From: ecarp@netcom.com (Ed Carp)
Date: Thu, 6 Oct 94 00:03:22 PDT
To: karn@qualcomm.com (Phil Karn)
Subject: Re: It's MEME time!!!
In-Reply-To: <199410060516.WAA17295@servo.qualcomm.com>
Message-ID: <199410060656.XAA14819@netcom5.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


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> >> Uh, how come we can't stick to attacking the message, rather than the
> >> messenger?
> 
> >Because in this case, the messenger is an integral part of the message.
> 
> I disagree. How do you react when you see an attack ad on TV. Does it
> really want to make you vote for the sponsor? Or does it make you wish
> they'd BOTH crawl off and die somewhere? After watching just a little
> of the Huffington vs Feinstein Senate campaign here in CA, I know how
> *I* feel.
> 
> We definitely have the upper hand on this issue. Dorothy Denning may
> be a naive pawn of the government. She may hold beliefs that appall
> the rest of us. She may have lost whatever credibility she had in the
> crypto community by her position. But I still prefer to attack that
> position and the (il)logic behind it rather than to resort to
> attacking the person expressing it. Especially when the argument
> itself is almost a no-brainer.

I think the reason people attack the messenger is because people in the
government listen to her, and I for one am exasperated beyond words to
know that my government is paying attention to such an idiotic scheme, and
(BTW) violating every known law of security to do so.  Denning, in a very
real sense, represents the attitudes of the NSA and the people controlling
this whole scheme and trying to foist it off onto people.  Is she such an
idiot that she actually *believes* the nonsense she spouts? 

Is it wrong to suspect her motives, her judgement, her common sense, in
backing such a proposal?
- -- 
Ed Carp, N7EKG    			Ed.Carp@linux.org, ecarp@netcom.com
Finger ecarp@netcom.com for PGP 2.5 public key		an88744@anon.penet.fi
If you want magic, let go of your armor.  Magic is so much stronger than
steel!        -- Richard Bach, "The Bridge Across Forever"

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