From: Hallam-Baker <hallam@ai.mit.edu>
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 1996 08:47:25 -0700 (PDT)
To: Steve Schear <cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: is there no end to AP & Creative Wiretap Arguments?
In-Reply-To: <53osds$id2@life.ai.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <3267A7D3.41C6@ai.mit.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Steve Schear wrote:

> How about as a means of coercing war criminals ethnic purgers, as those in
> Bosnia/Serbia, to turn themselves in to proper tribunals for judging.
> Having AP bettors wager $100,000s on your untimely retirement, unless you
> turn yourself in, could induce one to consider conventional justice.

On the other hand it would provide said war criminals with a convenient
mechanism for carrying out their crimes. 

It does not work for Bell and his appologists to wave their hands and
say "trust me it will be better". There is absolutely no reason to
believe that AP markets would be used by anyone but psychopaths. 

No mechanism is proposed which restricts the purposes to which the AP
markets can be put. They would inevitably be used by the KKK and
neo-NAZI groups for hate-crimes.


> All human rights are Naturally derived as are the 'Laws of the Jungle'.
> Governments instituted among men should derive their rights from the
> soverignty of its citizens.  Unfortunately, many countries choose to ignore
> this.  AP should serve an occassionally competitive system to keep the
> 'duly consistuted' system on its toes lest those in authority reap the law
> of the jungle.

Rights do not exist outside a legal framework that supports them.
Arguments
from natural law have been discredited for 300+ years. Such arguments
merely reify the prejudices of one society into axiomatic rights without
the bother of having to justify them. There is no logical basis to
prefer the "rights" of th US constitution over the "rights" recognised
by the Islamic Jihad.

If you read the US declaration of Independence it is very clear that its
authors rejected natural law arguments. The rights that they hold to be
"self evident" are extreemly abstract principles which could be
justified within almost any ethical system. The removal of the word
"God" was deliberate and reflects a concious rejection of the natural
law argument. 


AP is self-contradictory. It claims to uphold "rights" by infringing
them massively and disproportionately and in such a way that no rights
would remain. It is impossible to justify AP except in extreeme
authoritarian terms that could be used to justify any system of
government. 


	Phill