From: John K Clark (johnkc@well.com)
Date: Mon Oct 20 1997 - 22:57:53 MDT
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On Mon, 20 Oct 1997 Freespeak <f-prime@activist.com> Wrote:
>IS "GOVERNMENT" POSSIBLE?
If by "government" you mean as I do, something that claims rights and powers
that individuals do not have and corporation could not dream of, then the
answer from history is as obvious as it is tragic.
>Individual human beings are volitional. We have power of choice.
It's not that easy, my power is limited, I can't do what I don't want to do I
can only do what I want to do, and by pulling my fingernails off one by one
with a pair of pliers you can radically change what I want to do. Government
learned that long ago, and they don't have to do it to everybody to stay in
power, just enough to generate a climate of fear.
>The notion that we can be "externally controlled" is a myth. It's
>only because most people have been brainwashed into believing and
>obeying terrocrats
Don't underestimate them, believing such creatures is irrational, but obeying
them is most certainly not. Galileo was not tortured but he was shown the
instruments for it, as the worlds greatest expert on mechanics at the time
he certainly understood how such machines operated, as a result he publicly
apologized for his scientific ideas and said in writing that the church was
right, the Earth was the center of the universe after all. I certainly don't
hold this against Galileo, instead I look at it as yet another example of the
man's enormous intellect. Only 20 years before, another astronomer Giordano
Bruno, said that space was infinite, the stars were like the sun only very
far away and life probably filled the universe, but Bruno was not as smart as
Galileo, he refused to recant his views. For the crime of heresy Bruno was
burned alive in the center of Rome so all could see, according to custom
green wood was used because it doesn't burn as hot so it takes longer to kill.
>Considering these cybernetic factors, you could conclude that, in
>order for "government control" to be possible: (i) The terrocrats who
>masquerade as "government" would have to have extremely fast brains
Little danger in that.
>The "controlled" victims would have to provide the terrocrats with
>all the information necessary for "external control" (or the
>terrocrats would have to be omniscient); (iii) The "controlled"
>victims would have to have extremely slow brains
Again I think you're underestimating these people because all you've proved
is that government can't force a society to go in any direction it wants,
but that much is obvious, communist leaders repeatedly gave orders for their
society to move in the direction of prosperity, it didn't, but that doesn't
mean their silly orders didn't change things. Government doesn't have the
power to engineer the world to their liking, but it can see to it that my
present wishes remain unfulfilled and it can make my future desires be very
simple, either to stop pulling my fingernails out or just slit my throat
and put an end to it.
John K Clark johnkc@well.com
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