On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 7:14 AM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 1/10/2015 12:54 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: > > > > On Sat, Jan 10, 2015 at 7:19 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On 1/10/2015 2:00 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >> >> >> >> On Sat, Jan 10, 2015 at 12:24 AM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> On 1/9/2015 3:11 PM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: >>> >>> >>> ------------------------------ >>> *From:* meekerdb <[email protected]> <[email protected]> >>> *To:* [email protected] >>> *Sent:* Friday, January 9, 2015 2:45 PM >>> *Subject:* Re: Democracy >>> >>> On 1/9/2015 1:08 PM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: >>> >>> >>> ------------------------------ >>> *From:* meekerdb <[email protected]> <[email protected]> >>> *To:* [email protected] >>> *Sent:* Friday, January 9, 2015 12:25 PM >>> *Subject:* Re: Democracy >>> >>> On 1/9/2015 4:55 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >>> >>> Money becomes coercive under statism, because it becomes illegal to use >>> alternative currencies, operate outside of the banking and taxation system >>> and so on. >>> >>> >>> >>Banks used to issue their own script and in principle anyone could do >>> it. The trouble with anarcho-capitalism is that there's nothing to prevent >>> a group from organizing, forming a "government", raising an army a >>> conquering people around them. In fact that's exactly the arc of history. >>> If you want anarchy you can go to Syria or Somalia right now. >>> >>> What you describe is not the political philosophy of anarchy; what you >>> describe is life under warlords, and the susceptibility of anarchy to such >>> organized groups of thugs. >>> >>> Functioning anarchy would require a level of individual ethics that >>> does not yet exist (or at least is not widespread). Anarchy is vulnerable >>> to being destroyed by thuggery and mayhem; no doubt about that; however it >>> should not be confused with that heartless outcome. >>> >>> >>> >>Every form of government will work well with perfect people. >>> >>> That is side-stepping the point that some forms of social organization >>> require a much higher degree of civic involvement than others do. >>> >>> >>> Exactly, and anarchy that functions as well as constitutionally limited >>> democracy would require angels. >>> >> >> This overestimates the importance of things written in a piece of paper >> and underestimates the importance of social norms, culture and education. >> >> The reason why I don't go and loot my neighbours is not because a piece >> of paper says I can't, or even because I am afraid of the police. Remove >> this too things and I still wouldn't do it. I suspect everyone >> participating in this discussion is the same. Why? >> >> On the other hand, the Weimar constitution was powerless to stop the >> nazis, and the American constitution appears powerless to stop the NSA. >> >> >> And I think you underestimate it. It is something any citizen can >> point to as a norm. Notice that everyone who complains about the NSA's >> invasion of privacy cites the Constitution as evidence their complaint is >> justified. >> > > That is true, but it's far from the only argument. Now my question is: > do you figure that people think that invasion of privacy without a warrant > is wrong think that because of what the constitution says, or do you figure > invasion of privacy offends their sense of morality and then they look for > arguments to justify their position and find the constitution? > > > That's a good question, and the answer supports my point. When you poll > people and ask if they think it's right to wiretap people suspected of > plotting crimes the majority say yes. So in a way the Constitution informs > and bolsters people's understanding of the importance of freedom from > government surveillance. If they were just morally offended by > surveillance then they would be equally exercised about AT&T, Google, > Time-Warner, Verizon, and a dozen other corporate organizations that spy on > them. But because they know the Constitution forbids the government from > doing it they are much MORE offended when the government does it. > > > >> Without it they would have to give a long argument based the prior >> abuses that the founding fathers used to to support the right to privacy. >> > > This would be a good argument had the Constitution actually succeeded in > preventing total surveillance from the government on its own people. But it > didn't. > > > But it did. The NSA is only allowed to track who-calls-who, not what is > said. > Unfortunately, after Snowden we know better. One of the important tricks here is how they interpret the word "track". A secret court(!!!) decided that storing data is not tracking if no human is looking at it. So they can record your phone calls and the content of your internet communications and then, if they get a court order, they can go look at it. But they don't really need to bother about these warrants. The neat "five eyes" system allows the participants to spy on behalf of each other, circumventing these privacy protections. The NSA sent divers to place physical optical splitters on submarine cables. It stores all the data in gigantic datacenters and has algorithms comb through it. It infiltrated American companies, like Google, to install spying software on its servers. It also infiltrated technical committees responsible for cryptography standards to introduce backdoors in the implementation of cryptographic algorithms. These actions make us all less safe. Even open source cryptography projects like TrueCrypt decided to give up, because they were infiltrated by the NSA and realised they could do nothing against it. These are not the actions of an organisation that respects privacy. > The courts recently ruled that putting a GPS tracking device on a car > without a warrant was unconstitutional. > This tells us very little in a world where every single word in that sentence can be subject to "interpretation" by a secret court. > Would you rather live in a nation with no Constitutional prohibition of > unreasonable search and seizure or with one? > I would rather live in a nation with a Constitution that worked. If it doesn't work, it might make things worse, by masking the problem. Telmo. > > > Brent > > > I have to admit something though. I used to work in a lab not far from > Charlie Hebdo. Seeing the terrorist act in a very familiar setting is > incredibly disturbing. It made me understand the excesses after 9/11 a bit > better. A part of me feels that primordial "how dare they bring their > medieval rules and behaviours to my backyard". It's human, no doubt. > > Telmo. > > >> >> Brent >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Everything List" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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