From: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 1996 12:57:42 +0800
To: "A. Padgett Peterson P.E. Information Security" <cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re:
Message-ID: <m0tmEob-00090mC@pacifier.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 01:41 PM 2/12/96 -0500, A. Padgett Peterson P.E. Information Security wrote:
>
>>Yet if I read you correctly earlier, you don't think the USG has the right 
>>to regulate those communications. Why the distinction ?
>
>Okay, obviously I need to drop down a gear & explain *my* feelings:
>
>Part of the definition of a "sovereign nation" is to define and carry
>out both high and low justice over it's domain - the absolute right
>of a sovereign. Is not mentioned in the US constitution because it 
>was a given.

Hardy har har!  This sounds like a joke, right?  Anything you WANT the 
Constitution to have said, "is not mentioned in the Constitution because it 
was a given."

Thanks for making me laugh...at you!


>"Free speech" means that a citizen is free to speak (communicate) anthing,
>anytime, anywhere. This is the right guarenteed by the first amendment. This
>does not relieve the individual from being liable for the consequences of 
>the exercise of "free speech".

This statement is internally inconsistent.  If the speech is truly "free," it 
is (and should be!) unconstrained.  To whatever extent it is constrained, it 
is not entirely "free."  Now, even if we all agree that SOME speech should 
be limited, don't try to use this argument to allow the government to 
restrict ALL speech!


>However, the government is under no obligation (though in the silly seventies
>it seemed that we were going that way) to aid or abet in the exercise of
>free speech. If it were properly and legally decided that communications 
>with anon.penet.fi is against "national interest" then the sovereign has 
>not only the "right" but the *duty* to block/monitor such communications.

Here you get wacky again.  You first make a true statement, and then come to 
a false conclusion.

Logic lesson for Padgett:

There are at least three categories here:

1.  Government restricts communication.
2.  Government neither assists nor restricts communication.
3.  Government assists communication.  (through stolen tax dollars, BTW.)

Your first sentence in the paragraph immediately above simply says that item 
3 is not required.  That is a true statement.  However, you falsely 
(apparently deliberately?) suggest that item 2 cannot exist; the only 
alternative is item 1.

Get real, Padgett.  Wake up.

Jim Bell

Klaatu Burada Nikto