From: Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 03:25:02 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: HISTORY - pre-CDA, "compromise", untrue civil-liberties groups
In-Reply-To: <19970719072518.07383@bywater.songbird.com>
Message-ID: <19970721120326.06352@bywater.songbird.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



On Sun, Jul 20, 1997 at 02:40:07PM -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote:
> Kent,
> 
> Yours is an interesting response. But what if one has no principles, just
> strategy and tactics?

???The obvious answer is that such a person doesn't exist.  You may
not be able to articulate your principles, they may change, they may
be "bad" or purely selfish, but they are there, guiding your actions. 
I view your question as equivalent to "But what if one has no
brain..." Principles are underlying rules controlling behavior, and
are orthogonal to bad and good. 

> If you don't know what your principles are -- if you can't identify them
> and speak to them -- then you have no business being an advocate.

If this rule were strictly followed there would be very few advocates 
indeed. :-) 

Your car is stuck in the mud, the river is raising.  Is it better to
get dirty and get the car out, or to keep your hands clean, and write
off the car? Obviously the question isn't whether or not your hands
get dirty -- the question is whether the car can be saved, and what it
is worth. 

-- 
Kent Crispin				"No reason to get excited",
kent@songbird.com			the thief he kindly spoke...
PGP fingerprint:   B1 8B 72 ED 55 21 5E 44  61 F4 58 0F 72 10 65 55
http://songbird.com/kent/pgp_key.html