From: Bruce Baugh <bruceab@teleport.com>
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 16:57:56 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: more RANTING about NSA-friendly cpunks
Message-ID: <2.2.32.19960130064711.00695d60@mail.teleport.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 12:41 PM 1/29/96 -0800, "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com> wrote:

>when you choose to be in fear of it, the bureacrats win.

On the contrary. Fear is a right and proper response to irrational demands
made by people with lots more force and public support than me. Fear becomes
bad only in our response to it. If I get scared into inaction, _then_ the
bureaucrats win. If I take the fear as motivation to improve my own security
and reduce my dependence on the whims of others, then the bureaucrats lose.

It is fear of the risks I run in an unsecured state that motivates me to
work on my own privacy, and to pass the info I learn on to others.

But fear, in this case, is merely the acknowledgement of the vast potential
for harm. Denying it is just foolish.

>sheep on the planet, all the way up to the head sheep TCM, who writes
>long explanations of why the police state is inevitable and nothing
>we can do will stop it,

You must be reading an alternate universe's version of Cypherpunks - check
to make sure that your quantum stabilizers are in order. In _my_ universe,
Tim May is a prominent advocate for freedom and self-government, who has
written well on why the collapse of the police state (and all states) is
inevitable, and what we can do in the meantime.

Side note to list owner: perhaps we need a majordomo hack to check this
cross-universe traffic problem. It seems to be becoming increasingly common.

Bruce Baugh
bruceab@teleport.com
http://www.teleport.com/~bruceab