From: Tim May <tcmay@got.net>
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 09:37:07 +0800
To: Lizard <hallam@ai.mit.edu (Phillip M. Hallam-Baker)
Subject: Re: Singapore
In-Reply-To: <199712070907.RAA05005@brokat.com.sg>
Message-ID: <v0310280ab0b0e80d9a18@[207.167.93.63]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 12:40 PM -0700 12/7/97, Lizard wrote:

>At 05:07 PM 12/7/97 +0800, Harish Pillay wrote:
>... Well,
>indeed,
>>the top level ISPs here have choosen to use filtering proxy servers
>to filter
>                              ^^^^^^^^
>>out an alleged list of 100 porno sites (you can see that there is an
>on going
>>URL hunt to discover these filtered sites on
>>www.sintercom.org/hunt/rahunt.html.
>
>And if any of those ISP's "chose" not to engage in such filtering,
>how long would they be permitted to stay in business?

That would be doubleplus ungood. It is the duty of all to enforce mandatory
voluntary controls on thoughtcrime.

And anyone who chooses not to comply with mandatory voluntary controls is
clearly mentally unbalanced, and will be treated with compassion in a
Ministry of Harmony recovery center.

***

Seriously, I haven't been to Singapore, and don't plan to visit anytime
soon. But I really can't say whether the thought control regimen is
extremely bad, or just somewhat bad. What I do know is that I am deeply
suspicious of claims that controls are "willingly accepted" by the
majority, as some defenders of Singapore have claimed. Where rights get
interesting is on the margins, not back in the herd where the sheeple live.

Ditto for Germany, where defenders of German censorship claim it is the
will of most of the people that they be locked up should they question
details of the Holocaust, or deny that it occurred, or commit other
thoughtcrimes.

Oh, and the claim we just saw from Peter Herngaard, that:

"The distinction is very narrow since those who call for abolition of the
hate laws, at least in Germany, at the same time advocate expulsion of
non-whites or the establishment of a dictatorship."

is demonstrably false. There are civil rights groups in Germany calling for
the "abolition of the hate laws," and yet not arguing in favor of expulsion
of non-whites or for the imposition of a dictatorship.

The notion that "advocacy of abolishing hate laws" = "calling for expulsion
of non-whtes" is false. (Further, the notion that "calling for expulsion of
non-whites" is itself an actual crime against another person is also false.)

I could, for example, get on a plane tonight in San Francisco and be in
Berlin by Monday evening. I could begin passing out "The Holocaust Myth"
pamphlets, pointing out that the so-called "ovens" at the relocation camps
were actually never turned on, and that most of the so-called
exterminations of Jews never occurred.

All of this without once calling for expulsions of non-whites from Germany.
Or calling for the establishment of a government more dictatorial than the
current one.

So, would I be charged with a hate crime? Surely. And yet the other parts
of Peter's predicate are missing.

The way to prevent a repeat of Germany's unfortunate detour into national
socialism is to just not repeat it, to not let government gain the power to
build extermination camps, raid houses at night on flimsy pretexts,
mobilize industry, etc.

The same goes for the U.S., and other countries. This is partly why so many
of us speak out strongly against the U.S. Emergency Economic Powers
(National Security Decision Directives, FEMA and Office of Emergency
Preparedness orders, Presidential Findings, etc.) and the plans for
possible imposition of martial law (Operation Garden Plot, Operation
Vampire Killer, state militias, etc.).

The best way to dead off communism, national socialism, and dictatorship in
general is through free speech, private communications, lots of guns in the
hands of citizens, a decentralized government, states' rights, strong
cryptography, tax evasion tools, and so on.

Controlling free speech has virtually nothing to do with this avoidance of
national socialism. (For a variety of reasons, too numerous to get into
here. Read Hayek, von Mises, etc. on the virtues of open societies. And
remember that "hate crime" laws almost by definition don't apply to sitting
officials....Hitler would have loved to have laws in 1933 to stop citizens
from expressing certain thoughts, but had such hate laws been in effect
then, he surely would not have applied them to himself.)

There is also the very real psychological phenomenon of "forbidden fruit
tasting sweeter." Many suspect the current resurgence of Nazism and
skinhead ideologies (loosely speaking) in Germany has a lot to do with the
thoughts being banned.

Nazism would lose a lot of its mystique if ideas could be expressed freely
in Germany.

As for the U.S. influencing Germany to crack down on free speech and
freedom of religion, I don't deny this. But that was 45-50 years ago, and
it was under military rule of a conquered nation (and imposed by victorious
generals, who, given their druthers, would have probably outlawed any kind
of free speech at all, given the way the military mind often thinks). Time
for Germany to now have its own laws.

Germany's recent actions agasint the Church of Scientology are also disturbing.

(Some of my friends are active in the War Against Scientology. I am not. I
view Scientology as just another wacky belief system. Think of it as
evolution in action. I cannot condone state actions against religions, no
matter how strange, provided their beliefs do not impinge on my rights and
the rights of others. Thus, human sacrifice of non-volunteers would be
actionable, but not human sacrifice of true believers. Or drug use. Or
whatever.)

Enough for now.

I really do with



The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^2,976,221   | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."