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Arise, you have nothing to lose but your barbed wire fences!

1997-01-03 - Re: Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice

Header Data

From: Rich Graves <rcgraves@disposable.com>
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Message Hash: 64e50d1289bf95da0eda10637c957f16dc52f458d039c6d78fcb43069f474104
Message ID: <32CC7934.279B@disposable.com>
Reply To: <9612302254.AA00731@cow.net>
UTC Datetime: 1997-01-03 03:14:28 UTC
Raw Date: Thu, 2 Jan 1997 19:14:28 -0800 (PST)

Raw message

From: Rich Graves <rcgraves@disposable.com>
Date: Thu, 2 Jan 1997 19:14:28 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice
In-Reply-To: <9612302254.AA00731@cow.net>
Message-ID: <32CC7934.279B@disposable.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Bill Frantz wrote:
> 
> At 10:54 AM -0800 12/31/96, Timothy C. May wrote:
> >Our focus is more radical. We are effectively a cyber-militia,
> >fulfilling Jefferson's recommendation that a revolution happen
> >every 20 years.
> >
> >(Funny, there hasn't been one in more than 200 years. ...
> 
> I would say that the street action which effectively eliminated
> legally mandated racial segregation about 25 years ago qualifies as
> a revolution. People certainly put their bodies, and occasionally
> their lives, on the line for it.  It didn't happen because the
> political powers that be decided to do it.  It happened because
> people mobbed in the streets and made it happen.

Cryptoanarchy, as envisioned here, is not about people mobbing in the 
streets. It's fundamentally about insulating oneself from the mobs in 
the streets. When Tim says he's an elitist, he means it, though of 
course we may disagree on who is allowed to be part of our "elite." I 
wouldn't exclude people who find the most extreme "satire" in the 
"ebonics" threads, for example.

However, revolutions tend to have unintended consequences. The noblemen 
who drafted the Magna Carta never thought it would become a broad 
statement of rights. The slaveholders who signed the Declaration of 
Independence never thought it would be used against them.

If crypto becomes ubiquitous worldwide, I doubt Tim May's ilk will enjoy 
the result. In the short term, it's a defense that preserves the 
distribution of wealth and privilege, but in the long run, we'll see 
that eroded. There is something to Vulis's latest rants -- his "facts" 
are all lies, of course, but there's something there.

Lies, evasions, and deception give temporary advantage, but eventually 
they come back home to roost. Sometimes it takes generations.

The things that last are the ideas that make people mob in the streets, 
not the things that enable them to hide at home.

-rich

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