At 03:55 PM 5/21/96 -0500, snow wrote:

On Mon, 20 May 1996, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote:

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the assassination politics is quite Hitleresque at its root. "kill our enemies, and everything will be better. it is our enemies that are the root of all evil in the world. extinguish them, and you solve all problems automatically"

It is more the MAD theory brought down to the personal level.

With all due respect, I think that comparison is a bit flawed. MAD (mutual assured destruction) is based on a model where you know the enemy (country) attacking you, in the national model by sophisticated radar systems. It is also based on the (reasonable) assumption that there is no way to pre-emptively attack in such a way as to defeat the ability of the enemy to counter-attack. With AP, and a world populated by 5 billion people, there is no way to know, for sure, who is targeting you. You may _guess_, and you may be right, but such a guess must be based on external information that you've received elsewhere. With AP, you CAN attack and destroy an individual in such a way he doesn't know who hit him. A crook who has victimized many people would be an excellent example of a target who can't know, because he has many enemies. A person who has just jilted a rich lover and has no other enemies would be the opposite. I contend that the kind of targets which are the most "deserving" will tend to be those who don't know who's targeting them. Those that are least deserving will have a good clue about who's giving them the finger. Since such prices are publicly known, a donor would have to be particularly careful about targeting a generally good, well-liked person, if that person could reasonably guess who's naming him. This is one of the many reasons I have a fair degree of confidence that AP will do a lot of good, and very little bad.

The government has the power and authority to kill anyone of us, AP brings out into the open the fact that WE ALL HAVE THAT POWER. KIlling people is (physically) very easy, AP turns the THREAT back on those who hold the power.

This I agree with. But remember that the ability to combine the desires of thousands of people counts for something as well. If the only time you had to worry is if one individual was mad enough to see you dead, and would either do it himself or pay the whole bill himself, you'd feel relatively safe. If, on the other hand, the cost could be split up 10,000 ways or more, you'd better not be a crook!

Note: I don't necessarily think that AP is a good idea. I think that people should do their own dirty work.

In practice, I think this would be comparatively common as well. What currently deters such "take the law into your own hands" is the fact that police (being, essentially, in the business of protection) don't want you to provide for yourself by protecting yourself. They make it hard on people, in the same way they did with Bernard Goetz, the guy who shot four muggers on the New York city subway system. Once AP gets rid of the police, it will be much easier to protect yourself and not risk jail time, etc. Superficially, a person might argue that the lack of police would also make it easier for the muggers. However, a "professional mugger" would make a LOT of enemies, and it wouldn't take long before he's dead. He'd only have to be caught once. Any victim of any mugger would be happy to donate to see him gone.

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such is the total moral perversion of the thinking behind "assassination politics". most of the adherents work from the following argument, nicely summarized by JFA above: 1. the government is corrupt 2. therefore, it is okay to kill people who further that corruption. wow, what brilliant logic.

How about this: Goverments, and the people in them are corrupt. This corruption, caused by acts of these people, lead to oppression and death. By THEIR MORALITY oppression and killing are ok, so it is ok to use their tools agaisnt them.

In part 7 I use somewhat different justification. I believe that a person should be able to use whatever level is force is necessry to get rid of the transgression, with no upper limit. In any case, I think that government corruption is way more than enough to justify whatever level of counter-attack is needed.

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there is a trite saying, "two wrongs do not make a right" (trite because most have mastered the simple truth of it in their pre-teen years). a concept not grasped by some second-graders. some require a lifetime of lessons to comprehend it in the end..

Putting people in cages is wrong. Stealing is wrong. Is putting people in cages for stealing wrong?

Yes; I've noticed that people who oppose AP generally don't want to address the question of self-defense issues.

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carefully the errors of those who have come before you. write a long treatise with lots of footnotes to past assassination difficulties and how you would advance past them. I tell you flat out that any respectable assassin would be quite embarrassed to be associated with you at the moment because of your arrogance and ignorance.

I might be wrong here, but I don't think that Mr. Bell actually wants anyone actually shot,

Shot? Not necessarily. Let's not forget about blown up, poisoned, stabbed, beheaded, etc. B^)

well, maybe he does, but what he wants is to have the same power over members of governments than they have over him.

Right. Moreover, I believe that governments simply cannot exist as we know them under these circumstances. Besides, they won't be necessary. Jim Bell jimbell@pacifier.com