From: Blanc Weber <blancw@microsoft.com>
Date: Wed, 11 Sep 1996 10:16:06 +0800
To: "'cypherpunks@toad.com>
Subject: RE: Child Porn as Thoughtcrime
Message-ID: <c=US%a=_%p=msft%l=RED-81-MSG-960910230913Z-66372@mail3.microsoft.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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>From:	tcmay@got.net 
>
>My point is this: For anyone who claims that "thoughtcrime" is something
>the Evil Empire specialized in, i.e., totalitarian communist regimes, look
>to the enforcement of laws about what can be viewed or accessed from the
>United States. Thougtcrime.
>.........................................................................
>
>
>Those laws obviously (to me) don't have all that much to do with legality nor
>all that much with thought, either;  but more with a government aiming to
>"looking good" in front of an audience of voters, presenting an image of
>being more moral, or "better-than-thou" -  in front of other nations, etc.;
>that is, to gain favor, and therefore political support, from the Citizen
>Units by sounding like Mother Superior/fatherly figures who are going to look
>after All The Little Children (tm), plus all the similarly weak &
>dispossessed.   
>
>This posturing gives all the un-selfconfident people someone to look up to,
>even if they don't really get anything (their memories being too short to
>notice the failed promises, lack of follow-through, and blatant
>inconsistencies, not to mention the 'legal' crimes committed along the way).
>
>Many people seek after sympathy towards their feelings (present and/or future
>pain) more than to be respected for the ability to think.   I imagine this
>develops into a reduced sympathy towards certain kinds of thought or towards
>thinking per se, eventually, promoting a general atmosphere of tolerance for
>offenses like "thoughtcrimes".   
>
>And of course anyone who is free to think about anything & everything (who
>could therefore potentially think about what everybody else has forgotten)
>will seem dangerous to those who wish to appear to be in total, beneficent
>control.
>
>   ..
>Blanc