New Thread? / Re: Apology from me to the list and TruthMonger

David Downey wrote:
> 
> LOL, all right, all right. I'll take my lickings and like it.

  OK. Now that we've got that settled, what shall we talk about
next, Abortion or Ebonics?

> I do not
> know how to word where I stand because I take a little from each side as
> to what is the correct way to handle these issues. 

  On its face, this is not an unreasonable concept.
  As I see it, the reason for the 'Fuck Compromise' stance being
so heartily proclaimed on the list is not because CypherPunks see
compromise as inherently evil, but because of the recognition that
compromise that is beneficial to both parties requires honesty
and integrity on the part of both parties.
  Compromise at the point of a gun is weakness, not wisdom, and
every step one loses is twice as hard to regain in the future.
The classic example is Hitler, who "only wanted Austria." Then he
"only wanted Poland."
  The government claimed they only wanted to ban the *bad* guns,
but as Tim May pointed out, now it is theoretically illegal in
some places for a citizen to carry a paring knife home from the
store. Of course, in practice, these laws will only be used 
against *bad* people. Mary Tyler Moore has nothing to worry about.

> I believe in fighting for what one believes in. I firmly
> believe in protecting the children and guiding them towards an
> understanding of today's world in *all* it trappings. I am also unsure
> as to the correct and "right" way to do this. I am open to suggestions,
> and am willing to openly contribute my own.

  The fallacy that creates more problems than it solves is that
there *is* a "right" way to do things.
  Life is a crapshoot, and the most we can hope for is to use our
best judgement to minimize whatever ill effects might occur as 
the result of haphazard circumstance.
  Sadly, our society has been moving further and further toward
a fascist, control-freak mentality which dictates that there are
clear lines between right and wrong actions, attitudes and beliefs.
Even more sadly, society is crying out for stiff punishment in
every niggardly aspect of life, including the areas which are
beyond the control of those involved.

  An example is the woman in New York (?) who went to get food for
her baby, and the dog killed/ate the baby while she was gone. The
masses called for her head on a platter and she was charged with
manslaughter (or whatever).
  I am certain that those who could afford a nanny to take care of
their children had enough time on their hands to write a letter to
the editor to call for the woman's imprisonment. I would not be
surprised to find that some of those letters to the editor were
of the opinion that, if the mother had no bread for the baby,
then she should have let the baby "eat cake."
  I couldn't help but think of this poor woman who had lost the
child that she was trying to feed and nurture. Did she need to
be 'punished' because her options were limited by her position
in life? I don't know all the details of her situation, but I
do know that neither the media nor the masses seemed to care
about the details--they just wanted blood.
  I would wager that there are far more children who die in the
company of their mother in a bad neighborhood, than those who
are eaten by the family dog. I would also wager that if the
Clinton's cat killed and ate Chelsea, that there would be no
charges pending.

  Which is the "right" choice--to take your child with you and
have him/her die when you are mugged--to leave your child at
home and have the dog eat him/her?
  Which is the "right" choice--to allow your child to learn about
kinky sex techniques and then die when they try hanging themself
from the ceiling and standing on a chair--to "protect" them from
exposure to *trash* such as this, and then they die by suffocation 
when their sex-partner tells them semi-strangulation enhances
sex, because they've never encountered information about it which
also mentions that it may be dangerous?

  If you beat your child in order to prevent them from doing what
you feel will be harmful to them, then society will put you in jail.
If you beat them psychologically, with guilt, and they kill themself
out of shame when they do something *bad*, society will give you
sympathy.
  Which is the "right" way to teach your children to avoid things
which will harm them? There *isn't* a "right" way.

  Before your child can understand speech, you can't protect them 
from touching a hot stove by "telling" them not to. Is it "wrong"
to slap their hand when they reach for it? Once they *do* know
how to understand what you are telling them, slapping their hand
may not be the best way to keep them from harm.
  The bottom line is that you have to use your best judgment about
issues such as these, and you will never be "right." You will merely
be doing the best that you can. If you don't care about making the
effort to protect your children and they never touch a hot stove,
it does not make you a "good" parent. If you care immensely, and
do everything you are capable of to protect your children and they
*do* touch a hot stove, it does not make you a "bad" parent.

  It is human nature that if you take your child to the park to
enrich their life, and they get killed by a meteor falling from
the sky, you may find yourself "blaming" yourself, saying, "If
only I hadn't taken him/her to the park!"
  This is part of life, and part of being human. However, when
others decide that you should be imprisoned for child endangerment
for taking your child outside when a single astronomer in China 
told the media that a meteorite "might" be on the way, then there
is something seriously wrong with society.
  Is this a ridiculous example? Sure it is...just like someone
claiming that they were justified in raping someone because
their slip was showing, so they were "asking for it."

  The point I am trying to make is that there are no ridiculous
examples. Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, once had a law that required
pedestrians to walk on the right side of the sidewalk. This was
a fairly recent event.
  Insane? Yes, and City Council eventually figured out that they
were idiots, but if someone's child had died when bumping into
someone while their parent was walking them on the "wrong side"
of the sidewalk, the parent would have been legally guilty of 
child endangerment.

  The "Big Lie" that we tell ourselves is that we can guarantee
our safety and security, and that of our children, if we just
pass enough laws against things that are "wrong." If we can just
figure out who is "to blame" for society's ills and imprison 
them.
  The guy who sold you the "junk bonds" might well have cost
you less money than the long-term government bonds you bought
just before inflation went through the roof. Who is the "right"
person to put in jail, and who is the "wrong" person to put in
jail? Truthfully, the "right" person to put in jail may well
be *you*. It might "protect" you from making bad financial
decisions.

  I don't want your child to get molested by a pedophile. I don't
want your child to die of a heroin overdose. But I don't want a
video camera mounted in my home to monitor my activities in an
attempt to keep your child from coming to harm, either.
  A solution to protecting the citizens is to put them in prison
and keep the criminals on the outside. Really! We would be
protected by the security of concrete walls and locked doors.
  Is the "right" thing to do to put your child in prison?
I think you know better than that.

  Some children are going to be molested, some are going to be
abused and/or murdered, some are going to walk willingly, and
perhaps ignorantly, into bad situations that will lead them to
suffer irrepairable harm.
  I don't want this for your child, or for any child, but I
truly don't believe that they can be protected by making the
lives of everyone so regulated and restricted that our life
energy is drained from us by eroach, and that, while he had
not used any force or pressure in the situation, that it was
possible that this could occur with a smaller child.
  I asked my mother if there was a law against adults offering
children money to let the adult give them a blow-job. She was
startled by my question, though she hid it as best she could,
but she was also amused that I was so casual about asking it.
  She dealt with the situation matter-of-factly, and I went
with a policeman to help him find the man. The policeman
chased him down, subdued him, and took him to jail.

  To tell the truth, I felt compassion for the man, since I
sensed that he was a tortured individual, and he had not really
done anything that 'violated' me, or 'infringed' on my right
to self-determination (although I would not have been able to
verbalize these feelings at the time).
  Looking back on the event, I realize that, strictly speaking,
I did not take a course of action that would lead to his being
judged and punished for what he did, but rather, for what he
"might" do.
  Was I "right" or "wrong" in subjecting someone who did not
do any harm to me to arrest and imprisonment? I don't know.
  It could very well be the man never had, and never would,
force himself on a child, or exert undue pressure on a child
in order to coerce the child into doing something against their
will. Can my actions be deemed "right" or "wrong," depending on
the "odds" of him forcing himself on a child, versus being of
strong enough character not to do evil to satisfy his desires?
  In retrospect, I believe I made my decision to act based on
the fact that I sensed that the man was not totally in control
of basing his actions only on his best rational judgement. It
could be that I had him wrongly imprisoned, or it could be that
I saved him from doing something he would regret for the rest
of his life.

  The irony of this story is that the local police solved their
"problem" with this man by buyingtrolling one's urges versus violating
others in order to satisfy themself?

  The reality of the current state of affairs is that there
are a plethora of laws which prevent parents from making their
own decisions as to how to live their lives and how to raise
their children to the best of their ability.
  If you know that you need to slap your child's hand in order
to keep them from touching a hot stove, will you do so? What
if you also know that Child Services will take away your child
and put them in an orphanage if you do so?
  Is your child better off having a deformed hand and living
at home in a loving environment, or having a normal hand and
being raised by strangers who don't care for him/her?

  Laws aren't going to universally protect our children, nor are
rating systems, or lynchings. Nor, sadly, the best judgement of
concerned, loving parents.
  We can't solve the problems of life by passing legislation that
attempts to control everyone and everything, forcto give his patients marijuana to
relieve their suffering.

  Yes, I care about other people, and I care about children.
I am not selfishly clinging to my rights to privacy and freedom
in order to further my own interests at the expense of others.
I am doing so because I don't believe that the world will be
a better place if my rights and freedoms are taken away.
  Then again, I'm Chinese...I could be "Wong."

TruthMonger

At 10:56 PM -0700 8/10/97, TruthMailer wrote:

>  The government claimed they only wanted to ban the *bad* guns,
>but as Tim May pointed out, now it is theoretically illegal in
>some places for a citizen to carry a paring knife home from the
>store. Of course, in practice, these laws will only be used
>against *bad* people. Mary Tyler Moore has nothing to worry about.

Cops here in California are quite open about the law being a law they can
use to bust or harass undesirables. Like an increasing number of laws, the
law is applied capriciously and politically.

A related example is the arrest, ticketing, jailing, etc. of so-called
"homeless activists" for the crime of distributing soup and other forms of
food in Santa Cruz (and San Francisco, other cities, etc.)

The apparent crime is not that they were trespassing or blocking traffic,
or somesuch, but that they were "preparing and distributing food without a
license."

I attended a City Council meeting and spoke up on this point. I asked that
if the "Food Not Bombs" folks were being arrested for distributing food
without a license, that the cops also make arrests of the various groups at
church picnics, Boy Scout outings, family picnics, etc., who also prepare
and distribute food to groups. (Cooked under the same conditions, and
distributed the same way.)

The Council showed no reaction to my point, not that I expected to have any
effect (dozens of others made similar points, that this was selective
enforcement). The cops were told to keep busting people for distributing
food, but no orders were given against church and social groups.

"Some food distributors are more equal than others." Selective enforcement
is the real power of the State.

And they wonder why McVeigh said "Enough!!."

--Tim May

There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws.
Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!"
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

TCM

>I attended a City Council meeting and spoke up on this point. I asked that
>if the "Food Not Bombs" folks were being arrested for distributing food
>without a license, that the cops also make arrests of the various groups at
>church picnics, Boy Scout outings, family picnics, etc., who also prepare
>and distribute food to groups. (Cooked under the same conditions, and
>distributed the same way.)
>
>The Council showed no reaction to my point, not that I expected to have any
>effect (dozens of others made similar points, that this was selective
>enforcement). The cops were told to keep busting people for distributing
>food, but no orders were given against church and social groups.

TCM attending a government sponsored meeting? participating in 
participatory government? voting with his voice in a democracy?

SCANDALOUS!!

whatever happened to the "f*** them all philosophy"?

hehehehehe

or maybe you will be using this little anecdote ad nauseam to
show the failure of democracy to individual wishes, and the 
tyranny of the majority?

seriously, if cypherpunks think government is so crappy, let see
them invent a better alternative than that which exists. note that
"anarchy" evades the problem completely. it's like saying, "I hate
my web browser" and someone saying, "oh, just get rid of it, the
alternative is far better".  an 8 year old would understand this
logic, but alas it eludes the cpunks after many moons on this list.

>"Some food distributors are more equal than others." Selective enforcement
>is the real power of the State.

agreed, the food policy you cite is strangely orwellian. however one
can somewhat sympathize with states which are in a bind here, in such a way
that you fail to mention the obvious ramifications. 

the more empathetic governments 
are toward the homeless, the more the state becomes a hangout
for them. would you like to see the homeless multiply in your
own jurisdiction? word gets around fast in these circles where the
best place to get a free lunch is, and they travel around the 
country to that place. 

you have a very rabid opinion on welfare as a redistribution of
income to those that don't deserve it. how is this food redistribution
program different? the fact that you don't pay for it? so you
aren't really objecting to leeching, just leeching off of your
money? and BTW, I believe "leeching" is a word that you have used
in your own posts on the subject, and is not something I'm inventing
here.

Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote:

> seriously, if cypherpunks think government is so crappy, let see
> them invent a better alternative than that which exists. note that
> "anarchy" evades the problem completely. it's like saying, "I hate
> my web browser" and someone saying, "oh, just get rid of it, the
> alternative is far better".  an 8 year old would understand this
> logic, but alas it eludes the cpunks after many moons on this list.

i love they way your category of smartass nihilists (the _elite_ dispondent 
blockheads - btw these are proposed categories for my reputation system) 
talk about "anarchy" being analogous to someones mid-life browser crisis and at
the same time completely missing the point. ok, lemme explain what 
crypto-anarchy is and _what_ is the alternative system that some folks
"invented", while you were smoking up. 

this incedently reminds me of a conversation i had with this guy at college once, 
who insisted that i called him "razor" and was some sort of a self-proclaimed 
authority on freudian theories of conscioussness. he talks too much but is 
always willing to learn and wanted to know what the fuck is this "crypto" biz.
anyway I started it with a small introduction to the loose term "human nature" 
since he is familiar with that stuff and I think its a good place to start a discussion 
that has to with any sort of "human" system. 

The term "human nature" means that we guys have "volitional consciousness" 
which is synonymous to the concept of "self awareness" that is higlighted as 
the turning point of human existence in many eastern mystical texts. Which 
implies "choice" is the inescapable concequence of our nature and we 
need to make choices in order to exist. Those who choose poorly 
suffer or die. Theoretically this means that we need a "value system" 
to live (contrary to the popular belief ethics has hardly anything to do 
with "co"-existing) with the our standard of value as Life. 

In the social context, the "right to choose" is the basic human right.
And this was what mystics, collectivists, religious cults, popes 
and the governments decided to snatch at the point of a gun. 

And thats exactly the idea behind a virtual, cyberspacial society, 
physical coercion is invalid in this dimension. crypto provides 
the essential annonymity required to close/stonewall the system so that no 
one can trace your online avatar to your physical self. 

crypto-anarchy is thus a social setup where a virtual community of 
objects use crypto for annonymity, interaction and arbitration. one can 
think of crypto playing the government of the society. it arbitrates
by making fraud impossible. 

thats the basic idea. i suggest you look up the web, there are tons
of crypto resources. even though i am new to list i feel you certainly need 
to get yourself a straight education. i could have given you a wider introduction 
to the subject but i am tired. there are days when you keep bumping 
into these wierdo's you want to hit on the head and say "the universe
doesn't work that way". and these guys are tiring. 

best,
vipul


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