> For any given issue, subject, industry or niche there is always a you. And you are the enablers. Multiply by every equivalent idiot and niche and that's how you get the world in which some guy gets whacked for running a tor node.
I am not defending at all the actions of the FBI. The FBI/CIA/NSA are overzealous law enforcement serving the will of colonial capitalism. Their history of targeting whistleblowers, activists, and technologists; like, for example, the guy running a Tor node; is well documented and deeply problematic. That same machinery has also been deployed against environmental activists, which makes the irony even more bitter that it's being cited here.
I'm defending the EPA, which in contrast, works with numerous industries, including ours, to benefit society as a whole.
The problem is this exact mindset where we insist that everything is on one massive slippery slope and there's simply no way to differentiate from proper, needed regulation, and the boot of law enforcement being deployed to fuck with the working class at scale.
We can tell the difference and it isn't difficult, it simply requires thinking which an unfortunate number of voters don't like doing.
> "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it"
Completely backwards. There is a LOT of money to be made circumventing emissions regulations, which is why almost every OEM has been caught with their hands in that particular cookie jar, either fingernail or wrist deep.
We COST ourselves money locking up those features because we agree with the regulations in place.
> A bunch of reactionary yokels are a symptom of the degree to which your ilk has undermined the legitimacy of the laws they violate and enforcement agencies they thumb their nose at, not the root cause. If society solves people like you the yokels will mostly go away on their own. That is what I seek.
Reactionary movements have existed for every time the Government says don't do anything since time immemorial. There is ALWAYS reactionaries because there is ALWAYS a segment of the population that never matures past the age of ten. The fact that they occasionally have a point is nothing but statistical likelihood; if you constantly say "no" to everything, by sheer chance, you will occasionally say no to something bad.