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  " Among other faults, being disarmed causes you to be despised."
- close quote of Machiavelli.

   According to Chariman Mao "Political Power grows out of the barrel
of a gun." In which case wouldn't a democracy be made by widely
distributed, numerous, individual owned, Non-confiscable
weapons, & other "democracies" would be mere frauds?

   In Missouri, in order to get your driver's license, you MUST supply
your SSN. They have signs that say that since driving is a "privilege",
not a right, it is ok to require the SSN. I understand that this
practice is spreading to other states as well & is being pushed sy-
stematically by the feds. Funny, when they 1st started out social
security, they promised that the SSN would never be used for purposes
other than social security. Then again, when they first started out the
federal income tax they promised that it would only be on the rich &
would never be more than a few %. Don't they also promise that the
National census would only be used for statistical purposes, Yet I
believe that it has been used to track down "dead beat dads" among
other things. I'm not clear on that.
Will walking be our next "privilege"? I've never seen it expressed
legally as a right.

                 OTHER LAW DEVELOPMENTS
   On the CRUSADERS news program on tv last night, they reported that
a Ca. city, I believe Palo Alto, has been enforcing traffic law, such
as revoked licenses & drunk driving, by taking the drivers' cars.
They brag that the program pays for itself. They think that it
is a bright innovation & are promoted it for other jurisdictions as
well. Very clever, stealing peoples' property to enforce law. Reminds
me when the law 1st started doing "sting" operations & bragged that
they were terribly clever - participating in crime to catch criminals.
The criticism of entrapment now has mostly been forgotten.

                  STALKING LAWS
   By the way, these current stalking laws - whats up? The utility of a
stalking law is so obvious, that in the U.S.'es 200 + year history they
could not possibly be overlooked. Therefore, their faults must be
being purposely overlooked. Media conspiracy? population stupidity?
both? No debate - strange.

                               Yours Truly,
                               Gary Jeffers

Gary Jeffers:

|    On the CRUSADERS news program on tv last night, they reported that
| a Ca. city, I believe Palo Alto, has been enforcing traffic law, such
| as revoked licenses & drunk driving, by taking the drivers' cars.
| They brag that the program pays for itself. They think that it
| is a bright innovation & are promoted it for other jurisdictions as
| well. Very clever, stealing peoples' property to enforce law. Reminds
| me when the law 1st started doing "sting" operations & bragged that
| they were terribly clever - participating in crime to catch criminals.
| The criticism of entrapment now has mostly been forgotten.

	Taking property as a form of punishment has a long history
(fines); usually, the criminal has a choice of what property to give
up, but not always.  As long as the city is going through with
judicial hearings, respecting individuals rights not to be searched at
random, and not rewarding the cops who seize the most cars, I'm not
sure I see this as a bad thing(tm).

	Of course, they probably seize the car on the spot, after
random breathalyzer tests, and give the cop who meets his quota an
extra bonus at the end of the monthl; at which point I have serious
problems with it.  However, in theory, it strikes me as a good idea,
likely to be poorly implemented.


Adam

-- 
Adam Shostack 				       adam@bwh.harvard.edu

Politics.  From the greek "poly," meaning many, and ticks, a small,
annoying bloodsucker.