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Re: quote

On Sun, 28 Sep 1997 at 19:11, Zooko Journeyman <zooko@xs4all.nl>
farted:

> Igor Chudov contributed a quote from some government manual:

>> These anti-government  extremists and  supporters  are  convinced
>> citizens  are  being  systematically  oppressed  by  an  illegal,
>> totalitarian government.   They  believe the time for traditional
>> political reform  has passed,  that their  freedom will  only  be
>> secured  by  resistance  to  the  law  and  attacks  against  the
>> government in several forms.
>>
>> Members of these groups bond to one another and lose contact with
>> other people who hold different opinions.  The isolation works to
>> reinforce their  views, which  in turn  gives them  new  purpose.
>> This new purpose may take ordinary ideas to extremes, rationalize
>> their problems  into blaming  government, and  cause  members  to
>> compete with each other to make stronger statements.

> Couldn't've said it better myself.

> I see the same pattern in cypherpunks and in my non- (or 
> barely-) 'Netted extremist friends of the right, the 
> libertarian, and the left varieties.

> I've argued with myself for years about whether the spread of 
> the Net would connect these people back to their fellow humans,
> by offering uncensorable, violence-free communication channels,
> or whether it help them to make virtual communities consisting
> solely of people who reinforce their own beliefs.

> I'm still hoping for the former...

> Z, hopeful cynic

Jerk! You don't have the slightest clue about what is going
on over here, do you?