
Hallam-Baker, counting on cypherpunks readers to be unwitting victims of ten second sound-byte mentality, wrote:
If people want to see the effect of an AP society have a look at Cuba. Under the Batista regime $50 was sufficient to have someone killed. There was anarchy, the police were corrupt, the mafia ran most of the few parts of the country that worked - even they found the lack of order a problem.
The result was Fidel Castro. The Batista regime could neither reform nor survive. Any society that was threatened by AP would likewise collapse.
So Hallam-Baker recognizes the AP system as a valid way to bring about the collapse of unpopular, corrupt dictatorships.
It is important to distinguish liberty and libertines. The libertine recognises no check on individual rights, even when they affect the rights of others. The inevitable result of libertinage is authoritarianism.
The result of men living together on the face of the earth leads to the inevitable result of authoritarianism. Systems such as "Assassination Politics" can aide in fighting against unbearable corruption of power by lowering the cost of assassination and thus raising the cost of corruption. The stench in Cuba was so bad under the U.S. backed Batista regime that Guerva and Castro were a breath of fresh air for the majority of Cuban people. Despite years of harassment, invasion, and economic attack on Cuba by the shameless 'free' countries <yuk,yuk> of the world, Castro is still a better option for the Cuban people than other options. When this ceases to be the case, then another variation of the Cuban AP system will arise (perhaps Bell's?), and we will see the rise of a new Cuban government. Despite the grand support the IRS is receiving from the government- owned members of the cypherpunks list, it can hardly be argued that the U.S. government has a problem with "Assassination Politics," since they have availed themselves of it in the past, but only with the power of AP being in the hands of the citizens instead of their own ruling hands. TruthMonger (#7)
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