Responding to orders which include a secrecy requirement

[Tim May]

On Sunday, August 31, 2003, at 04:20  PM, James A. Donald wrote:

>     --
>> Tim May is the perfect example why vigilante justice is
>> generally considered to be a bad thing -- stupid assholes
>> like Tim May spout off & take action based on paranoia
>> instead of facts & principles of anarchy instead of justice
>> and innocent parties get hurt.
>
> Talk is cheap.  Actions are done more carefully.   Tim implied
> he would kill stoolies that shopped him to the police, not that
> stoolies had shopped him to the police.  Indeed, the one may be
> connected to the other -- the absence of stoolies may well be
> connected to the presence of hot talk.

And there is nothing immoral in discussing the fact that actions may 
have consequences.

Take the work camps described in Solzhenitsyn's "One Day in the Life of 
Ivan Denisovitch." (Or, of course, the Nazi extermination camps. Or the 
U.S. concentration camps in Gitmo.) The camp management clearly sought 
a docile, "policeman inside," stoolie-oriented system where informers 
and "capos" (those who cooperate and act as de facto guards) see no 
reason NOT to be stoolies and capos.

But merely the threat that stoolies and capos will be found with their 
throats slit is often enough to deter such behaviors.

My point is that if librarians even think there is some small chance 
that someone they narc out to Big Brother will kill them or their 
families, such stoolie behavior may drop precipitously.


--Tim May
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, 
butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance 
accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, 
give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new 
problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight 
efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." --Robert A. 
Heinlein