This comment personally served as a sharp, jab-in-the-ribs reminder of how two people can approach a problem completely differently and still be convinced of th

This comment personally served as a sharp, jab-in-the-ribs reminder of how two people can approach a problem completely differently and still be convinced of their own rationality based off of their worldview. I was trying to imagine the incredulous look my Republican father would have on his face reading your curt, matter-of-fact moralizing and it made me chuckle. Anyways, that's besides the point. I think the GP was more trying to compare the debate around encryption with the debate around gun control. People who argue for more regulation and centralized control do so with the same tactics over and over again - they use scare-tactics to portray people on the other side as dangerous, selfish, and anti-social, and they layer this on top of other propaganda techniques like constant repetition. The people on the individualist sides can't compete because they can't cohesively agree on one message and form a group that can counter-shill for it, because, well, that's just not the culture of libertarianism, so most of what they say sounds like inconsistent rambling to outsiders. Very generously interpreting the GP comment, we need to consider the underrepresented ideas just as fairly as we do ideas pushed by the mainstream and accept or reject them based on merit, not popularity or backing. The problem with American democracy is that most people aren't mindful enough of the complexities and gray-areas surrounding current issues to do this. Eg, we (the HN crowd) see the problems with mass surveillance and weakened encryption but we're too busy shouting amongst ourselves to understand why the mainstream doesn't care. Gun control and encryption may be "different things" but the political debate is the same.