METROCAST BLOCKS RESIDENTIAL E-MAIL

[Jeff Kinz]

On Sun, Mar 12, 2006 at 03:07:35PM -0500, Ben Scott wrote:
> On 3/12/06, Jeff Kinz <jkinz at kinz.org> wrote:
> >>   You do realize that "the government" and "us" are one and the same, yes?
> >
> > Ben there is some overlap, but they are most definitively not the same.

Ben, I've looked this over and at the thread where you previously
preached at me for using "us" and "them" (I was telling stories about
NSA work).

I've come to the conclusion that, for some reason, you have a
sensitivity about this nomenclature.

I'll lay it out for you once, but I will not indulge the discussion
further. Here is how I "draw the line" as you put it:

My distinguishing characteristics that identify the group I label
as government (in a general way) are as follows:

        #1 An employee of the government
                     or
        #2 An elected official or representative

It perfectly reasonable of me to group the various government entities
[ Federal:(executive, Judicial, House)] State, county, municipal,
Agencies, and Authorities (MBTA, Turnpike) together in one group and
apply the label "government" to them.  I know labels can be misleading
and that the map is not the territory, but, being human and having only
a limited time on this planet I am going to use convenient labels
as needed to refer to groups of people.

When I need to refer to a more specific subset of that group, I will.

In the meantime please don't try to include me in the group
"government".  I'm not in that group.  I'm part of the country.  I'm a
citizen, but the notion that this country is just all on big "us" works
in only a few, idealistic contexts.  Not the ones we have been
discussing.


Most of the remainder of your email dealt with how the government is
"us" because the government is made up of people and people everywhere
are the same, good, bad, purple etc...

Thats not news, nor does it deal with the issue.  The issues that
generated the original threads came from the fact that any group 
will tend to act in its own self interest even when those actions might
be harmful to the goals which the group was originally created to
achieve.  And even though that group might not be consciously aware
that they are so doing.

>   Maintaining this delusion that "they" are somehow inherently
> different from "us" only creates further resistance, strife, and
> entropy.

Understanding the differences in the interests and motivations  of
different groups is essential to being able to effectively manage
or deal with those groups.  In no way does it create greater strife.
In fact it's an extremely valuable tool.

Don't assume that just because I identify a group as having a particular
negative characteristic that I only view that group negatively and
don't assume that I judge the people within that group as somehow
being "evil" or "bad" because they are part of that group.  The negative
(or positive) attribute is often only an emergent characteristic of the
group and therefore cannot be in any way applied to any of the
individuals of that group. Or used to judge an individual of the group.

Emergent characteristics exist only in complex systems made up of
sufficient numbers of individuals

>   I find this behavior especially egregious because the same thing
> happens the other way.  When those in government start to believe
> "they" are *not* the same as "us", the time is especially ripe for
> abuses of power, for lack of understanding, for bad deeds to be done
> in the name of good.  By perpetuating that way of thinking in "us",
> you enable it for "them".

Now you are talking about specific abusive individuals within 
the halls of power.  I'm definitely not enabling them.

History shows that there are always some people like this in the
government.  Recent history shows just how arrogant they can be.
The tapes of the Watergate witnesses appearing before the Senate
(I think it was the Senate..) are especially dramatic in the area
where you hear people on Nixon's Staff basically saying that the people
rights have been severely eroded so its OK to ignore them.

Those people exist entirely without any input from me.

> 

-- 
Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA.
speech recognition software may have been used to create this e-mail