At 02:31 PM 9/5/96 -0600, Anonymous wrote:
If I understand you correctly, it is OK for a government to institute violence against the residents of the land it claims dominion over, but it is not acceptable for the inhabitants of that piece of land to respond in self defence.
I will say this:
No, government initiation of violence (such as in Waco, Ruby Ridge, etc.) is not OK, and AsPol initiation of violence is not either. This can lead into a long argument about just _when_ violence is initiated, where opinion is more important than fact, but IMO:
Randy Weaver was not initiating violence. David Keresh was not initiating violence. Pot growers and smokers are not initiating violence.
No argument here...
But Mr. Bell, if he follows through on his scheme, *will* be initiating violence. His scheme, while it can sound tempting (especially every April 15th!) has no guarantee that it will _only_ be used against the Lon Horiuchis of our government,
Life generally doesn't come equipped with any guarantees. Some people object to private ownership of guns, on a similar theory that "there is no guarantee they won't be used against innocent people." Others (most of us?), particularly libertarians challenge this, pointing out that it is the abuse of a right which should be punished, rather than curtailing a right simply because a small minority abuse it. To the extent we believe the latter argument, we are accepting the idea that a "guarantee" is not necessary. AP, ultimately, is a tool that can be used well or used badly. I advocate using it well.
in fact, it may be said it is not guaranteed to not be used against Mr. Bell himself, as many have joked.
Check out what I wrote at the end of AP part 7: "Terror, too, because this system may just change almost EVERYTHING how we think about our current society, and even more for myself personally, the knowledge that there may some day be a large body of wealthy people who are thrown off their current positions of control of the world's governments, and the very-real possibility that they may look for a "villain" to blame for their downfall. They will find one, in me, and at that time they will have the money and (thanks to me, at least partially) the means to see their revenge. But I would not have published this essay if I had been unwilling to accept the risk." Long before I started publicizing AP, I had made my decision.
There are two roads to take in life, convincing and coercing others. I think that the former is still possible, Mr. Bell and many others disagree.
In a quote attributed to Al Capone, he said something like, "You can get more with a kind word and a gun, than you can with a kind word alone." Capone was probably talking about offense, but the principle is even more applicable to _defense_: If you have a gun, you can prevent somebody else from coercing you, and ensure that they have to CONVINCE you! AP is like a gun which can be aimed at the agents of the majority, to prevent them from violating the rights of the minority.
I worry that abuse of the very young and weak (for now) anonymity system for the purpose of initiating, rather than exposing, violence will lead to more government violence than we already have.
First, AP only "initiates" if it is used against people who have not, themselves, initiated force or fraud. I contend that while this is not impossible, it is improbable. If you choose a target that "everyone" else agrees has initiated force, you'll only have to cough up a dollar, or a quarter, or even a dime and you'll all get your wish. Randomly select a guiltless individual and you'll be the only one paying, not to mention the fact that you might have trouble finding an AP organization that'll take your malicious donation. This translates into: "They'll exist, but due to lack of competition they'll be able to insist on taking a healthy cut of their own." In addition, if you attempt to use AP against somebody who already knows it's probably you (say, an ex business partner you just ripped off?), its anonymity won't be much use.
Perhaps I am wrong and there is no hope; but if so, that means another revolution. Revolutions are very romantic sounding, to those who have not been in a war.
The whole point of crypto-anarchy is that revolutions are CHANGING. Think of a revolution like an earthquake: It's the sudden release of stress built up over years or decades. In an earthquake, if that release could be spread out from the seconds or minute it normally takes, to hours or even days (or better yet, continuously) the amplitude would be far smaller and you probably wouldn't even notice it. Likewise, politically, the only reason you get revolutions is because political leadership gets entrenched and resists change. Even in democracy, which is supposed to facilitate changes, eventually the politicians learn to play one group off another, leading to the same kind of social stratification problems that even dictatorships have. Jim Bell jimbell@pacifier.com