[sudo-discuss] [sudo-announce] forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings

[aestetix]

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That explains why I didn't see it on sudo-discuss. I sent it to the
wrong list, my bad.

I'll leave the other discussions to others :)

On 11/13/13 1:28 PM, Art McGee wrote:
> Greetings,
> 
> I'm curious, but would not this post have been more appropriate for
> the sudo-discuss list? I assume you may not be aware of it.
> 
> As for your specific point about the American Civil War being about
> states' rights, that just makes me say hummmm... :-\
> 
> I'm going to do the Fanonian thing and not shout, since I'm too
> tired for that anymore, but I will just add that in the opinion of
> a lot of historians, some of them Anarchists, the "battle for
> power" between U.S. states and the Federal government is simply
> that, a battle for power, but it doesn't tell you anything about
> why the states want that power. It doesn't tell you anything about
> the motivating factors behind such a long-standing struggle, which,
> if you're unfamiliar with U.S. history, could lead you to the
> erroneous conclusion that it's a neutral "freedom" thing. It's not.
> I think you already know this, but your phrasing triggered my White
> Supremacy detector, so I had to respond. :-)
> 
> Oh, and since I've now delurked and am posting on this discuss
> list, I'll just say that I live in Oakland but haven't as yet made
> it around to the sudo room in person (I'm hoping to change that in
> the upcoming year).
> 
> Art McGee
> 
> On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 11:50 AM, aestetix <aestetix at aestetix.com>
> wrote:
> 
> I've been lurking for a while, but this caught my attention. 
> Especially given that I recently watched the musical 1776.
> 
> IMHO, we're at a turning point in history. I spent part of this 
> morning watching the testimony on healthcare.gov, and seeing the 
> interplay of lawyers and technologists. We seem to be sandwiched 
> between two paradigms: the NSA/Omnicorp merger from Prism and
> other Snowden leaks, and totally unrealistic valuations of
> companies like Snapchat, which apparently just turned down a $3
> billion cash acquisition offer from Facebook. That spells out a
> damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario.
> 
> The one common theme we've seen through the history of the US is
> the battle for power between State and Federal governments. This is
> what the Civil War was *really* about, why laws like the Civil
> Rights Act of 1965 are so important, and why the most recent
> government shut-down happened. And inherent to this power battle,
> for which there is no "better" side, is the will of the people. How
> do we overcome the tragedy of the commons enough to build a system
> that generally, kind of sort of works?
> 
> It's hard to practice what one preaches if there's no cost. For 
> example, it's easy to use Google/etc, until the government
> subpoenas your email and search history and uses that as evidence
> (hidden via State Secrets) to throw you in jail. I speak on this
> with several friends who are either in jail or dead because of bad
> laws, and many more who have been harassed, detained, in most cases
> for doing nothing more than dissenting.
> 
> This is why I agree strongly with Eddan about the notion of 
> neutrality. I haven't kept up with sudo room as much lately,
> partly because I don't have the time/energy to engage in some of
> the transitions that were going on. I'm beginning to get to a point
> where I can re-engage with people working on projects tackling
> these kinds of issues. I suppose we shall see what happens.
> 
> Back into the woodwork, aestetix
> 
> ---
> 
> I've often thought of Sudo Room a little bit like the District of 
> Columbia. and Rachel's subject for her email reminded me of that.
> 
> It is often forgotten that there was a first constitution of the 
> United States after Independence before the one that people call
> the Constitution. It was called the Confederacy of States. The
> nation's capital was in Philadelphia and through a series of events
> ended up moving to a newly formed neutral district - that we all
> know now as DC.
> 
> It wasn't just a series of events, but a structural flaw in the 
> Confederacy that doomed itself. As James Madison wrote in
> Federalist 43, "We have seen the inconvenience of this omission,
> and the assumption of power into which Congress have been led by
> it. With great propriety, therefore, has the new system supplied
> the defect. The general precaution, that no new States shall be
> formed, without the concurrence of the federal authority, and that
> of the States concerned, is consonant to the principles which ought
> to govern such transactions."
> 
> As population grew and the country was further colonized by the 
> European settlers, the creation of new states turned into a
> disuniting disaster. Different coalitions of states banded together
> to promote their collective interest at the expense of others.
> Those states excluded formed their own alliances and there were
> many cries of treason thrown around back and forth. Each cluster
> thought of themselves as the "us" and the others as the "them"
> until the "them" became the "us" and the "us" was "them". And so
> on.
> 
> So while New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland - all wanted the
> new federal seat of power in their states, a deal was struck to
> create a district that didn't belong to any particular state. They
> all wanted to have the center of the nation's power in their
> territories. And this is how we got in Article 1, Section 8 of the
> US Constitution, the provision saying:
> 
> "To exercise exclusive legislation, in all cases whatsoever, over
> such district (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession
> of particular States and the acceptance of Congress, become the
> seat of the government of the United States; and to exercise like
> authority over all places purchased by the consent of the
> legislatures of the States in which the same shall be, for the
> erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other
> needful buildings."
> 
> I'm not sure we need forts and magazines and arsenals and such, but
> I still think we need a neutral center so that no particular
> cluster confuses themselves as being what constitutes Sudo Room.
> Only when the country adopted a political structure that
> transformed the "us" and "them" into we - did the agreement amongst
> them create stability and mutual respect that made them united
> states.
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> 

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