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Re: AP [was: Re: Kiddie porn on the Internet] [NOISE]
Sandy Sandfort wrote:
> C'punks,
> On Mon, 23 Sep 1996, Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote:
> > There is no such thing as an "ordinary citizen". When the U.S.
> > commits war crimes in Korea, Viet Nam, Grenada, Panama, Somalia,
> > Iraq, and elsewhere,
> > every American taxpayer is an accomplice and a fair game.
> Illogical collectivist claptrap. When a taxpayer is targeted by
> terrorists, he has been victimized twice--first by the government
> that stole his money, second by the terrorist that punished him
> for the (alleged) acts others commited with that money. If a
> mugger buys a gun with the money he took from me, am I then
> responsible for the murder he commits with it? Clearly not.
> This line of "reasoning" is nothing more than a sad variant of
> the old, "blame the victim" game. For shame.
> Let's bring this back to crypto for a moment. Dimitri's "logic"
> must necessarily lead one to the conclusion that Cypherpunks (at
> least those in the US) are responsible for whatever draconian
> restrictions "our" government puts on free speech, crypto or
> whatever. John Gilmore, Philip Zimmermann, Whit Diffie and
> others will be chagrined to learn this, I'm sure.
> Dimitri needs to learn what it means to be an adult. Everyone is
> totally responsible for what they do, but ONLY for what THEY do.
> No one is responsible for the unassisted, willful acts of others.
You are committing a logical fallacy with the above. You're saying that
the mugger who commits the crime with a stolen gun is equivalent to my
own hired hitmen (the local and federal police I pay so dearly for).
This is obviously not the case. I didn't hire the mugger, nor did I
encourage the thief in an overt way. But I did consciously select and
pay for the police and govt. assassins. And so did you. Unless you're
saying that the govt. forcibly takes you down to the voting booth, etc.