Why are there so many statists and communists here on this list now?

[Declan McCullagh]

On Fri, May 02, 2003 at 11:18:22AM -0700, Matt Beland wrote:
> Why are you upset about it?
> 
> I mean, there are two possibilities. Either this mailing list is for useful 
> discussion, or it's not.

I don't think Tim is upset (not speaking for him of course but his 
message had more the tone of boredom and mild curiosity). 

Yes, this mailing list is for useful discussion. Remember, going over
the same old arguments does get stale after a while.

There is also an unspoken assumption that folks who hope to be
interesting list posters will share a common vocabulary and
literature. Books that seem to influence cpunks include Applied
Crypto, Heinlein's earlier stuff, Vinge, Ender's Game, Stephenson's
Cryptonomicon (a little recent, but still), Road to Serfdom, David
Friedman, some of Murray Rothbard and von Mises' work. Lately I've
been rereading some of the original public choice theory work out of
George Mason (and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy," a great
read).

I'd guess that except in die-hard lefty cases, it's somewhat difficult
to read those kind of volumes and still remain enthusiastic about tax
rates that exceed, say, 50 percent and the accompanying regulatory
structure. Perhaps more to the point, this list has always been about
(at least I discovered it in late 1994) the social and political
impacts of crypto and related technologies, and those are probably not
incredibly friendly to a hyper-regulatory state.

So, yes, the "Klansmen, feminists, nazis, Libertarians of any sort,
Democrats, Greens, Republicans" are welcome. But may we ask in turn
that they appreciate the vocabulary and literature?

-Declan