From: "Phillip M. Hallam-Baker" <hallam@ai.mit.edu>
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 1997 16:16:34 -0800 (PST)
To: "'cypherpunks@toad.com>
Subject: Re: Feds reading this list, Jim Bell, and threats
Message-ID: <01BC412D.6B3C02C0@crecy.ai.mit.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Timothy C. May <tcmay@got.net> wrote in article <5i3tpu$86h@life.ai.mit.edu>...
> At 1:51 PM -0600 4/4/97, null@myemail.net wrote:
> 
> >  Horseshit. Anybody here ever hear of the Boston Tea Party? How
> >about the American Revolution?  War of Independece? French Revolution?
> >  You know, people who said "Fuck this shit, I've had enough." People
> >who acted in concert to fight injustice and oppression.

If you care to read the history of the times from unbiased sources 
you will find that the Boston patriots main gripe with Britain was
not the tax on tea but the insistence of the British authorities on
negotiating with the Sioux nation amongst others. It was the fear
that the British would sign a peace treaty with the Indians recognising
them as a sovereign nation that was the spark to the flame. Try
reading "Lies my teacher told me" sometime.

Given that the American revolution institutionalised slavery and
lead to the theft of Indian land, and the French revolution the murder of 
about quarter of a million people they cannot be said to be entirely
laudatory events. The national myths of the countries concerned 
nothwithstanding.

People are not fit judges of their own cause. The civil war was started
by the South who believed that the North might infringe their "right"
to own others as property.

> Note that I've never called for a witch hunt, nor have I called for his
> posts to be censored out of the list. I chose a long time ago to filter
> Jim's stuff into my appropriate folder for such stuff, and occasionally
> took him out of the filter when he seemed (from occasional checks on what I
> was filtering), to be discussing things other than his "Klaatu Narada
> Nictoo" (or whatever) Final Solution.

Same for me. I objected to Bell's AP proposal but not to his _right_
to post it. It was the tedious length at which he bored the rest of us
with it that I objected to.

Last I heard the Feds were concerned that he might have been putting 
AP into effect. Collecting the names and addresses of IRS officials,
setting up a kangeroo court to try them, sending them demands, those
sound like actions Bell would have serious difficulty in doing without
giving someone reasonable cause to believe they were being targetted
for murder.

	Phill