From: "Peter Trei" <trei@process.com>
Date: Mon, 7 Apr 1997 06:40:42 -0700 (PDT)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: [off topic] Feds reading this list, Jim Bell, and threats
Message-ID: <199704071340.GAA18426@toad.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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John Young writes:

> On Phil Hallam-Baker's rejoinder to Paul Bradley' defense of AP:

> Virtually all of Phil's charges against AP apply equally well to
> state-sponsored killing in the natonal interest, including that
> arranged by highly educated, cultured, philosophical, nuclear 
> physicists and electrical engineers.

> That's the issue. Who gets to decide who lives and who dies, and
> how close the killer is to the slaughter, unprotected by law, by
> public consensus, by popular will, by apologetics for the security
> of national interest.

I think John has here hit the crucial point. *Any* form of killing
in cold blood - whether state sponsored executions, AP-sponsored 
killings, or just plain hired hit-men, has the initiator of the
killing taking onto him or herself the power of life and death over
others. This is not a power which I feel can be used in an ethical
manner, since it's exercise is totally irrevocable.

Thus, I oppose the death penalty, even in the most egregious cases.
Deciding who should live and who should die is simply not a proper
power for a State, nor for any person.

I have much less of a problem when a person is killed in an act of 
defense, in the heat of the moment.

[Yup, I know that that leaves a big fuzzy area
in the middle, but most cases are pretty clear].

Peter Trei
trei@process.com