The contradiction is due to the cherry picking of data that is the source of this Koch Brothers-bought-and-paid for meme.

I honestly don't comprehend this. The "Unix philosophy" was always about the toolset, and never, so far as I was aware, applied in such a way to the kernel. Why should it? There are a number of different *nix kernels; from RTOS-types to limited hypervisors to monolithic kernels to microkernels (and hybrids of the two), to compatibility layers running on top of completely alien kernels like POSIX on top VMS and CYGWIN on Windows.

Or, to put it simply, that particular defense of systemd is fucking retarded.

And what exactly would stop me, for instance, from using "non-approved" encryption for, say, my VPN end points?

Reading David Cameron's speech from a few days ago, it drives home just how stunningly ignorant of technology the majority of politicians are. How would one even limit encryption? Ban mathematicians and programmers? The British government, in particular, is being run by possibly one of the stupidest people to ever be in charge of a modern democracy.

It's called BSD, and most of or production servers will be running it this year.

What if I put up a sign in my front yard saying "Fuck the Pope's mother."

Does the Pope have a right to come and punch me in the face?

What if I do it in my house? Does he still have a right to kick in the door and punch me, or gun me down?

And why can't he say it's okay to blaspheme? If Yahweh is all-powerful as he appears to believe, then what possible harm could come from some mere mortal insulting him?

What he should be saying is "Punching people in the nose because they have offended you is evil, and people who believe that is an appropriate response are the most repugnant creatures on earth."

So the consequences of free use of free speech is you get gunned down?

That kinda makes not free.

The substance of the argument is "There are always these sacred cows, so don't tip them!"

My response is that every sacred cow should be tipped every once in a while.

Pope Francis is the head of the Catholic Church. He has no hold over me, no authority over me, and I have absolute freedom to ignore him or ridicule his views.

Fuck Mohammed, fuck the Pope, fuck Yahweh, fuck Krishna, fuck Thor, and fuck every single person who thinks their fucking stupid taboo somehow has more rights than my right to mock them. Fuck every single god, prophet and holy man that has ever existed, does exist, or ever will exist. Fuck them singularly and together. Fuck religion.

What we want is the choice. It is the systemd advocates trying to poison the well.

Kind of hard to do on Debian.