From: nobody@REPLAY.COM (Anonymous)
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 1997 10:05:26 +0800
To: cypherpunks@Algebra.COM
Subject: Re: Is Tim May guilty of illegally advocating revolution?
Message-ID: <199712030151.CAA10375@basement.replay.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



A ghost speaking through the medium replay.com communicated:
>Everyone likes to overlook this, pretending that May didn't mean it.
>Well, he never withdrew it, did he?  He never apologized for it.
>He's on the record as explicitly calling for the murder of high
>officials.
>
>And of course May further revealed his true colors with this horror,
>from the same message:
>
>> Every day that passes, I'm more convinced that McVeigh did the
>> right thing.  Some innocents died, but, hey, war is hell. Broken
>> eggs and all that.
>
>May's apologists have tried to pretend that he didn't say this, that
>he said that he was beginning to understand McVeigh, or something.
>That's not what he says here.  He says he is becoming convinced that
>McVeigh did the right thing in murdering all those people.

Whether we like it or not, many people are sympathetic with McVeigh.
Some are considering whether actions like bombing Federal buildings
are justified.

It's far far better that these issues are raised and discussed.

>He callously compares the shattered bodies of the children and other
>innocent victims to broken eggshells.  Monty Cantsin has provided us
>a moving description of the painful deaths of the children in Waco.
>Will dying of asphyxiation under pressure too great even to draw a
>breath be any easier?

You've hit upon something interesting here, Anonymous.  Let's consider
three groups of children.

1. ~100,000 children harmed in Iraq.
2. ~40 children harmed in Oklahoma City.
3. ~20 children harmed outside Waco.

Of these three groups, the third upsets me the most.  Why?  There are
several factors.

One is the extent to which the people committing the actions claim to
represent me.  It is often claimed and widely believed that the
Federal government is acting as a representative for and is answerable
to the American people.  (Allow Monty Cantsin a hollow laugh here.)

That being the case, Waco is far more upsetting than Oklahoma City in
this regard because McVeigh (or whomever) is not thought to represent
a sizeable proportion of the American public.  In the case of Iraq,
this factor raises my concern well above other places in the world
where children are mistreated.

Of the three groups of victims, I identify most strongly with the
people in Waco.  While not strongly religious myself, I respect people
who have unusual beliefs and stick to them.  And I have sympathy for
those who might live in unusual ways.  While I share a culture with
the victims in Oklahoma City, in general we would have little to say
to each other.  I don't know anything about people in Iraq.  This
factor probably governs my feelings on the matter most strongly.

The motivations of the people committing the acts are important.  I do
not believe that McVeigh (accepting the standard paradigm) meant to
kill children.  He certainly meant to kill people who had no
involvement with Waco.  I do not approve of his choice.  I would maybe
even kill somebody to prevent it from happening.  But, one feels
differently when children die more or less by accident than when it is
cold bloodedly premeditated.

In the case of Iraq, it is extremely hard to justify killing kids for
their oil.

The provocation that leads to an act must also be considered.  I am
extremely sympathetic with McVeigh's desire to do something about
Waco, even though I do things less violent and (hopefully) more
effective.  There was no reason whatsoever for the Waco crime to be
committed, likewise people living in the Middle East have not really
committed any provocative act more serious than having oil on their
land.

The mob mentality that seems to have gripped the United States during
the Waco atrocity has a particular horror which is absent in the case
of Oklahoma City and, right now anyway, mostly absent with Iraq.  The
blatant misrepresentation of what was occurring and the degree to
which people were compliant with it is shocking.  There was no serious
attempt to investigate the motivation behind the raid, or even what
was actually occurring from day to day.

The aftermath was even more horrifying.  The government attacks and
murders ~80 innocent people in the most brutal way for no identifiable
reason.  And all anybody can seem to do is to try to protect the
establishment, instead of finding out exactly what happened, instead
of charging the criminals who perpetrated the horror, instead of
taking the necessary actions to make sure nothing like this will ever
be done again by the Federal government, and instead of telling the
truth.

The implications of the three situations create varying degrees of
alarm.  I do not expect to see many more bombings.  Bombs are nothing
new.  They've been around for over 100 years and they are a manageable
problem.  Every few decades there's been a big explosion.  It is
unlikely McVeigh will do something like this again.

In the case of Iraq, I'm used to governments behaving this way and I
do not see it directly affecting me very soon.  (Perhaps this is a bit
insensitive.)

Waco, however, is quite another matter.  When you watch the footage it
gives you the creeps because what is being reported belongs in the
1940s and the people should be speaking German.  Instead, everybody
speaks English with an American accent and it's happening right now.

When you see an FBI agent justify what happened on the grounds that he
goes to a "normal" church and has a "normal" family, and when you see
other officials state that they wanted to harm the children to
encourage the parents to turn themselves in, the implications are that
we have a very serious problem that will not go away by itself.

Finally, in the case of Waco, the people in charge had all the time in
the world to think very carefully about what they were doing.  They
apparently decided to kill everybody they could, including particular
children whose names they knew, whose pictures they had seen, and some
of whom they may have even spoken to on the telephone.  This really is
hard for me to understand.  I can't imagine what kind of person can do
something like this.

This horror is particular to Waco.  In the case of McVeigh and the
people making policy regarding Iraq, the victims are at least
anonymous.

Monty Cantsin
Editor in Chief
Smile Magazine
http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html
http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.htm

Subject: Re: Is Tim May guilty of illegally advocating revolution?
To: cypherpunks@algebra.com
25BA1A9F5B9010DD8C752EDE887E9AF3 [Cantsin Protocol No. 2]
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