From: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 18:57:11 +0800
To: Rich Graves <cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail"
Message-ID: <m0tfkW0-000918C@pacifier.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 06:43 PM 1/25/96 -0800, Rich Graves wrote:


>Therefore, to ordain myself Devil's Advocate Being, is it not wrong, in
>principle, for us human beings to inquire into the affairs of the humans
>claiming the authority of Divine Governmental Beings? Are not the actions
>of the Fort Meade Beings a matter for their own personal conscience,
>absent any immediate, *direct* impact on us that would justify an
>appropriate reaction, be it fight, flight, or encryption? Please assume no
>funny theological beliefs in the existence of other Non-Divine Beings, or
>sympathy therewith. 
>
>Of course, on individual principle, I quite agree with you, which is why I
>do not believe I could ever become a cleric or even disciple of any odd
>religion. I'd really suck as a soldier, too.
>
>However, of Hobbes, Rousseau, Marx, Motesquieu, and Locke, I find Hobbes
>the most logical. People just suck, and ethics aren't enough. Karl Marx 
>and Jim Bell talk about the withering away of the government, but what 
>they're really talking about looks like a new and more onerous form of 
>government to me. 
>-rich
> Fucking Statist

You might be surprised.   I've considered that very question, which is at 
the "outer limits" of my "Assassination Politics" idea.   Question: could 
the principles of that system eventually result in some sort of 
super-tyranny?  In my opinion, no, if for no other reason than the average 
person simply doesn't have enough time to attempt to be tyrannical against 5 
billion other people on the planet.

How would it work?  Well, let's suppose 95% of the public believed that 
EVERYBODY, including the other 5%, should pay the Widget tax.  Each citizen 
would have to pay it, and prove that he paid it, or those 95% would pay to 
have the 5% killed.  The Widget tax would buy Widgets from the WIdget 
manufacturer, and they would installed so as to benefit THE PUBLIC. 

Problem is, taxes are collected, not simply to take them from one person, 
but to give them to another.  The 5% might have to pay the Widget Tax, but 
they could also pay to have the immediate beneficiaries of the Widget Tax 
killed (the manufacturers of the widgets themselves, or at least those 
manufacturers that accept orders for widgets paid for by stolen tax 
dollars.)  At this point, nobody will risk making widgets anymore, so  the 
Tax will be unjustified and bandoned as uncollectible and useless.