[extropy-chat] Defending freedom

[Keith Henson]

At 03:23 PM 4/21/2007 +1000, Brian wrote:
>Keith wrote:

snip

> > We can't take out money with us Keith. What we can do
>     is influence the reputations we leave behind.

You forget who I am.

snip

>I used to think that way.  Wore a white rose to my court appearances
>even.  Now I am not at all sure they could have had an effect against the
>social forces at work and the psychological traits humans have that came
>out of our history as hunter gatherers.
>
> > You are wrong about the psychological traits that came out of human
>     history. Its not hunter gather times that shapes modern behavior its
>     the modern jungle still there beneath the thinest of thin venears.

History as hunter gatherers = evolutionary history.

snip

>Unfortunately, an irrational leader is what you should expect to develop
>when the hunter gatherer band is under attack.
>
> > My point exactly. If you country is no better than a hunter gather
>   band, stand by, to be replaced by something better and more
>   evolved.

It isn't countries, it's people.  People are the result of millions of 
years of selection in hunter gatherer bands.  If you want to get to the 
root of things like war, support for war develops by an evolved mechanism 
for powering up the circulation of xenophobic memes in peoples who foresee 
a bleak future.   This is what drove our ancestors into wars and what 
drives the remaining hunter gatherer groups into wars.  In the EEA, a bleak 
future could almost always be made brighter by killing off neighbors and 
taking their resources.

Mapping these stone age mechanisms in the current world isn't easy, but it 
sure accounts for a lot of what we see.

>But if you have any specific ideas, please let me know.  Private email if
>you like.
>
> > My idea is that you uphold the constitution and laws that you already
>    have. My idea is that when a President takes an oath to you as a citizen
>    that he will uphold the constitution and its laws, that you bloody well
>insist
>   that he does. My idea for you is that you should write your
>representatives
>   in congress demanding that the promise that was made you be kept.

And it is your thesis that this will have an effect?  Do you think I have 
not written representatives *many* times?

snip

>It's a much more difficult situation than I thought it would be eleven
>years ago.  The rule of law depends on honest courts.
>
> > The President picks the supreme court judges. The President appoints
>    the Attorney General.   Are you aware of where the Attorney General
>    is at the moment?
>
>What can you do when you find the courts themselves are committing
>criminal acts?
>
> > If you don't wait to long you can use your free speach to stop the rot.
> > You
>can get others of like minds to work with you.

I have been doing this for better than a decade now with very little effect.

Using free speech arguments of exposing criminal activity was overruled by 
copyright considerations by Judge Whyte and the cult was awarded about 
$200,000.

Picketing and posting on the net got me convicted by a corrupt court of 
"interfering with a religion."  The link I posted in my last exchange with 
you showed that the court itself was engaged in crime.

Please examine the history of my efforts.  If you have solid suggestions as 
to how I could have done better, please share them.  Better yet, try them 
yourself.

>If you do wait to long the characters like Hitler just rewrite the
>constitution
>and appoint the judges and then the "scientologists" or any scoundrels
>they like do what they like.
>
>I know of your adventures and troubles with scientology. I am glad you
>took a stand. But you are right about one thing scientology is small beer
>compared to trying to get a president impeached when that president
>has the power to declare you an enemy combatant, suspend habeas
>corpus (the Military Commissions Act 2006) and have you picked
>up and imprisoned, and essentially tortured whilst not calling it torture
>entirely on his say so.

You might note that I am not in the US by my own choice.

snip

Keith