From: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 13:36:33 +0800
To: Black Unicorn <unicorn@schloss.li>
Subject: Re: So, what crypto legislation (if any) is necessary?
Message-ID: <m0u6mlr-0008zkC@pacifier.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 03:46 PM 4/8/96 -0400, Black Unicorn wrote:

>> Spooner's quote follows:
>> 
>>   "Doubtless the most miserable of men, under the most oppressive
>> government in the world, if allowed the ballot, would use it, if they
>> could see any chance of thereby meliorating their condition.  But it
>> would not, therefore, be a legitimate inference that the government
>> itself, that crushes them, was one which they had voluntarily set up, or
>> even consented to."
>> 
>> Lysander Spooner
>
>I didn't respond to this part originally because I grew tired of typing
>"Yadda yadda yadda" everytime Mr. Bell lapsed into another
>psycho-political babble session.

And the rest of us are tired of seeing those non-responses!

>What this has to do with Mr. Bell's  position, that citizens as a whole had 
>grown so discontented in the United States that they were prepared to rebell 
>actively in large numbers, is unclear.  In fact the Spooner quote adds 
>more to my position than Mr. Bell's:
>
>"if allowed the ballot, would use it, if they could see any chance of 
>thereby meliorating their condition."  
>
>Seems that even according to Spooner, the citizens of the U.S. aren't 
>hopeless yet.

Aside from the fact that Lysander Spooner has been dead for a LONG time, and 
thus has no opinion concerning 1996 America, your "logic" is atrocious.  He 
is saying:

"If people think it might help, they might use the ballot."

He is _not_ saying:

"If people use the ballot, it means they think it might help."

Maybe such subtleties of logic are beyond you...


>In fact there is ample evidence that citizens who have come to believe 
>that a sovereign is beyond redemption refuse to participate in the 
>political process any longer.  Iran, Iraq, the former Soviet Union, 
>Turkey, the Baltic States are all examples.

I think that the main reason this observation is hilarious is that one 
frequent complaint from media types is (and has been, for decades) that 
there is a nearly steadily-decreasing voter turnout at the polls in the US.

It is not my intention to make the same foolish logical error that you did.  
I won't claim, absolutely, that failure to participate in an election _must_ 
be evidence that people believe "a sovereign is beyond redemption."  But since you've 
stepped into it, I intend to rub your nose in it as well. To whatever extent 
you believe your last claim, you should be willing to accept the obvious 
conclusion that many of the American public don't believe that the 
government is worth trying to retrieve, and they haven't for years.  Which 
means that, as usual, you've 
ended up shooting yourself in your own foot.

When you said:

>>> >Funny, the latest primary has been one of the highest voter turn outs in 
>>> >quite a while (except in Deleware).  Considering those are the law-and-order 
>>> >types who are most likely to invade personal liberities, I think its a 
>>> >bit hard to make the case that the temper of the country is anything but 
>>> >very pro-political process.

I pointed out, correctly, that mere participation in the vote doesn't 
evidence any claim that a person is "very pro-political process."   You've 
done a piss-poor job defending this.   And you've forgotten that to whatever 
extent voter turnout is up with respect to past years, it is only "up" 
because it has been dramatically down for decades.  You need to explain why 
a citizen, or citizens as a group, should be obligated to tolerate this 
political situation for decades without doing anything to bypass the 
political system when they appear to not believe in a reasonable likelihood 
that it'll fix itself.

Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com