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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'> extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org] <b>On Behalf Of </b>William Flynn Wallace<br><br><b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>>…<span style='color:#222222'>Spike, you are too cynical</span>…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>It’s safer than being not cynical enough.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>>…<span style='color:#222222'>Take away right to bear arms even if they could? Nah.</span></span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'> </span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#222222'>bill w</span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>BillW as you know from reading my comments, I am extremely wary of power grabbers seeking to grab power. Both our mainstream candidates for president have shown sufficient evidence they are power grabbers. Grabbing our guns would enable unlimited subsequent power grabbing, for constitutional rights could be suspended without consequence. That would be the ultimate power, the unholy grail for a power grabber.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>Do let me offer a vision in terms of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four. If you haven’t read it, do it today. It isn’t that long, it’s a Sunday and you have nothing more important to do unless your house is currently on fire; that short book is far more significant than anything I have to say. So if you haven’t, stop reading this, start reading that please.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>OK if you are still reading, I will explain my attitude toward current events in Orwellian terms.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>The proles are free, but the government bureaucrats had administrative powers. So they were watched constantly for power is dangerous. They had had powers for which they were accountable to the inner circle. The inner circle had more power, and they had the privilege of turning off the monitors occasionally.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>Imagine that ability to turn off the monitor as vaguely analogous to being given an encrypted means of communications, such as a secure email account and a secure phone line, access to a SCIF and a security clearance. When one has that access it allows the cleared person to do things while out of sight, which is a form of power. It is analogous to turning off the monitor and working under cover. If one uses those forms of communication, everything is archived and the users are accountable to others who likewise have that access.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>As in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four, the outer circle was accountable to the inner circle and the inner circle were accountable to each other, to Big Brother. Ja? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>What happens when an inner circle member attempts to wield power without accountability? Does not that inner circle member then form a de facto inner inner circle? Does not that constitute an attempt at forming power with no accountability? If any person has power without accountability, what is the inevitable result? Every time please, what happens every time humans have power without accountability? What can we say about any person who seeks power without accountability?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>Read Orwell please. He said it so much better than I can.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'> <o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></div></div></body></html>