From: Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>
Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 14:13:26 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: The Inducement of Rapid Oxidation of Certain Materials in or Near Government Buildings
In-Reply-To: <199705140456.VAA05054@mail.pacifier.com>
Message-ID: <19970513225047.26856@bywater.songbird.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On Tue, May 13, 1997 at 09:52:44PM -0800, Jim Bell wrote:
> At 19:34 5/13/97 -0700, Kent Crispin wrote:
> >Your estimate seems high to me.  But it is meaningless, in any case.
> 
> This isn't the first time you've called information that is detrimental to
> your position words equivalent to "meaningless."  I suppose that's easier
> than disproving the other person's claim, or proving your own.  

Ho hum.

> >First of all, it neglects to consider that governments may have 
> >prevented more murders than they caused.  This is unknowable, since 
> >we don't have any worthwhile control cases.
> 
> Your position is laughable.  Statistics on murder rates are knowable for
> many countries.  Studying the murder rate for those countries will at least
> provide a range against which deaths due to government-caused wars can be
> compared.

Only meaningful if you can compare with murder rates in a human 
society without a government...but of course, in fact the only time 
this happens is when society breaks down entirely.

And I am fascinated with the way you make the "government" into a 
bogeyman that is responsible for all the evils that beset the human 
race.  No consideration of other factors -- racial and tribal hatred, 
religious conflicts, class conflicts, etc etc.  A wonderful 
simplification. 

> >Second, such cases of civil breakdown aside, all humans, for now and
> >for the conceivable future, live within the context of some kind of
> >government.  The option of non-government simply doesn't exist. 
> 
> That's precisely what the governments and their agents want us to believe.
> Minarchism is certainly possible,

Oh boy.  A wonderful dream, minarchism, that everybody *must* secretly
want, except that some evil force is preventing them from getting to
it, and you, Jim Bell, are the savior that is going to bring it 
about.  A classic messiah complex.

[...]

> >Third, murders caused by governments can't really be separated from
> >murders caused by individuals.  That is, in many cases deciding
> >whether a murder is a personal action or a government action is
> >impossible. 
> 
> "Aye vas joost vollowink orderz!"
> 
> Sorry, we're still laughing at you.

When the LA cops beat up Rodney King, do you suppose they got any 
personal satisfaction out of it?  Or were they just cold government 
functionaries, doing their job?

> >Fourth, it's fashionable in these circles to paint all governments
> >with the same brush, but in fact, some are much better than others.  
> >But it only takes one bad one to start a war.  Furthermore, human 
> >motivations are complex and irrational, so wars are started for 
> >essentially insane reasons.  This is a human problem, not a problem 
> >of government.
> 
> No, quite the contrary.  Considered from the perspective of the cumulative
> interests of society, wars are not beneficial or "profitable."  Only from
> the very limited viewpoint of the military-industrial complex and government
> employees does war appear to be a net benefit, and that's true only because
> the interests of most of the population (on whom the effect of war is a net
> negative) is ignored.  The reason war occurs is that the decision to have a
> war is made not by society as a whole, but by that tiny fraction which profits.

So of course ideology could never start a war -- Arabs and Jews *only*
fight because of their governments, the American revolutionary war 
was *only* fought because the state governments wanted more power, 
the Tutsi's and the Hutus only fought because their governments 
forced them.  A wonderful simplification, blaming everything on 
"government". 

> Put the decision to have the war back into the hands of the population as a
> whole, and war will decrease.  Give the public the option to make war upon
> the government parasites infesting their own land, and war will end 
> forever.

A wonderful dream, truly.

-- 
Kent Crispin				"No reason to get excited",
kent@songbird.com			the thief he kindly spoke...
PGP fingerprint:   B1 8B 72 ED 55 21 5E 44  61 F4 58 0F 72 10 65 55
http://songbird.com/kent/pgp_key.html