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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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