From: Black Unicorn <unicorn@schloss.li>
Date: Sun, 14 Apr 1996 03:23:27 +0800
To: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Subject: Re: "Contempt" charges likely to increase
In-Reply-To: <m0u870T-0008xMC@pacifier.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.960413113607.10486M-100000@polaris.mindport.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



I will not, of course, reply to Bell's reply.

On Sat, 13 Apr 1996, jim bell wrote:

> At 07:59 PM 4/12/96 -0400, Black Unicorn wrote:

> >The government of the United States doesn't play "fair" when they want 
> >something.
> 
> But if the government of the United States does play "fair," then why can we 
> not play "fair" and kill their agents who violate what we feel is our 
> rights?

Are you planning on affording them due process rights?  What about other 
rights generally?  At least the U.S. government attempts to do
this.  How about a trial, or does it merely take a single bidder with 
money to have someone offed?  Sounds like tyrrany of the rich to me.  I 
might add that if this is the way things were the richest would be the 
survivors, able to kill their enemies, protect themselves better, and 
deploy their own agents.  Jim Bell would be uni's first victim methinks.  
Sure, implement this policy, I'd love it.  I'm not sure there would be 
many people standing in the end, but the wealthy would be the last of 
them.  You're merely replacing the leaders with even more despotic types 
and without any constitutional protections.

(BTW, read it closely, I said they DON'T play fair.)

> After all, the government is merely the representative of the 
> people (at least in theory!) and it 'must' follow the rules (laws, 
> Constitution, etc).

I think the U.S. government does a much better job at this than almost 
any other sovereign excepting perhaps the U.K., which has still had its 
share of self contradiction.

> To whatever extent it exceeds those limits, and to 
> whatever extent the public can't get justice to prevent those violations, 
> why would the public be obligated to accept them?

Really Mr. Bell has recognized something important, though I'm not sure 
even he realizes it.  Specifically, that when his allies are so few in 
number he must resort to general terrorism and low intensity conflict to 
have any hope of success at all.
 
> To believe otherwise is to believe that the government has some sort of 
> special dispensation to violate the law.  I don't believe this; it wouldn't 
> surprise me to hear that you do, however.  Which is it?

I don't believe anyone has any special dispensation.  It's all a question 
of who can get away with it.  For all your moaning and whining, you are 
still less able to get away with it than agents of the CIA and the men on 
top.  It must be killing you.  I can feel the way the knife twists in you 
with the realization that you are another small gear in the machine.

You and the Unabomber.  Horrified at the thought that you might be 
insignificant.  Driven by the need to be important, noticed.

Some people work to change the system by developing structures to work 
within it, or around it.

You call for the assassination of (not even particularly important) 
public officials on the whim of the individual who happens to have cash.

You're a one trick pony and it's getting boring fast.

Grow up.

> Jim Bell  [B.A. Physics, Ph.D. Nuclear Physics, J.D., LL.M. (Taxation) 
Coast Guard Certified Navigator, Ph.D. Computer Science (Thesis on 
bytes), M.A. Political Science.]

---
My preferred and soon to be permanent e-mail address:unicorn@schloss.li
"In fact, had Bancroft not existed,       potestas scientiae in usu est
Franklin might have had to invent him."    in nihilum nil posse reverti
00B9289C28DC0E55  E16D5378B81E1C96 - Finger for Current Key Information
Opp. Counsel: For all your expert testimony needs: jimbell@pacifier.com