From: nobody@neva.org (Neva Remailer)
Date: Tue, 18 Nov 1997 22:05:56 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: Violence and depravity
Message-ID: <199711181358.HAA05206@dfw-ix4.ix.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Anonymous <nobody@replay.com> wrote:
>> Every day that passes, I'm more convinced that McVeigh did the
>> right thing.  Some innocents died, but, hey, war is hell. Broken
>> eggs and all that.
>
>This speaks for itself.  Only an utterly depraved, sick, and vicious
>individual could support the killings in Oklahoma City.  This is the
>man who many would say is the most respected on the list.

I suppose it could be true that after consideration, only a morally
bad or evil person would view positively the Oklahoma City bombing.
However, the discussion is valuable and it is a productive one in
which to engage.  The morality of war is an exceptionally important
question to resolve.

What is interesting about Timothy McVeigh's world view is how
astonishingly similar it is to the view of most people in the
organizations he is attacking or, indeed, the view of most people in
American society or even the world.  In general, the massacre of
innocents is considered "depraved" when the acts are committed by
those far from the levers of power.  The USG was exposed to some
criticism in the Gulf War, but much less than would be proportional to
the number of innocents who died.  For the most part, the people who
die in modern war are non-combatants.

McVeigh apparently found it to be acceptable to kill, for the most
part, a bunch of office workers to get at his actual target the ATF
offices on the top floor of the building.  (I have no idea whether he
knew of the day care center and whether this would have affected his
decisions.)  Generally, when a military mind is confronted with a
shield of innocents, the innocents won't last long.

Once this reasoning is accepted, and it is widely, the real question
is whether the war is justified.  After seeing the horrifying picture
of the body of an 8 year old girl who was gassed and then burned at
Waco, it's difficult to dismiss war as a moral and just response.  For
those who have not seen this picture, the poor child's arms and legs
were horribly twisted into unnatural positions as a consequence of
cyanide poisoning which causes muscles to violently contract.  The
muscles in the back and on the back of the legs are stronger than the
other muscles.  In executions, the contractions can be so violent as
to break bones.

Gassing is particularly hard on children as they typically will not
have closely fitting gas masks.  (Children come in all sizes, but the
available gas masks may often do not.)

While some aspects of what happened at Waco are debatable, there is no
question that representatives of the United States government
consciously decided to gas the people in the house.  This was not a
mistake made in a time critical situation.  It was carefully planned.

It is my sense that we must not allow these sorts of acts to occur in
the future.  I feel quite strongly about this.

"The System" failed to prevent the murders and it failed to prosecute
even a single Federal official for the crimes committed.  Crimes which
can certainly be compared to "crimes against humanity".  Little seems
to be publicly known of the responsibility of the various levels of
the chain of command.  We do know that there was a great deal of
communication with the highest levels of the United States government.
William Jefferson Clinton and Janet Reno may not be guilty of
premeditated murder.  But, a series of fair trials would have cleared
up this question.  Instead, some of the surviving victims were tried.

Given that the government itself committed the atrocities and the
mechanisms to discourage future atrocities through public condemnation
and punishment were not invoked, it is clear that the solution will
not come from "within the system."

McVeigh apparently decided that the proper response was a war on the
United States government with the attendant loss of innocents.  This
decision expresses a moral code indistinguishable from that of most
officials in the government itself.  McVeigh even implied that his
government is his "great teacher"!  In my view, this is an error.
Surely we can choose better moral teachers than the United States
government!

Returning to Tim May's comment that he was feeling sympathetic with
Tim McVeigh's decisions, it seems to me that it is understandable why
such a thought would cross the mind of a person who is not morally bad
or evil.  However, it may be that after thought and discussion that a
person with sound morals and good intentions may also decide that
McVeigh's actions should not be emulated.  The important word here is
"discussion".  The interesting property of discussion is that one does
not always know at the beginning what one will believe at the end.
That's why they are worth having.  That's why it is not "utterly
depraved, sick, and vicious" for somebody to discuss an idea, even one
with which we do not agree.

Most people are not pacifists.  Brian Riley related an experience
he had in Vietnam in which somebody came running out of the bushes
with a bayoneted SKS rifle.  It would be hard to find anybody who
wouldn't do the obvious thing in this situation.

That said, I do not believe that McVeigh did the right thing.  Few of
his victims can be said to be responsible for the actions taken at
Waco.  And the problem with the use of violence is that it is hard to
control and the consequences of the act are often hard to predict.
Violence is often dangerous to the user.  Those participating in the
use of organized violence seldom have much choice in the targets,
type, or quantity of the violence employed.

Violence is, in nearly every case, a poor investment of time, money,
and energy.

Monty Cantsin
Editor in Chief
Smile Magazine
http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html
http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.htm

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