[42659] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Afghanistan
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Patrick W. Gilmore)
Tue Sep 18 17:05:40 2001
Message-Id: <5.1.0.14.2.20010918161158.03449b78@127.0.0.1>
Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 16:14:40 -0400
To: nanog@merit.edu, Randy Bush <randy@psg.com>
From: "Patrick W. Gilmore" <patrick@ianai.net>
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At 12:01 PM 9/18/2001 -0700, Randy Bush wrote:
>>> Has anyone started to deny all traffic to/from Afghanistan ?
>> It is my understanding that the free flow of ideas and discussion of same
>> is detrimental to an extremist or dictatorial government. Such
governments
>> rarely (ever?) survive open discussions and flow of ideas.
>
>so i guess we should not advocate cutting off that flow, eh?
Absolutely.
When someone claims they are in power, or smarter than you, or just know
better, and tell you to do something you think is a poor idea, or simply
something you do not want to do, you should research and find out why. Do
not just take their word for it. And the Internet is a darned good way of
getting that outside information for many, many people.
Of course, that opens a long discussion because there are obvious
exceptions - parents and children, military personnel, bosses &
employees. It is easy to see how someone could extend that to a government
and its people. I do not believe it should be in most
circumstances. Maybe I am wrong.
But that is straying too far off topic even for me.
>randy
--
TTFN,
patrick
