From: "S. M. Halloran" <mitch@duzen.com.tr>
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 14:36:36 +0800
To: cypherpunks@Algebra.COM
Subject: Re: "Show me an example of terrorists using the Internet or cryp
In-Reply-To: <Mutt.19971001191622.alexlh@sarah.yc>
Message-ID: <199710020617.IAA23092@ankara.duzen.com.tr>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Cynthia Brown <cynthb@sonetis.com> wrote on  1 Oct 97:

> Canada may be regulated to death according to most libertarians, but
> I for one like it that way.  I can walk alone and unarmed at night
> in Ottawa, Toronto, etc. without fearing for my life.  Can a female
> resident of Washington or New York say the same?  Our schools do not
> have metal detectors at the entrances because they are not needed. 

Painting America with a rather broad brush, aren't you?  I never went 
to a school--and I attended public schools for ALL of my 
education--which had a metal detector.  But comparing America and 
Canada is pretty much apples and oranges again.  Do you [in Canada] 
really have our ethnic mix?

America's violence problem is not one bit related to guns everywhere 
in the street.  There are much deeper problems, including distrust 
between ethnic groups.  The O.J.Simpson was a real eye-opener on 
black-white relations, for example, and I think the Native Americans 
have yet really to speak about the shitty way they have been treated 
over the years.  By the way, have Canada's European descendants come 
to proper terms with its native American neighbors?

> 
> IMNSHO the best way to fight crime is not with bigger guns than the
> "bad guys", but with better social programs such as universal health
> care, and improved day care so single parents can show their kids
> what a productive lifestyle looks like.  This takes longer than
> blowing the brains out of some teenager that feels his only path to
> a better life is through crime, and it doesn't give the same
> adrenalin rush.  However, it works at the source of crime, and not
> the consequences. 
> 
> Cynthia, unrepentant bleeding-heart liberal
>      Cynthia H. Brown, P.Eng.

Now you're talking!  Don't ever repent for thinking clearly.  But do 
keep in mind that not all people who own guns and wear red plaid 
Pendletons and sport scraggly beards are the neoFascists of tomorrow. 
I don't own a gun myself, but I wouldn't hesitate to obtain one to 
defend my civil rights against a corrupt police force or government 
"just doing its job" (how many horror stories do we hear about a 
bureaucracy going by the rules as it sees them and with a stroke of 
the pen, a mid-level govt official puts a family on to the street?  
And this can happen in the US?  Book recommendation:  Dark Rivers of 
The Heart by Dean Koontz;  think it's all fiction?)

Yours in paranoia, ;-)