From: "E. ALLEN SMITH" <EALLENSMITH@ocelot.Rutgers.EDU>
Date: Thu, 8 Feb 1996 10:41:06 +0800
To: lunaslide@loop.com
Subject: Re: Reasons in support of crypto-anarchy WAS Re: Why am I	  wrong?
Message-ID: <01I0XZVXX20YA0UX5L@mbcl.rutgers.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


	I had been working on a series of questions/problems with the
Assasination Politics idea as initially presented, to be sent to Jim and to
people on the NWLIBERTARIANS list, as he requested, but you've kind of
preempted one of them.

From:	IN%"lunaslide@loop.com"  7-FEB-1996 06:57:58.30

>Further, I don't believe you have enough support for your claim that other
targets would not be sought.  It is one thing to say that enough people
won't vote for someone picked out of the phone book, but what if the
predicted individual is a doctor who performs abortions, or an activist for
gay rights (or *against* gay rights), or Bill Gates ;-).  There are also
the individuals who are trying to bring about change in society that is
unpopular, but is still in the interest of humanity.  Abraham Lincoln
surely would have been killed by this system, for example.  Also, big
corporations would be able to cut down their political enemies such as
envornment activists, fair business practice activists and competetors'
high ranking officers.  Even if only one person in charge of such a
business were to put out a digital contract, he would have no problem
suppling the money for the hit.  People who have tried to make changes for
humanity that went against the social norm at the time are revered today
for their efforts.  In this system, they would likely be assasinated.
Nothing would ever change because people are always afraid of change and
afraid of things they do not understand and the people who fight that
ignorance will likely be killed.  Your statement that Organization B, the
one that collects for any target, is not well supported.  They would still
be doing *plenty* of business, in spite of the higher prices.
-----------------
	Jim has the argument against the organization that collects for any
target that nobody'd want to support it because they'd be afraid of being
killed themselves by an unlimited organization. However, I am afraid that there
is the problem with this that another organization (let's call it C) could
spring up that used different principles than libertarian ones to decide which
contracts to take, but still had strict principles. Thus, someone who was not
violating those principles could use that organization without fear... and its
contracts would be lower in price, like Organization A's. One concrete example
would be the Christian Coalition, which I am certain has at least some
members who are fanatical enough to want to restart the Crusades and
Inquisition with conservative Protestantism rather than conservative
Catholicism. For instance, anyone doing research on abortifacient drugs or
methods could be targeted.



>Organization B would thrive, make no mistake.  And the people who would be
getting in on all the action are the rich.  All the politicians who oppose
their interests would be hit immediately.  Anyone trying to change the
status quo would be eliminated.  Why do you think we are still using
combustion engines in the last decade of the 20th century?  We could have
had better alternatives 20 years ago, but the oil companies would loose out
so they have either bought out these ideas or had killed the inventors and
bought their patents and are sitting on them.  A capitalist economy does
not always breed competition that brings out the best and most desireable
products because some advancements are bad for all the businesses involved
in that market.   Big business and the rich would benifit the most from the
Assination Politics model.
------------------------
	Umm.... as much as it seems otherwise, this is not ConspiracyPunks.
Actually, the involvement of wealth instead of votes (the first can be lost,
the second cannot) is an argument in _favor_ of Assasination Politics. I
generally have the objection to most anarcho-capitalist systems that the
average person does not have enough foresight to do the kind of banding
together most of them require. This one has the advantage of increased power to
the wealthy, who have enough foresight to gain their wealth (or at least
keep it, in the case of inheritance).
------------------------

>But what if OrgB stops taking donations for "predictions" for
"Non-Initiation Of Force Principle" (NIOFP) offenders?  Some other
organization will crop up to take their place AND the people operating OrgB
could be hit for their "ethical" action.  There is simply too much
opportunity offered by OrgB type organizations for people to pass up.  They
will not let the higher prices stop them.

If the answer to that problem is to regulate the lists of "victims", then
the next question is who are these people who are regulating and what
guidelines are they following?  Who decides who gets to be the moderators?
Could there be exceptions to the (NIOFP)-offender standard?  Who would they
be and why?    Could the organizations be anonymous as well?  How would the
money be transmitted to them in that case?  How can we trust or redress
grivances with an organization?  There are still many concerns regarding
the organizations.  If the organizations fail, the whole system fails.
---------------------
	The organizations themselves can be perfectly anonymous, especially
with some improvements onto the basic system that I am considering (and
researching). One idea to keep things more honest would be a "deathstamping"
organization, which would be above-board and have the "legitimate" function of
ecash life insurance (I'll explain further later).
	-Allen