OK to advocate overthrow of the government

[tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)]

David Koontz writes:

> As I understand it the Libertarian Party qualifies membership to exclude
> any endorsement of violent overthrow of government.  While some portion
> of those affected by this policy may well have gone underground, I don't 
> believe that cypherpunks as a committee of the whole are willing or ready 
> to do so.

The (contentious) Libertarian Party "pledge" has to do with the
"initiation of force" in general. Most of us interpret this liberally,
or as we wish, and certainly few feel it constrains our agenda.

> Avoiding the appearance of endorsing the violent overthrow of government 
> is prudent policy for any organization.

In any case, my understanding of U.S. law is that it's legal to
advocate the overthrow of the government, it's legal to advocate the
use of violence, it's just not legal to combine the two and advocate
the _violent overthrow_ of the government.

(I'm sure there are subtleties lost here. Certainly advocating
violence that then _leads_ to violence may expose one to conspiracy,
solicitation of a crime, etc., charges. But generally, neo-Nazis are
relatively free to say "Kill all the Jews," provided they don't
actually commit violence---things are changing with the new standards
for "hurtful" and "discriminatory" speech, though. And rap musicians
are free to chant about killing cops and so forth.)

Overthrowing the government by force has never been a mainstream
Cypherpunk position. Use of strong crypto to protect privacy has, and
this may have some longterm implications for the form of government,
however. (Things like enforceability of tax laws, of export laws, and
speech laws. These will all be affected radically.)

As others have noted, Cypherpunks have a range of political beliefs,
from libertarian to socialist to ravist.


-Tim May


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