From: blanc <blancw@cnw.com>
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1997 06:26:33 -0800 (PST)
To: "'cypherpunks@toad.com>
Subject: RE: Fighting the cybercensor
Message-ID: <199701271426.GAA23803@toad.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


From:	jim bell (in response to Dimitri Vulis')

Look, I've proposed what I consider to be a remarkably consistent method to 
prevent the kind of political tyranny that you criticize, and I don't see
any recognition of this fact.
........................................................

1) Jim, why do you insist on discussing this on an forum for encryption?
2) Why do you suppose the Iraqis haven't already thought of doing this 
themselves?
3) The Mafia uses this method all the time - why then haven't they achieved 
a more rational society among themselves?
4) Weren't governments (like the U.S.) instituted to prevent this sort of 
thing (even if they don't work out as expected)? i.e., there were systems 
of courts and lawyers and such instituted to openly deal with "criminal" 
activity so that a) people could receive assistance against low-life 
degenerate killers, and b) it could be proven that the accused were indeed 
deserving of punishment.

Humans being what they are, this hasn't worked like it's supposed to, but 
the point is that there is a reason why such ideas for systems of justice 
were introduced in the first place.   That reason, as I eloquently read in 
a book, was "So That Reason May Live".  That is, so that people who choose 
to live in a "society" may do so by the method of solving problems through 
the application of intelligence, rather than merely knocking each other off 
because a voting majority decides they don't like someone.

Destructive people often ascend to positions of power not simply because 
they are ruthless, but because they have 1) many sycophantic followers and 
2) many ignorant, vulnerable people unable to prevent it.  You might be 
able to kill off  one Saddam, but potentially many others would be waiting 
in the wings to take his place.   The situation surrounding the existence 
of someone like Saddam is part of the contributing factors which keeps him 
there, not simply that one man himself.  It was the same with Hitler and 
with so many others  -  they don't just have an excess of  "power" 
concentrated within themselves which puts them in positions of control over 
others  - there will have been many people who will have helped put them 
there, expecting to derive benefits from it.

And what will be done about all those people who made this "power" 
possible?  You don't just kill the one man and be done with it - you have 
to also "kill" the conditions which maintained him.

    ..
Blanc