-choice
> activist.  What's your next move?

Two moves possible.

The violent, far less effective and possibly somehow counterproductive
one: attacking the ones who enforce the measurement, by letal or nonlethal
means, to act as deterrent.

The nonviolent one: developing and deploying the technology necessary for
underground clinics to provide higher quality service, and for their
clients to find, order and pay for the services without being likely to
trace down by the Whateveriscurrentlythelaw Enforcement. Causing bad press
for them, keeping public awareness that alternatives to the law-compliance
exist. Learning from countries with similar bans in action, both from the
present and from history, how the alternatives developed there, and
building on this knowledge.

Direct attack is not always the best route, however tempting. A house can
be brought down from the outside by a bomb, or from the inside by white
ants. Insect survival strategies are distributed and largely successful; I
am pretty sure we can learn a lot from there. One "Patriot Ant" doesn't
have to fight in any big way, doing heroic deeds or big sacrifices; enough
people who just provide "samizdat" for few friends, know what files to
mirror, when to look away, what to be "unable to remember" when questioned
by the Authorities, who know the newsbits that aren't officially reported
and tell their friends can make big difference. The strength of Patriot
Ants isn't in their individual strength, they don't make headlines - they
just eat the System from the inside, one bite at time.