Re: 1st Ammendment Tossed in Paladin Case

Tim May wrote:
> In the infamous "Twenty-Nine Palms" poll of soldiers, asking if troops
> would fire on civilians if ordered to carry out an order, the longer the
> soldier had been in the service, the less likely he was to say he would.
> (The context of this order is generally believed to be related to a
> Department of Defense involvement in the wholesale disarming of the
> population under a state of emergency, FEMA or U.N. orders, etc.)

  Note that "Twenty-Nine Palms" was the military home/liason of those
involved in the INSLAW travesty. (Everyone _not_ working for the 
Department of Justice who can say "Fuck You" to Congress and get away 
with it, raise your hand.)
 
> This is consistent with the military retireds I know being _extremely_
> anti-government. Usually with a right-wing flavor, but then that is
> understandable.

  It is a fact that we tend to narrow our range of perception when we
get involved in any cult/religion/organization and bestow some of our
own innate responsibility/authority upon them. Once separated from
the group, however, we then tend to regain more control over our
individual beliefs and values, whereupon we are more likely to recognize
where we stepped beyond or own moral/ethical values while caught up,
to whatever extent, in 'group mind.'
  This has been discussed on the list (e.g. Declan goes to Washington!)
and, thankfully, we have a weird enough assortment of not-quite-normal
SubGenius Bizzaro CypherPundits to keep us pissing all over ourselves
and one another to make the possibility of us becoming dues-paying
members of the CypherSheeple Union a remote possibility.

  A CypherPunk nuking DC would not be a tragedy. What would be a tragedy
would be if, after being asked "Why?", he or she turned around to ask
'the group', "Uuhhh...why did I do that, again? Hey! Where did everybody
go?"

  Any physical war or revolution in the future will be largely dependent
upon the success of the parallel InfoWar designed to direct (or prevent)
the thinking of those who the government provides with weapons and
authority.
  We need as many of them as possible to be smiling inwardly to
themselves
when they say, "My gun is loaded, Sarge...and I'm 'right behind' you,
all
the way."

LoadAndUnlockMonger

At 00:59 +0100 11/12/97, Anonymous wrote:
>  It is a fact that we tend to narrow our range of perception when we
>get involved in any cult/religion/organization and bestow some of our
>own innate responsibility/authority upon them. Once separated from
>the group, however, we then tend to regain more control over our
>individual beliefs and values, whereupon we are more likely to recognize
>where we stepped beyond or own moral/ethical values while caught up,
>to whatever extent, in 'group mind.'
>  This has been discussed on the list (e.g. Declan goes to Washington!)

Heh. It's been discussed but no findings of fact have been made.

Ever since I moved back to Washington (I've lived here twice before) to
take a job as a political Net-reporter, my social circle has included many
folks with similar political beliefs. There's my S.O., who's an "Abolish
the FCC" Net and telecommunications lawyer. The Cato soccer team I'm on. My
friends, many of whom are involved in (or at least care about) issues like
crypto.

And there's also the more interesting question of the cypherpunks list as
an organization that influences the political stances of its participants.
If I hadn't been a cypherpunks subscriber for three years or so, would my
political beliefs be the same? I'm not sure.

-Declan