Cypherpunk Politics [was: REAL-ID Coming]

shelley at misanthropia.org shelley at misanthropia.org
Sun Mar 15 14:33:44 PDT 2015


On Sun, Mar 15, 2015, at 01:32 PM, dan at geer.org wrote:
> As a side note to this debate, I've negotiated bunches of
> settlements between local (and, once, state) governments and
> citizen claimants.  In not one case can I say that the
> agreements were worth the paper they were ultimately printed
> on as there is no way to hold a government to its agreements
> when you really get down to it beyond the ballot box.  If an
> agreement calls for some sort of enforcement, then you can be
> sure that in the fullness of time enforcement will wane.  If
> an agreement calls for appointment of an oversight board, then
> you can be sure that in the fullness of time the appointment
> process will yield not fire-in-the-belly citizen activists
> but apparatchiks.  If an agreement calls for an evaluation
> five years hence as to whether the course of action was or was
> not producing the results that it was promised to produce,
> then you can be sure that in the fullness of time such review
> will be pro forma, vapid, innocuous, and self-congratulatory,
> if it is done at all.  A government's word cannot be trusted
> when details matter, yet another manifestation of how eternal
> vigilance is the price of freedom, or, to repurpose the title
> of Larry O'Brien's memoirs, there are no final victories.
> 
> Please don't let this start an exploration of any rat-hole,
> just allow me to speak from four decades of experience, please.
> 
> --dan
> 

+1.  In this instance I wholeheartedly agree with you, Dan (also borne
from experience, though nowhere near as much as you have.)  These are
wise words and should be heeded.

-S



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