Re: AP

[jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>]

At 02:21 PM 5/20/96 +0000, Jean-Francois Avon wrote:
>On 20 May 96 at 10:28, Jim Ray wrote:

>> >And you'll also note that the anonymity issue generate more
>> >interest from more CPunks because it (hopefully) will acheive the
>> >same goal without any killing.
>> 
>
>> our
>> anonymity-baby threatens to have govt. kill it in the crib,
>
>It is not yours, it only *is*.
>
>> with the support of the people. 
>
>Here, again, Jim Bell would probably say that this sentence proves 
>him right...

Absolutely!  Even these days, what passes for "the support of the people" is 
simply the generally-agreed-upon position of the news media, which the 
public is supposed to accept as their opinion.  Before alternative sources 
of information such as the Internet appeared, TV stations and print media 
could just about mold public opinion any way they wanted, within limits.

>> I have not respected a US president in my lifetime, yet I get _pissed_ 
when they get
>> shot/shot at.
>
>I somehow agree with you here.

I could say, "I don't want to see any president get shot," but that's simply 
because I want them to resign instead.  And it really isn't the president, 
per se, who is the problem:  It's the entire political system which chooses 
the candidates, from which the public is only given a one-of-two choice in 
the matter.  If the system were cleaned up, and massively reduced in power, 
we could have a figurehead president that nobody would even dream of 
harming, because he exercises no abusive power.

And in any case, since I think it is legitimate for "us" (everyone else in 
the world) to pay for the death of (say) Saddam Hussein or Moammar Khadafi, 
it would be selfish of me to suppose that any system which could easily 
achieve that could somehow be tuned to ensure that "our" presidents are 
somehow immune.  I would much rather see _all_ the leadership under the risk 
of the gun than none of it.


>> Killing seems to be a first resort for some,
>> and IMO ends do not justify means.
>
>Well, here, you are threading on a very difficult path.  Of course, 
>the ends does never justifies the means in an *uncoerced* context.  
>But what JB says, is that AP would be a justified "self defense" 
>against coercion. 

That's right.  However, I've noticed that the people who object to AP rarely 
want to talk about the self-defense aspect of the situation; they want to 
assume that nobody has done anything wrong enough to justify AP from being 
used against them.


Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com