Steve Schear wrote:
How about as a means of coercing war criminals ethnic purgers, as those in Bosnia/Serbia, to turn themselves in to proper tribunals for judging. Having AP bettors wager $100,000s on your untimely retirement, unless you turn yourself in, could induce one to consider conventional justice.
On the other hand it would provide said war criminals with a convenient mechanism for carrying out their crimes. It does not work for Bell and his appologists to wave their hands and say "trust me it will be better". There is absolutely no reason to believe that AP markets would be used by anyone but psychopaths. No mechanism is proposed which restricts the purposes to which the AP markets can be put. They would inevitably be used by the KKK and neo-NAZI groups for hate-crimes.
All human rights are Naturally derived as are the 'Laws of the Jungle'. Governments instituted among men should derive their rights from the soverignty of its citizens. Unfortunately, many countries choose to ignore this. AP should serve an occassionally competitive system to keep the 'duly consistuted' system on its toes lest those in authority reap the law of the jungle.
Rights do not exist outside a legal framework that supports them. Arguments from natural law have been discredited for 300+ years. Such arguments merely reify the prejudices of one society into axiomatic rights without the bother of having to justify them. There is no logical basis to prefer the "rights" of th US constitution over the "rights" recognised by the Islamic Jihad. If you read the US declaration of Independence it is very clear that its authors rejected natural law arguments. The rights that they hold to be "self evident" are extreemly abstract principles which could be justified within almost any ethical system. The removal of the word "God" was deliberate and reflects a concious rejection of the natural law argument. AP is self-contradictory. It claims to uphold "rights" by infringing them massively and disproportionately and in such a way that no rights would remain. It is impossible to justify AP except in extreeme authoritarian terms that could be used to justify any system of government. Phill