At 05:58 PM 10/6/96 -0800, Timothy C. May wrote:

At 2:26 PM -0700 10/6/96, Greg Broiles wrote:

As for "assassination politics," I think the theoretical idea of using betting pools, untraceable payments, etc., are worthwhile _theoretical_ ideas to discuss, occasionally (indeed, I would hope--seriously!--that the FBI is aware of such possibilities and is thinking about them).

For me, there is no one I can think of that I would want killed. Not my taunters, not my elected officials (though I despise Senator Fineswine), not court officials, not even the Devil Himself. Clinton, er, I mean "Saddam Hussein." The Hitler example ("Wouldn't you go back in time and kill Hitler if you could?") is so hackneyed as to be meaningless. Actually, I suppose I would be happy if Pol Pot were to die, and maybe Idi Amin (and I'm not sure both are still alive), but for the most part I don't think fundamental problems are directly attributable to specific individuals.

However, it won't really matter, will it? Unless a person is REALLY atypical, nearly all the people he'd want to see dead are similarly hated by thousands or millions of others, or they are in classes of people who are hated by millions for what they do. (criminals, cops, politicians, and despots both domestic and foreign etc.) That being the case, you personally would probably never have to donate anything; you're pretty well assured that other people will do this "work" for you. This is as it should be, I suppose. Furthermore, most of your potential targets (were you to want to name them) would probably be fully aware of their vulnerability, and would resign or run away or start behaving in hopes of surviving. All this is why I think that the status quo might collapse rather suddenly, as in Eastern Europe 1989, where in the span of a couple weeks the governments fell comparatively bloodlessly. Jim Bell jimbell@pacifier.com