At 06:27 PM 11/11/96 -0500, Joseph M. Reagle Jr. wrote:

...

With regard to b), governments--primarily through the use of their militaries--have killed, by some counts 170,000,000, men, women and children in this century alone. Hardly the guardians of freedom, in my opinion.

Do you have a breakdown of that number? I'm working on one of my thought experiments and am looking for the appropriate stats:

o THUGS V. GOVS (during times of "modern" govts. 1800+)

Deaths by Govts. on "own people"

US Civil War x M US Native Americans Hitler: Jews 6 M Hitler: Others 6 M Stalin: 30 M China: Cult Rev x M France: Rev x M

Don't forget that the likely cause of the 1917 world-wide influenza pandemic was probably caused or greatly increased in seriousness by the WWI movement of soldiers, and the conditions at the front. Had there been no war, there might still have been a very localized outbreak, but it would have been much less serious. The estimate of 170 million seems a bit high, but not by much. Jim Bell jimbell@pacifier.com