From: Sandy Sandfort <sandfort@crl.com>
Date: Fri, 9 Sep 94 06:46:00 PDT
To: Cypherpunks <cypherpunks@toad.com>
Subject: CONTROL FREAKS
Message-ID: <Pine.3.87.9409090632.A9801-0100000@crl2.crl.com>
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                         SANDY SANDFORT
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C'punks,

Alan Olsen still thinks totalitarians can succeed in industrial
countries.  He wrote:

    ... But it is also the case that industrial countries,
    when they fall on hard times tend to fall back on an
    authoritarian "bread and circuses" approach to
    governing.

Examples, please.  Fascism in 1930's Germany was certainly NOT
one such government.  National Socialism, of course, had its
"bread" aspect, but their were no "circuses" in the Roman sense.
While Bread and Circuses is one technique to keep a population in
line, it is quite separate from the military/police state method
chosen by the NAZIs.  In any event, NAZI Germany supports the
proposition that modern totalitarianism, by its nature, must be
short lived.  How long did the "Thousand Year Reich" last?

    ... We have the control freaks just wating to gain the
    power and more waiting in the wings.  They have the
    money and they have the technology....

"They," again?  I thought it might be "them."  The Illuminati,
right?  Or is it the Trilateral Commission, the Jesuits, or the
CIA?  Who are these control freaks who "have the money and ...
the technology"?  Jeez, and some call me paranoid for being a
privacy advocate.

When I wrote, "There will be some temporary, local setbacks in
the coming years, and have some mopping up to do, but we've
already won." Alan responded:

    Don't be too smug yet...  There are people in power who
    have not figured out that totalitarian states cannot
    survive.... Logic and reason have nothing to do with the
    "thought patterns" of these people.

Roadrunner logic.  Wiley Coyote runs over the edge of a cliff.
Miraculously, he is suspended in the air until he makes the
mistake of looking down.  Only when he becomes aware of his
predicament does he fall.  My point still is, the totalitarians
don't have to figure out anything; their "thought patterns" are
irrelevant; reality still rules.  They will not survive.

    Besides, it is not their money they are spending on
    this.  It is yours.

Are you sure they're spending *my* money?  With each advance in
privacy technology, they have less access to *anyone's* money.

    As far as I have been able to determine, the only thing
    that you can do with a control freak is to kill him
    before he obtains any position of power.  (Or wrap him
    in duct tape and feed him lots of Thorazine(tm).)

Or, with a little ingenuity, you could structure your life so you
could just ignore him.  Living well is the best revenge.


 S a n d y

"Who finds he needs to spend far less time fighting the Great
Enemy, than educating the nattering nabobs of negativism."

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