[79305] in Cypherpunks
Re: Rejecting Dialog with Government Vermin
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bradley Felton)
Wed Apr 30 10:35:10 1997
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 1997 08:40:51 -0500
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
From: Bradley Felton <zim@pobox.com>
In-Reply-To: <19970429230716.21689@bywater.songbird.com>
Reply-To: Bradley Felton <zim@pobox.com>
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At 11:07 PM 4/29/97 -0700, Kent Crispin wrote:
>Rhetoric: many people point back to the good old days of the=20
>founding fathers and lament how we have fallen from that ideal. =20
>Clearly there is a problem with that lament -- it it was ideal, we=20
>wouldn't have fallen.
>
>Several possible answers:
>
>1) There actually is a serious flaw in the political organization=20
>created by the founding fathers.
>
>2) There is a fundamental flaw in the human species that will corrupt=20
>any form of government.
>
>3) There is no serious flaw -- the current government isn't as
>bad as we claim. Or, put another way, the evils we see are a function
>of size of government, and size of government is more a function of
>population than anything else -- the larger the population, the=20
>larger the government.
It is very challenging to construct an organization that will fulfill its
intended function with a minimum of undesirable side-effects. Much harder,
if you want it balanced so well that it will continue to do so for
centuries. Too hard, ultimately, for our founding fathers, but perhaps not
an impossible task.
What is needed is a "Bonsai" government, that is kept carefully pruned into
exactly the desired shape, and is never allowed to outgrow its pot. With
this analogy in mind, I would posit:
4) Insufficient pruning mechanisms.
- - -- Bradley Felton <mailto:zim@pobox.com> Please use PGP (finger=
me!)
"I was once invited to take part in a heroic, possibly fatal enterprise,
but I declined, mainly on account of sloth." =96Edward Abbey
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