🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Nov17.001101.21926@ncar.ucar.edu> prz@sage.cgd.ucar.edu (Philip Zimmermann) writes:
>If we are to prevent the electorate from backing legislation that
>will make cryptography a crime, we must have articulate agruments
>that will reach normal people with normal values.  Some of what I've
>seen lately does not meet that requirement.
	Sometimes you have to let the system break before it can
	be fixed.  The electorate has authorized all sorts of
	abominations lately.  The one that sticks most firmly
	in my craw is civil forfeiture.  It has been my experience
	that normal people with normal values hold some pretty outrageous
	positions about race, sex, gender, freedom, civil rights etc.  

>What I now read from some of you folks smacks of the same level of
>fanaticism as my old marginalized hardliner leftist friends with their
>Politically Correct preaching to the choir.  They used to incessantly
>bicker amongst themselves over who had the most orthodox P.C.
>position.  We used to have a joke--  "Q: How do you make a leftist
>firing squad?  A: Line everyone up in a big circle."   Sound
>familiar?  How are we ever going to reach the electorate?
	Fanaticism is part and parcel of free speech.  One man's
	fanaticism is another man's reasonable position.  Spirited
	public debate, and heated discussion is an old tradition
	in America.

	Have you considered the possibility that you may be
	wasting your time trying to explain cryptography to the electorate
	of a nation in which most people have not mastered 8th grade
	math?   Sad but true.

	And another thing dammit! ;-) I can't help grimacing whenever I hear 
	someone use the word "politically correct".  That little phrase has
	been the biggest success story in the right wing's campaign
	to ridicule diversity.  Even people on the left seem to use it.
	Its a red herring and it is usually used to batter people into
	being silent on issues of racism and sexism.  If you complain of
	insensitivity to the feelings of any group OTHER than hetero-sexual
	WASPS you are being "politically correct".   Right!



>I suppose these remarks will disillusion some of my PGP fans.  Oh well. 
	On the contrary, spirited debate is necessary for the truth
	to come out.  True believers in freedom welcome your point of view
	even if they thing you are totally off base.

>I'm going to be out of town for a few days this week.  I dread the
>500 backlogged testosterone-driven sci.crypt postings that will
>certainly be piled up when I return.  Damn.  When will the newsgroup
>ever get back to normal?
	Perhaps when they outlaw testosterone along with marijuana
	and public key cryptography. ;-)  Maybe we need a war on
	gonads. ;-)


						smg