From: nobody@huge.cajones.com (Huge Cajones Remailer)
Date: Mon, 7 Apr 1997 16:25:01 -0700 (PDT)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Cuba and AP
Message-ID: <199704072324.QAA11970@fat.doobie.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Hallam-Baker, counting on cypherpunks readers to be unwitting
victims of ten second sound-byte mentality, wrote:
> 
> If people want to see the effect of an AP society have a look at Cuba.
> Under the Batista regime $50 was sufficient to have someone killed.
> There was anarchy, the police were corrupt, the mafia ran most of the
> few parts of the country that worked - even they found the lack of order
> a problem.
> 
> The result was Fidel Castro. The Batista regime could neither reform nor
> survive. Any society that was threatened by AP would likewise collapse.

  So Hallam-Baker recognizes the AP system as a valid way to bring
about the collapse of unpopular, corrupt dictatorships.

> It is important to distinguish liberty and libertines. The libertine
> recognises no check on individual rights, even when they affect the
> rights of others. The inevitable result of libertinage is
> authoritarianism.

  The result of men living together on the face of the earth leads to
the inevitable result of authoritarianism.
  Systems such as "Assassination Politics" can aide in fighting against
unbearable corruption of power by lowering the cost of assassination
and thus raising the cost of corruption.

  The stench in Cuba was so bad under the U.S. backed Batista regime
that Guerva and Castro were a breath of fresh air for the majority of 
Cuban people.
  Despite years of harassment, invasion, and economic attack on Cuba
by the shameless 'free' countries <yuk,yuk> of the world, Castro is 
still a better option for the Cuban people than other options.
  When this ceases to be the case, then another variation of the Cuban
AP system will arise (perhaps Bell's?), and we will see the rise of a
new Cuban government.

  Despite the grand support the IRS is receiving from the government-
owned members of the cypherpunks list, it can hardly be argued that the
U.S. government has a problem with "Assassination Politics," since they
have availed themselves of it in the past, but only with the power of
AP being in the hands of the citizens instead of their own ruling hands.

TruthMonger (#7)