From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jim Choate To: <9fans@cse.psu.edu> Subject: Re: [9fans] ISP filtering - update In-Reply-To: <0be801c38394$e11d5420$6400a8c0@dell01> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 14:05:19 -0500 Topicbox-Message-UUID: 4c4548e2-eacc-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 On Thu, 25 Sep 2003, Wes Kussmaul wrote: > Hey, Jim, I admit the spelling correction was just to push your buttons (and > I admit to enjoying the result) but how was my preceding message that > continued your doorbell metaphor out of line? I wasn't addressing that message. The point of the doorbell analogy is to make some comparison between well understood limits on behavior and how that maps onto new technology. It's just like the 4th search and the courts running around asking questions about this that or the other being allowed. The bottem line is that if you have probable cause any method is allowed. What the courts want to avoid is the probable cause in the first place. In general (and if it isn't general why are the laws there and were passed with so little opposition?) the powers that be want to make sure that we keep doing the same old same old. It means the status quo stays, but that isn't the point of a free market. The point of a free market is to find better ways, this means those who stick to the old ways lose what they got. Simply because you're rich today doesn't mean you have a right to keep it tomorrow, if it did how did you get it in the first place (I'm assuming your business was more efficient and not more criminal but examples of both abound)? The real point that few seem to get is that the means or mechanism isn't the issue. How one does something abusive is irrelevant, what we punish is being abusive. That the current law recognized electrons tied to a person as sufficient to hold the person accountable for their behavior yet doesn't recognize that other electrons acting in proxy for that person in another technology doesn't is a flaw in the law, the technology is irrelevant. Whether I ring your doorbell or your sendmail, it is still yours to decide how it should be used (within limits of course). The purpose of a doorbell is to let people know they have visitors. The same for a street address or a email address. When somebody abuses that then nail their scummy ass to the wall for a warning to the next reprobate. Another aspect is that business don't have rights (irrespective of the wrong headed laws that was passed after the Civil War) and yet we as citizens have sat on our butts and been lead to a world where business now controls the very system that was put up to protect us from it. It amazes me that so few people understand Santyana. Part of that was the growth of socialism in the late 1800's and how different ideas have crept into other political views. Look at the way the personal income tax was passed. The mechanism alone is enough, in a honest democracy, to have it invalidated. Consider, my right to religion and the 1st stricture against infringing it. Yet the tax laws do that every time that a person is put to death using public funds. I am forced to participate in the murder of another human being. Now some will argue that what they did justified this. Bullshit. Let he without stone cast the first stone. And what did the person in that example who was without sind od? Told the adultress to go home and sin no more. Stop throwing stones. One persons failure does not justify your own. But one does have a right to use force in -immediate- self defence to ensure that such an attack against themselves and future attacks against others are stopped at that point in time. Once that immediacy issue is over, the killer is in custody, no immediate threat remains and hence no justification for capital punishment remains. A similar failure in legal logic is the 'fire in a theatre' argument about controlling speech. Consider if I cause damage in a theatre, even with speech, the owner of the theatre and the patrons harmed have both civil and criminal recourse to make me pay. However, the courts use this in a very slimey manner to justify -a priori- limitations on speech with the supposition that harm -might- occur. Mainly harm to their political or economic position. It's just a guess on my part but a reasonably well democracy could probably function on about 200 laws. They just need to be based on principle and not political/economic expediency. Hope that is clearer. To all and sundry, I've other things to do now that are way more important. I'm out of here, color me Casper as I'm going to d-key on my end from this point on. -- -- God exists because mathematics is consistent, and the Devil exist because we can't prove it. Andre Weil, in H. Eves, Mathematical Circles Adieu ravage@ssz.com jchoate@open-forge.com www.ssz.com www.open-forge.com