Celebrity advice (was: Advice to a Junior in High School?)

[Cliff Wells]

On Thu, 2003-08-28 at 05:41, Alex Martelli wrote:

> Of course, if Hayek is correct, then saying that we do NOT want the
> government to have the monopoly of lethal force is exactly equivalent
> to saying we do not want effective government (Hobbes would surely
> argue that way) -- we prefer deliberately-hobbled government to
> government that is maximally effective.  In this day and age it's hard
> to make a case for deliberately inefficient arrangements, although it
> IS possible to do so (e.g., the mandatory trailing ':' in the head
> clauses of several Python statements;-).  People who don't want ID
> cards to exist, don't want government DB's to be cross-linked, etc,
> plead much the same case -- they prefer inefficient government (whose
> inefficiencies may help terrorists and other criminals) to efficient
> government (whose efficiency might allow more effective oppression).

Alex,

This is one of the most compelling things I have read in quite a while.

Thanks.

-- 
Cliff Wells, Software Engineer
Logiplex Corporation (www.logiplex.net)
(503) 978-6726  (800) 735-0555