Variola wrote... "And BTW, what is wrong with hired police ("mercs") esp. when the local police don't work? Do you have a problem with private security guards in the US, as long as they don't involve you in unconsensual transactions? Do you have a problem with weaponsbearing citizens, again, if they don't involve you in unconsensual transactions?" Uh...dunno. Sure, you might be able to make that argument. While you're thinking about it, looking out over the rolling hills of NoCal, someone in Iraq (well, he may be on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border!) is bound to notice that these blue-suited Troops have clearly been directed (to some extent) by the same entity that directs the Green-suited troops. As you strap 17 pounds of exblo-sieves to the back of a 17-year-old, you're probably not going to bother trying to differentiate between the two groups...you'll notice that both batches work for the Americans and speak English, and shoot at you and other Iraqis that try to drive them out. Well, sure you MIGHT notice that there's a greater concentration of the blue-suited variety around oil rigs and stuff, but I'm not convinced that's going to matter. Hell, I'm not smart enough to be convinced it DOES matter in this case. -TD

From: "Major Variola (ret)" <mv@cdc.gov> To: "cypherpunks@al-qaeda.net" <cypherpunks@al-qaeda.net> Subject: RE: corporate vs. state Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2004 12:39:58 -0800

At 02:02 PM 3/25/04 -0500, Tyler Durden wrote:

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Think I'm gonna have to disagree with ya' hear partner. For one, in the old days Corporations regularly hired goons to mow down

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striking coalminers and whatnot.

You have no right to trespass simply because you once worked there.

Neither does anyone have a right to unreasonable force.

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OK, those days are all gone, right? Wrong. Halliburton and Bechtel have both hired mercs for their Iraq operations.

Who gives a rat's ass about what someone does in a foreign land? US law only applies in the US, despite the current US Regime's behavior to the contrary.

And BTW, what is wrong with hired police ("mercs") esp. when the local police don't work? Do you have a problem with private security guards in the US, as long as they don't involve you in unconsensual transactions? Do you have a problem with weaponsbearing citizens, again, if they don't involve you in unconsensual transactions?

Note that if some company makes enemies overseas, its not the US as a whole that has earned the airplane-in-the-skyscraper feedback. Its the official US regime behavior that Gen. Washington warned about: Trade with all, make treaties with none, and beware of foreign entanglements.

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However, a corporation doesn't actually have to hire the goons these days in order to get the job done, not when it's much cheaper to call upon the publically-available pool of goons that function as a government in some places.

Anyone who abuses the power of the (gullible) State to coerce others deserves killing.

The fact that some corporations may leverage existing thuggery to

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get their job done doesn't make them any less complicit. But this is all besides my main point...

Its not thuggery to protect your own property or freedoms. If someone is guilty of true thuggery --ie coercion-- then the State is obligated to act to protect the thuggees. The State only gets involved when a transaction is not mutually consensual; if the State gets involved in mutually consensual transactions the State deserves killing -er, preemptive regime change.

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