Re: Linux 2.2.20pre10

[Richard B. Johnson]

On Mon, 22 Oct 2001 [e-mail] wrote:

> > > Putting pressure on US people to have them influence their
> > > legislation? Aka. every people have the rulers they deserve? Won't
> > > work out.
> 
> On Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 01:29:14PM +0100, Alan Cox wrote:
> >    "Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after
> >     they have rebelled they cannot become conscious."
> 
> While I've been generally saddened by Alan Cox's and others
> anti-America attitude,  I am somewhat surprised to find that
> Alan believes the US bombing of Afghanistan is justified and so
> is the collateral damage as they call it.
> 
> Alan's point being that a population of a State can't be innocent
> of the actions of their government, something, by the way, with
> which I disagree.
> 
[SNIPPED...]

Once the government controls the schools, children learn what the
government wants them to learn. This knowledge becomes "fact" even
though it may be illogical and have no technical basis. Once the
United States government gained a toe-hold in the schools in the
1948 "School Lunch Program", the result was clear and the future
certain. Now we have socialist teachers teaching future socialist
legislators.

I am certain that the same problem exists with all governments,
even the United Kingdom. I don't think Alan is anti-American,
merely having been blinded by his own schooling. The days of
the patriots who declared; "Give me liberty or give me death!"
are long gone everywhere. Now we have, instead, those who declare;
"Give me a job so I can feed my family...". Anything the government
promises, that makes that job easier, or more readily available,
is accepted as the price of liberty when, if fact, there is no
liberty involved whatsoever. I read a quote in one of the IEEE
rags where Alan stated that he was afraid that he'd be arrested
if he entered the United States.  I don't think he has too
much to worry about, the United States government didn't even
"provide for the common defense" (preamble to the US Constitution)
as became obvious on 9/11. I'm sure nobody would wake up even if
Alan was a terrorist.

I believe that we should have sent a tactical nuclear cruise
missile to Ben Laden's last known address. We can always apologize
later. This would put future terrorists on notice that if you
tweak the tiger's tail, you get hurt. But, that's why I'm
not a politician. Instead, we've got so-called government leader-
ship that is running around the world kissing ass. I don't need
some government to apologize for my existence. I need a government
to "provide for the common defense..." as required by the United
States Constitution.

Sorry about the off-topic.

Cheers,
Dick Johnson

Penguin : Linux version 2.4.1 on an i686 machine (799.53 BogoMips).

    I was going to compile a list of innovations that could be
    attributed to Microsoft. Once I realized that Ctrl-Alt-Del
    was handled in the BIOS, I found that there aren't any.