From: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 1997 04:57:17 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: Br'er Tim and the Bug Hole
In-Reply-To: <199711111642.KAA20562@wire.insync.net>
Message-ID: <v03110741b08e51241192@[139.167.130.248]>
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At 11:21 am -0500 on 11/11/97, Tim May wrote:

> Maybe a book about fighting for
> liberty provided "abstract advocacy speech so explicit in its palpable
> entreaties to violent crime" (and so it is unprotected, according to the
> courts).

And then he wrote:

> But in many ways, this is good news. The war is coming faster than I
> thought.
>
> The judge in this case has committed a capital crime.


"Please, Br'er Fox, don' throw me into that briar patch!"???


Sheesh.

Remind me not to lock myself up, all alone, with a bunch of live ammo and
almost no one to talk to but the internet, in an isolated hilltop
country-house-cum-cypherfortress, in the most liberal county, in the most
liberal state, in the world's last (crypto)socialist superpower.


I mean, Tim, I have to admit I'm just as nervous as the next guy about being
next to soft targets these days, but I almost find myself agreeing with
other people, people you would respect otherwise, who are saying that you're
making yourself the greatest friend that Reno and Freeh ever had. A
vertiable poster boy for statism if there ever was one. And so on.


I figure the state, particularly the guys who work at the pointy end of the
bayonet, is kind of like Mongo in "Blazing Saddles": You shouldn't shoot at
them, because it only makes them mad. Unless, of course, they start shooting
at you first, and you have no other choice. Which, by the way, *you're* not
doing, even though you assert the opposite. "Mooning the ogre" of public
opinion, as Stuart Alsop puts it, and forcing a showdown with people who
would normally not give a shit about you, isn't going to do you, or anyone
who agrees with you, any good. It's like spitting on a cop as he walks by
and then marvelling at his suprising ferocity when he beats you to a bloody
pulp...

I mean, even the best Heinlien hero knows you don't piss off the bad guys
when there are more of them than you, especially when they know where you
live.


And, frankly, I even disagree with Tim's analysis of the situation. It took
a long time, all the way from the treaty of Westphalia to the Declaration of
Independence, for the modern nation-state to finally overthrow aristocracy
and demonstrate its superiority in the allocation of force. After that, it
took less than a generation, with the French revolution and Napoleon, for
the nation-state to show all the really bad things it can do with that
power.

I expect that, even with "net-years" and Moore's Law, it'll be quite a while
yet for the cryptoanarchy/Market Earth/geodesic society/whatever
"revolution" to finish, and, when it does, the result will probably be much
less violent than a SWAT raid on Tim's Way Cool Latter-Day
Farnham's-Freehold in the Santa Clara mountains.

What it'll mean *after* that, I leave as an excercise for the reader. Tim's
got just as good an idea about it as Duncan, or me, or anyone else with (in
my case, at least) a hyperactive imagination and too much time to use it.
Frankly, it would be nice to have Tim around to watch it happen, or at least
to think about it some more. If he's got nothing better to do, that is.


On the other hand, Tim, I suppose, there *is* Bosnia as a prima facie
counterexample, and I bet that *that* little fandango probably started with
a bunch of "freedom fighters" like the one you fancy yourself to be these
days.

Frankly, if that's the model you want to follow, Tim, I would suggest that
you actually move somewhere where other folks who think like you live
already, instead of shoving your favorite Mac-10 up the nose of every
statist treehugger you bump into out there in lotusland. Maybe (ironically)
the "Blue Heaven" neighborhoods in Idaho, or somewhere in southeast Nevada,
or Arizona, or Wyoming, or Montana. I like the North Fork of the Flathead,
myself, but that's just 'cause the country's so damn pretty. "Amerika", such
as it is, is still a pretty big place.

I bet if you go to a place like that, where intellegent people appreciate
guns and freedom, you won't have to clean the snot off the end of your
gunbarrel so often, and, you might have some help when -- or if -- Mongo's
Minions eventually *do* burn their way through your steel-reinforced front
door.

I also think using a nym for this kind of inflamitory stuff might also be
more useful, first amendment, or no. Write code, not laws, and all that.
Certainly the tools are there, now, and, if they're not to your liking, you
could probably build (or buy :-)) a few of your own. Even Patrick Henry had
um, common sense, about such things.


Finally, Tim, it seems to me like you've just gotten bored. You've figured
out how to work, and save, and invest the proceeds, so that now you're never
going to have to work again a day in your life unless you want to. Something
most of us, myself included, will never learn, I bet. But now, it's as if
you want to risk it all, and make your life, um, interesting, again, by, as
Kesey once said, "starring in your own movie".

And, it's a bad movie, Tim.  With all the good ideas you have about freedom,
and cryptography on free networks, and the way the world's probably going to
turn out as a result, not to mention the influence you've had on the way the
world thinks about such things, it's a shame that this particular movie of
yours has such a cliche', almost cringingly liberal, 1970's anti-hero in it,
ala "Marathon Man", or "Day of the Condor", or "Butch Cassidy". Or "Bonnie
and Clyde".


Frankly, I liked Lazarus Long, or even old Farnham himself, a lot better.
Hell, even a better, more libertarian (Nazi uniforms? Sheesh^2...), remake
of "Starship Troopers" would be preferrable to the scipt you've written
yourself.

At least Johnny Rico walks away when the bugs are finished coming out of the
bug-hole...


Cheers,
Bob Hettinga



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Yes. It's 5.5 . Resistance is futile...

-----------------
Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), Philodox
e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/
Ask me about FC98 in Anguilla!: <http://www.fc98.ai/>