[86572] in Cypherpunks
Re: The problem of playing politics with our constitutional rights
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (snow)
Sun Sep 14 22:39:24 1997
To: sethf@mit.edu (Seth Finkelstein)
Date: Sun, 14 Sep 1997 20:55:43 -0500 (CDT)
From: "snow" <snow@smoke.suba.com>
Cc: fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu, cypherpunks@toad.com
In-Reply-To: <9709120730.AA15341@frumious-bandersnatch.MIT.EDU> from "Seth Finkelstein" at Sep 12, 97 03:30:07 am
Reply-To: "snow" <snow@smoke.suba.com>
>> From: David H Dennis <david@amazing.com>
> > able to jump over 50 Libertarians in a single bound,
> able to out-flame 5 or so Libertarians in a single thread is
> more accurate.
Don't break your arm.
> Here's a quick political lesson: Being a Liberal in the US
> means very roughly ONLY that one believes that the government has some
> role to play in moderating the excesses of the market. It does not
That may be what they *SAY*, based on what they *DO*, what they
are for is taking from the productive members of society, and giving to
the unproductive. (or rather taking from the financially productive, and
giving to the financially unproductive.).
> particularly *make* you a civil-libertarian. However, because Liberals
> think about general social power and the abuse of it, they are very
Liberals usually don't think much. They are too busy "feeling" and
playing with their crystals.
> It also helps that Liberals are *predominantly* drawn from
> ranks of those who are the targets of both public and private
> abuses. So they often both favor government action against business
Really? I wasn't aware that the Kennedys were/are targets of public
and private abuses. Nor are the Clintons (exepct they are from Arkansas),
nor most _current_ union members, including their leadership. etc.
> Corollary 1: Detonating a nuclear device in DC will not solve this
> problem. The surviving government will just have a very good excuse for
> crypto-controls.
We got plenty of nukes, and if we feel those are too dirty (I don't
think one or two would matter, but any more than that and things might get
a little nasty) we could always descalate (or whatever the opposite of
escalate is) to small arms or conventional explosives.
> Corollary 2: Repeated Libertarian rantings won't solve it either.
No, but it might get one or two people to stop fingering their
crystals/genitals long enough to realize that big monololitihc governments
do not now and never have provided protection for the individual. The
protections of individuals, whether that be civil-liberty type protections,
or protections against other evils is always more effective the closer it gets
to home. When neighbors work together, theives have a real hard time.
(the only time when Big Government tends to protect one better than the
city/neighborhood is in times of war, but if there weren't any big governments,
there wouldn't be any big wars...).
