encryption technology (was : Re: OT?: Legal question about p2p)

[Jeff Garland]

On Tue, 31 May 2005 18:09:59 -0700, Vaughn Treude wrote

> industry.)  My information is dated, though, so perhaps this has been
> affected by the Police State (oops, I mean PATRIOT) Act.

.libertarian rant on

I'm sorry, that's silly -- the constitution was thrown out long, long ago. 
The patriot act was a big nothing in comparison to what came before.  You
should read up on how old Abe Lincoln jailed 14,000 dissidents, closed down
300 newspapers that disagreed with his view, etc.  

Think a little about the military draft for a minute -- that's the state
totally violating your freedoms of choice.  Last I checked, every able bodied
18 year old male has to register with the federal government -- that should
send chills down the spine of any good libertarian.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/grigg-w5.html

The tax code takes your money away -- forcing you to pay for all sorts of
silly and useless gov't programs -- along with some good ones.  You are now a
servant of the government for more than 1/4 of the time you work. Do you think
your grandparents faced such a burden?  Not a chance.  Just a small idea:

Inflation adjusted total taxes for median 2 income Family
1957 $8,281
1977 $17,050
1997 $22,169

I'm not saying there should be no taxes, but it's out of control.  Put another
way:

Taxes as % of Net National Product:
1900 - 9%
1940 - 16%
1960 - 28% 
1980 - 32%
2000 - 34%

Want more:

http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxfreedomday/
http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/151.html
http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski96.html

Recently, RICO laws have inverted the "innocent till proven guilty" concept.
They allow the government to seize your assests without charges.  Don't carry
around too much cash -- the government might seize it.  Can't believe it?

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-179.html
http://www.lewrockwell.com/anderson/anderson9.html

So sadly I believe we live in a world of legacy and unconstitutional laws --
it's really time to throw most of it out and start over.  We see this all the
time in software, but we haven't had nearly as much time to make a mess of
things like the lawyers have ;-)

And, of course, ultimately we the people are to blame for this mess.  Every
time someone thinks there is a need for a government program we should be
thinking about why we can't start a private foundation to do the same thing. 
As an example, how was polio defeated? Eradicated through research, etc by a
private foundation called the March of Dimes.  As long as we ask the
government to take away our money and our rights they will gladly do it.

.libertarian rant off

Sorry that was just waiting to come out...

Jeff