From: Jim Choate <ravage@einstein.ssz.com>
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 15:10:49 +0800
To: cypherpunks@einstein.ssz.com (Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer)
Subject: RE: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone (fwd)
Message-ID: <199811120647.AAA27853@einstein.ssz.com>
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Forwarded message:

> Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 20:34:10 -0500
> From: Petro <petro@playboy.com>
> Subject: RE: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone
>  (fwd)

> 	There is an expectation that when one travels, one is protected by
> certain laws, at least the laws of the country that one is traveling to.

Absolutely, that concept does not proscribe them from making a law to
recognize the laws of other countries. It doesn't make it right but then
again the freedom of choice implies the freedom to make mistakes. It figures
that on occassion it'll be a whopper (TM).

If Penoche didn't know that Spain could extradite him from England then
he needs to hire a new lawyer. There is absolutely no expectation in the
concept of freedom that prohibits one from walking into a police station and
admitting a crime. This isn't even an issue, neither the British or the
Spanish forced him to England. And the Spanish didn't force Britian to sign
the treaty recognizing extradition. He got what he deserves. He was stupid
to have treated anyone like that and he was stupid to go to England. He is a
stupid man.

My personal view is I don't care unless I am in that country. If I have an
expectation to go somewhere I check on the laws before I'd go.

> 	There are also certain types of crimes that are so morally
> reprehensible that to allow them to continue is not possible.

Absolutely, and each country should have it's right to choose it's own
particular brand of reprehensibility recognized.

> 	Or are you willing to go on record as stating that what Stalin did
> to the Jews (or Hitler for that matter) was acceptable, since we shouldn't
> have a say in their laws?

Well, you have to understand I'm a pantheist. I know it's easy to shrug off
and say "so what" but I can't answer this exactly unless you fundamentaly
understand literal pantheism. But I'll try.

I believe there is no transcendence. As a result everything is divine
because that's all there is. To disrespect the uniqueness in anything is a
disservice to self. However, concepts of literal sin to my view simply don't
exist. The killing of a human by a human is not fundamentaly (think of it as
outside of human society, it's close but not close enough) different than a
human killing a rabbit, or crushing a rock, or painting a picture. It's an
activity, in and of itself it is nothing more than a cold, cosmic event
mediated by complete and utter indifference. The universe does not act with
anthropocentric motives or mechanations. However, within the concerns of
human biology, psychology, and society there is a very real distinction. As
a matter of fact there are quite a few. Since they are all a construct of
human existance they deserve some level of respect, the freedom of
expression in speech and press, not necessarily in action. Because of the
fundamental uniqueness of anything, to destroy or change it with willful
intent (I wish I could express this better, all I can say is it isn't what
normal English means by those two words exactly enough) except in
self-defence or survival (eg killing an animal for food) is not moraly
(permissible at the level of individual) or ethicaly (the range of
permissible acts related to an activity, say a doctor or lawyer)
supportable.

I am willing to go on record stating that what they did from a national
level should concern no nation that is not directly involved. Nations do not
have the right to impose their will on other nations, period. Nations may of
course dissolve and reform of their own free will and whim. From a personal
level everyone should have run over there in about 1936 and kicked their
stinking ass as volunteers (the fact that it is not in human nature to
participate in mass exhibitions like this voluntarily is another reason that
anarcho-whatevers won't work). From a fundamentaly cosmic perspective what
they did is completely and utterly irrelevant and of no consequence. At the
same time I'm horrified that human beings can do that to other people and
live with themselves. The total lack of empathy I find utterly chilling.
Poppy Z. Brite in carnate.

Let me give you another example, unless the US is attacked directly by Iraq
we have no business threatening, let alone initiating, violence.

But I'll do what I did the last time we got in a scrap with the rag-head,
whatever I can. To do any less might cost somebody their life through my
negligent short-term unprincipled self-interest, a sin of ommission for a man
of no sins, I won't stop bitching about it either.

Does that help any better? Life is a contradiction in motion.

> >Do you want Germany having a say in our laws (for example)?
> 
> 	They do already, it's called international trade.

Me selling apples to a German doesn't involve their having a say in my law
making unless I'm an idiot in making the laws I operate under. There are
treaties, but the assumption is that they are entered into freely and with
comprehension. If they don't and do well that's their problem.

> 	Also, if I were a Catholic in a death camp because Jesse Helms
> ramed thru legislation blaming the Y2K bug on the Holy C, I'd hope someone
> would intervine.

Congress can't make laws respecting establishments of religion. Not only
can't they support any, they can't prohibit any, they can't even
constitutionaly decide what a religion is. Per the 10th that is left to the
individual states and their respective representative constitutions.

> 	But you claimed it started in the early 1900's in response to
> deaths and blindness.

The regulation of the manufacture and sales of alcohol started after the
civil war, late 1800' and early 1900's depending on your geography. It's
impossible to set a single date since the various laws were'not all initiated
at the same time. I believe somebody else is the person who equated
prohibition with regulation. In general the laws were put in place because
either there was a problem with tainted alcohol (this was a real problem in
the very early 1900's because of the use of lead pipes and other amalgams
that don't treat people nicely) or excessive consumption by the youth
usualy (ala The Great Gatsby). The laws got a lot more draconian after
prohibition was renounced. This is when many states really jumped on the
taxation band-wagon.

The reasoning behind the taxation of alcohol is the same today as it was in
Jeffersons day. He said that the taxation was intended to reduce the use
because of its debilitating effects. Then of course there is the
consideration of what a government can do with that money as well. This
taxation is what started the Whiskey Rebellion in the late 1790's. Jefferson
finaly repealed it after quite a string of violence in the early 1800's
(sorry I don't remember the actual dates, a web search on Whiskey Rebellion
would probably turn something up). During the whole thing Washington was
riding his fat ass around buying cheap land and forceably moving people who
had lived there, in general acting the little tyrant. He was involved in at 
least two related deaths and had invested in the business and supported the
taxation.

What's really interesting is that when these taxes were intiated in the
early 1700's (originaly by the British) they were imposed on the
manufacturer not the consumer even though they were to limit the consumption
and not the manufacture.

The history of alcohol is long and twisted.

> 	It prevents the press from manipulating the government because
> there ISN'T ONE, or if there is (in the case of extreme
> libertarian/minarchist) it is so restricted and powerless it can't do
> anything execpt try to gather more power.

True, but then the news papers (they are not the same as the press - where
that commen misconception is from is beyond my keen) would just pander to
their extant major supporter, advertisers. How honest do you think that
would make them? Not very. If given the choice between the truth or a fatter
check newspapers (and their reporters) have in general chosen the way of the
greenback.

Jefferson said he would never write a line in a newspaper, and didn't. He
thought them vile. He however held the free press (he meant unrestrained
communication between individuals) in high regard (obviously).

> 	Yes, businesses can manipulate the press, and do-gooders can always
> start their own press and fight back.

Who do they buy the press parts from? The ink and paper? The distribution
channles? Etc. You might be able to start one up but you won't last long in
a monotonicly profit driven free-market. If they rake muck too much they
won't have a rake anymore.

> 	Yeah, and there are laws against Drug Dealing which work real well.

There's probably a lesson in there somewhere...

> 	I wanna say Karen something or other as one case--Silkwood?

That was one of the ones I was thinking of.

> 	Point still holds, you speak out, you get in trouble, legal or no.
> Laws don't prevent things from happening, they simply give society the
> moral authority to say "We Warned You, Now Off With His Head" or some such.

They moderate and mediate those actions and in fact do set a limit on what
can occur at the social level. I'll say it again, government isn't for
regulating individual interactions at the daily level. It's simply too fine
grain. It will control trends and behaviours with a good deal of aplomb (if
it's not abused) - and I'm talking specificaly of a republican democracy
like the US has.

Governments address the general parameters of a society.

> 	When was the last time you _didn't_ kill someone just because it is
> illegal?

Every time. I can think of three times. Two accidents hunting and the third
a crazy with a knife. On a personal level I felt my sense of justification
from committing such an act didn't equate to me spending time in jail.
They're still alive, and I didn't do time. Works for me. In all three times
I could have shot them and walked off, I wouldn't have been found and there
were no connections. All three times were completely random events,
hapinstance. I quit hunting after the second hunting event. I also don't go
for long walks on the other side of the tracks at 2am anymore when I can't
sleep. Some junior high kid tried to rob me.

> 	It's expected, but illegal?

How can it be illegal if there are no bodies to create them, courts to
ejudicate them, supposedly unbiased police to enforce them. Now if we agree
that human nature isn't going to change then there is still the unanswered
(but asked a few dozen times) as to what the exact mechanism is that
prevents abuse. Simply saying that people will find out is not historicaly
reliable, people just don't volunteer for those sorts of things. Their first
reaction is to stay out of it. Even if they find out what do they do about
it? Go to a similar business down the street that operates identicaly?

> 	It prevents government abuse, it prevents systemic abuse of power
> and authority.

Rape is rape, the point is to prevent it. Not just prevent it from your
father.

> 	It also makes it easier to get people to resist abuse & to fight
> back, since the abuse isn't built in, nor do the abusers have any sort of
> "authority" to fall back on.

People are more likely to suffer injustice as long as its sufferable. It's a
rare event to incite a large population to violence.

> 	Which is different from now HOW?

At least now there are limits to how ruthless they may be. You don't see
tanks on your street corner, there aren't troops of men running around
dragging people out of their homes because they're catholic or read 'Catcher
in the Rye' or 'Atlas Shrugged' and shooting them. And people (like us right
now) get to bitch about it with as near complete impunity as is possible in
a real world. Hell through the amendment process we can concievably bypass
the federal government completely. All that is required is the calling of a
convention, which the federal government have no authority over (especialy
since the right to peaceably assemble is protected and it don't get much more
peaceable than a constitutional convention).

> 	Isn't Billy Gates one of your poster boys for being ruthless? Isn't
> he so far head of the rest of us that he could be in court for the rest of
> his life and not spend everything?

What makes Bill Gates reprehensible is not what he did with Microsoft,
though the company as a whole should suffer. They certainly made profit
together, they should share the flip side of the coin.

Why I hold Bill Gates in so low esteem is his moral standing. A perfect
example is hurricane Mitch. The World Bank came up with a tad over $100M for
releif. Bill makes that in a few days. Here is a man with the means to
institute huge social, political, and economic change that at his level is
a pittance and he does nothing. He is scum. He made his bed, let him lie in
it. He didn't help others when they could have used it at little to no
impact to him, why should they extend a helping hand in return?

This is another excellent example of why anarcho-whatevers won't work. The
psychology of the truly wealthy is so self-interested and goal-oriented
instead of principled that they almost become pathological in their lack of
empathy. The claim is that succesful business will be some sort of utopic,
empathetic social force. It won't be, it isn't in human nature.

> 	Greed is not an agenda, it is an emotion, Profit is an agenda.

True, but there are many potential motives that drive profit, greed is the
most base one and as a result drives the lower levels of human activity.

I gotta stop now, I'm sleepy.

If I didn't get around to answering all the questions it's because there are
lots of you and only one of me...ask again in a few days and I'll answer it
then.

Good night.


    ____________________________________________________________________
 
            Lawyers ask the wrong questions when they don't want
            the right answers.

                                        Scully (X-Files)

       The Armadillo Group       ,::////;::-.          James Choate
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