Re: The Inducement of Rapid Oxidation of Certain Materials....

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Tue, May 13, 1997 at 08:21:13PM -0800, Tim May wrote:
> At 6:34 PM -0800 5/13/97, Kent Crispin wrote:
> 
> >First of all, it neglects to consider that governments may have
> >prevented more murders than they caused.  This is unknowable, since
> >we don't have any worthwhile control cases.  (I suppose we
> >might examine a state of anarchic chaos (eg Rawanda) and compare the
> >percentage of murders...but such cases are symptoms of other human
> >ills, and cannot be used as a meaningful comparison, I believe.)
> 
> Rwanda (or Ruwanda, or...) is a _very_ poor example to pick, as this was
> not any kind of anarchy such as any of us have ever advocated. Rather,
> Rwanda was a near-textbook example of one tribal faction (Hutus or Tutsis)
> coming to power and inititiating a pogrom against the rival faction (Tutsis
> or Hutus).
> 
> Calling this an "anarchy" is comparable to calling the pogrom by the Third
> Reich against Jews, gypsies, cripples, and others an example of anarchy.

Nonsense.

"anarchy n. the absence of government or control, resulting in 
lawlessness. 2. disorder, confusion" -- Oxford American Dictionary

Which part of that would you say didn't apply to Rwanda?  

In fact, the correlation between anarchy and war is very strong, for
obvious reasons.  Perhaps that is why most intelligent people don't
consider anarchy a desirable state of affairs. 

-- 
Kent Crispin				"No reason to get excited",
kent@songbird.com			the thief he kindly spoke...
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