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Re: War & InfoWar
On Sat, 10 May 1997, TruthMonger wrote:
> Of course, you have your own definintion of innocenent bystanders,
> while others may have different definitions.
This is certainly the case, but we must be careful not to extend this and
say that the actual "according to hoyle" definition of innocence is
subjective.
Certainly I believe that most of the group the media refer to as
"innocent bystanders" are criminals in a true sense. In fact, I would go
so far as to say that less than 1 in a thousand of these people are
probably *idealogically* pure but we must be careful about allowing
ourselves any notion of thought crime.
> Is someone who is in the military because of forced enscription at
> the point of a gun (with threats of imprisonment if they refuse) an
> innocent bystander? When an invading force attacks your home, do you
> only shoot back at those who are there willingly?
Absoltely, I believe that those who allow themselves to be threatened and
coereced into joining the military because of enscription are criminal,
because they allow their own cowardice to control them. They make a
choice to save their own ass by participating in immoral violent acts by
a government which believes it has rights over it`s citizens lives and
freedoms.
Question: Where does the US prescedent for military conscription come from?
Is there nothing in the constitution which could have been used
in a legal challenge?
> Were the children in the daycare center at the Federal Building
> at OK city innocent bystanders?
More than likely they were, had they lived another 10 or 20 years they
probably would have been corrupted and brainwashed like all the other paeons.
> Then why, pray tell, did the government allow them to be placed
> in a building which was known to be a prime target of anti-government
> paramilitary idealists? Were they being used as a "shield" in the
> hopes that their presence would protect the others? Or were they
> there in order to provide sensational fodder for government response
> to the inevitable?
Media fodder would be my guess, there are a number of other reasons but
sensation fodder shows through in most cases. It is observable within the
UK that hospitals and schools are often placed close to government
buildings, eg. In London there is a hospital directly opposite the houses
of parliament.
> > I know that critical times call for critical action, but I just don't
> > expect from anarchist libertarian cypherpunks that they would "throw
> > caution to the wind" (so to speak) and forget how to think about events and
> > actions in terms of specifics and utter precision.
>
> The fact of the matter is that the government has declared war
> on the freedom and liberty of its citizens and passed draconian
> laws which prevent citizens from defending themselves from
> government oppression. The government protects those participating
> in its crimes from having to pay a price for their complicity.
> The government has a ruinous effect on the lives of millions
> of its citizens daily and is responsible for a mountain of deaths
> of "innocent people." Those taking part in the process should be
> made aware that there is a price to pay for their actions.
As I have said I can understand the sentiment behind it, but I have
several problems with Tim`s "It`s war, innocents die" line, the biggest
being that for me the defining principle of anarchism is that all crimes
and all acts are considered alone in relation to the NAP. If I kill one
genuinely innocent person during a bombing where I kill say 300 MPs I
have still commited murder and should be treated as such. I`m sure, if I
were given that chance, I would definitely be tempted to kill the
innocent to get the criminals but this is merely untempered illogical
emotion, I would not be worthy of any respect or credibility whatsoever
if I took that choice and disregarded the rights of the innocent bystander.
> Should the Allied war against Nazi Germany have not taken place
> because "innocent" lives would be lost?
Correct, the German people, along with the people of all the allied
nations, should have turned their armies against their governments and
ended the notion of state in the western world, the other countries of
the world would soon have followed suit. Sure, you can say "but after
the fact, once the war was underway, what was the right thing to do?"
to which I would answer that a. The situation was created by the
cowardly action of the people in failing to remove their government.
and b. The actions taken were wrong because removal of the german
government directly by its people would not have resulted in the deaths
of thousands of innocent people.
> Should the French Freedom
> fighters not have fought to free their country from occupation
> because "innocent bystanders" would die in the process?
Certainly, if one is defending ones rights, and an innocent bystander
gets killed in the process it is a natural reaction to think of yourself
as innocent. This is the wrong reaction to have. People on this list seem
to be gravitating towards the school of thought the government allies
itself with, that is, "the greater good". Replacing one evil with a
lesser evil is, although preferable to the status quo, not the anser. War
is not a natural state to be in and difficult choices have to be made,
among these is the question of how many innocents have to die to protect
the rights of the many, I am not a pragmatist and, although it is
unrealistic, would take a pacifist point of view here in that I would
say all war is criminal and I find it very hard, although it is of course
a logical necessity, to decide in favour of "the greater good".
> Timothy McVeigh's position in history will likely belong in the
> hands of the winner of the war between the government and its
> citizens, but he is already considered a freedom fighter by more
> people than the government would like to admit. He has issued a
> wake-up call for those who think that they can remain nameless
> and faceless in their complicity with government atrocities.
Yes, the more we get the message over that complying with the evil
actions of criminals is a crime in itself, and that those who do so will
be executed, the quicker the thugs will learn the evil of their actions.
> While I would have chosen a different approach and target for
> an attack, I will not pass moral judgement on McVeigh's actions.
> That is between himself and his conscience.
I think one must pass judgement, Tim McVeigh`s actions were criminal and
deplorable, but his motives were totally right, however, just as we do
not believe in thought crime we should not believe that having the right
motives absolves one from blame in the commision of a crime. This is why,
judging entirely on the act itself, I would say McVeigh is a criminal,
whether he was acting for the right reasons or not.
> Tim McVeigh at least had the fortitude to act on his outrage
> over what he perceived as government injustice. What did others
> do over the outrageous tragedy at Waco? Mostly they just turned
> their heads away and tried to pretend that our government is not
> a murderer of men, women and children.
Quite, people have been brow beaten and brainwashed into believing the
violent actions of the state are justifiable, but any action they take
themselves is criminal and wrong. For example, the truncheon wielding
government rent-boys (for all state employees are moral prostitutes) can
lock me in a cell and deny me basic freedoms because of what substances I
choose to put into my own body, yet in the UK one cannot even carry a
weapon to defend oneself against attack (For example, if someone were to
break into my house, and I were to either shoot him or take a baseball
bat to him, I would be prosecuted for murder or for assult).
Tim McVeigh maybe had the fortitude to act on his feelings, this does
not mean those actions were justifiable merely by the fact they
were done out of convictions rather than greed. To return once again
to a recent topic on this list Nietzsche put it very well when he said
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies". From
this I also derive my own view that poloticians who genuinely believe
they are acting in the interest of the people are more dangerous
than those who act merely for financial gain or gain in prestige
and control (the will to power).
Whether Tim McVeigh`s actions showed a strength of conviction or not,
they certainly showed a moral and ethical weakness in that he
justified the murder of innocents by the necessity to remove government
officials from power.
You might notice I seem to be contradicting myself here, this is because
I am. I really have great problems in coming to a definitive personal
decision over questions of morality and ethics in a war situation.
Maybe this shows a moral weakness on my part, maybe I am not sure of
my own morality, but I think a little indecision is a good thing: it
ensures that one is always thinking and never acting on a prejudice.
> How many government employees quit in outrage, stating that
> they would not take part in such atrocities? How many took a
> vocal moral stand against their superiors, or exposed the
> government duplicity involved in the police action?
They are all whores, so I suggest we fuck them like whores.
> Nobody who turns their head is "innocent" and they cannot avoid
> their own responsibility if they choose to place their children
> in the line of fire as a result of their participation in crimes
> against the citizens.
Yes, they were naive, but I don`t believe for a moment they commited any
crime, Tim McVeigh commited the crime. It is one thing to be negligent
and through that negligence allow innocent people to be killed, it is
quite another to actively participate in a system which persecutes and
murders and fail to look at the evil in front of your eyes.
> Given the wide knowledge of the OK city Federal Building being
> a known target of anti-government forces, I think the placing of
> a daycare center there was the equivalent of military forces who
> cowardly advance with women and children in front of them. (And
> there are ample examples of this in history.)
Yes, but this military did not force the innocent children to be there,
it possibly spread disinformation and propoganda which convinced the
parents that their children were safe in the building, the parents were
naive and overtrusting if they believed this, but the only criminal
was McVeigh in this particular instance.
> Those in government express outrage at the barbarity of an
> individual citizen attacking his oppressors, but apparently are
> not outraged enough to stop their oppression.
Quite, their logic is flawed because they have been brainwashed, it is a
sad fact that many of these criminals are merely stupid or conformist.
> The fact is that we have a police state whose power and abuse
> of power are growing by leaps and bounds because there has been
> no realistic amount of accountability attached to their actions.
The only level of accountability acceptable is for any member of the
state to be immediately executed on the spot for the commision of any
crime.
> This is an unnatural state of affairs and one that human nature
> will correct. When things become too far out of balance, then
> the universal laws of nature correct the situation. I believe that
> the dinosaurs learned this lesson, as well.
So will the state, when, in the words of Tim May, they are "cleansed in
the nuclear fire".
Datacomms Technologies data security
Paul Bradley, [email protected]
[email protected], [email protected]
Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/
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