[clue] Cory Doctorow - war on general computing [talk]

[David L. Willson]

Er, the day after NYD. You know what I mean. Still haven't got my resolutions done, so it's still New Year's for me.  :-}

David L. Willson
Trainer, Engineer, Enthusiast
RHCE MCT MCSE Network+ A+ Linux+ LPIC-1 NovellCLA UbuntuCP
tel://720.333.LANS
Freedom is better when you earn it. Learn Linux.

----- Original Message -----
> New Year's Day seems like a good day to pontificate, and the thread
> is appropriately labeled, and nobody's asked me to STFU, so I'll
> have another go.
> 
> It seems to me like we've endorsed many sorts of laws and granted
> many sorts of powers to our rulers that have nothing to do with
> protecting one person from another. Laws and powers that, rather
> than protecting us from one another, allow us to pillage one
> another, starve one another, limit one another's autonomy, murder
> one another in fact, and preserve privilege for some, while utterly
> failing to protect others.
> 
> I believe our faith in the law, in enforcing the will of some on
> others, has cost us dearly in terms of freedom, and has caused us to
> participate in many things that can only be called atrocities.
> 
> Because we keep voting totalitarian. Because we keep deciding who
> should do what to our neighbors and with which weapon. Because one
> distrusts the other, is unwilling to forgive his faulty behavior,
> and believes, in spite of mounting evidence to the contrary, that
> suing him, bombing him, or legislating against him, will help the
> situation.
> 
> The litigator and the legislator are NOT our guardians! There's no
> profit for them in truly protecting us! In order to remain fed, they
> have to keep us at one another's throats, and believing that nobody
> actually cares about his fellow. They are the devils of our world,
> feeding on our hate, our distrust, and our fear. They bankrupt us,
> and gain power over us, because we refuse to believe in one
> another's goodness more deeply than we believe in force, and because
> we refuse to forgive or re-interpret any percieved injustice. We are
> too ready to believe that the other fellow is a villain, and it
> makes us fodder for the cannons.
> 
> I'd rather tolerate you socking me in the eye one day, and try to
> figure out why that happened with you or with you and some others we
> both respect, than create a law that says you mayn't, because I
> believe in you, and I believe that you and I, or you and I and our
> respected friends, can work it out better than you and I and the
> magistrate, or you and I and the governor, or you and I and our
> weapons. I don't believe you are a bad fellow. In fact, I believe
> you're doing the best you can with what you have, and further, I
> have made a commitment that nothing you can do will make me think
> otherwise about you. I'll live and die protecting your freedom to
> choose, even if you choose to sock me in the eye, say bad things
> about my lineage, and use Microsoft or Apple products. I believe
> that things between us can only get better, if we agree to make them
> better, freely.
> 
> David L. Willson
> Trainer, Engineer, Enthusiast
> RHCE MCT MCSE Network+ A+ Linux+ LPIC-1 NovellCLA UbuntuCP
> tel://720.333.LANS
> Freedom is better when you earn it. Learn Linux.
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> > I have some. You have some. Every man I know well enough to say
> > with
> > confidence whether or not he has some, has some.
> > 
> > I infer from that, not without some trepidation, that every man has
> > some.
> > 
> > I make an intuitive leap that honor has the same property that
> > faith
> > does. Even a very small amount, regularly exercised, can do great
> > things.
> > 
> > David L. Willson
> > Trainer, Engineer, Enthusiast
> > RHCE MCT MCSE Network+ A+ Linux+ LPIC-1 NovellCLA UbuntuCP
> > tel://720.333.LANS
> > Freedom is better when you earn it. Learn Linux.
> > 
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > > 
> > > > Men, freely associated and joined by agreements that are as
> > > > binding
> > > > as their own sense of honor,
> > > 
> > > There be the rub...where is the honor?
> > > 
> > > md
> > > 
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> > 
>