From: Zooko Journeyman <zooko@xs4all.nl>
Date: Fri, 12 Sep 1997 16:57:27 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: in defense of Lon Horiuchi
Message-ID: <199709120843.KAA01441@xs1.xs4all.nl>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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When I posted "in defense of Lon Horiuchi" I had intended not
to follow up on the thread, but the several responses I've
read (which were more reasoned and polite than I had expected--
thanks guys) indicate that I didn't explain myself clearly.


It was not my intention to argue that Lon Horiuchi is a good
guy, that he fulfilled his responsibilities with appropriate 
care, that he's a good shot, that he worked in an honorable 
profession, that he is blameless in the death of the child, or
such.  (I may or may not _believe_ some of these propositions,
but I'll spare you for you the full littany of my opinions.)  
All I intended to assert was that Lon Horiuchi is almost 
certainly not the malicious baby-killing murderer that 
Anonymous portrayed.


There are many issues one could legitimately argue regarding
a policeman who accidentally kills a non-combatant bystander
during a fight.  But comparing such a policemen to a
terrorist who deliberately targets non-combatants with a bomb
is beyond the pale.  That, but for my interruption, this
comparison would have passed unremarked among the cypherpunks
crowd is damning.



Why I'm posting:

I don't expect that merely because of my contradiction the
more rabid cypherpunks will suddenly throw off their twin
blinders of ideology and hatred.  Neither do I desire that
they retreat into closed conversation where they can continue
their self-inflaming rants without fear of interruption.  My
motivation in posting critical articles like these is primarily
because there are a great number of silent readers of the 
cpunks list, and some of these people, perhaps being young or
inexperienced, may consider such vile slanders to be 
self-evident truths if they continually see them pass 
unchallenged.



Regards,

Zooko