Re: e-$ and AP

["Jean-Francois Avon" <jf_avon@citenet.net>]

[note for newbies: AP = Assasination Politics system by Jim Bell]

On Wed, 21 Apr 1999 05:21:33 -0400, The Sheriff wrote:

>Here's the one thing that bothers me about AP -- if it's either
>legalized or simply becomes commonly exepted, what's to keep it
>from becomming a tool to weed out "undesirables?"  Folks with
>wierd hair-doos, tattoos, or studs through their woo-woos, in
>other words.  Granted, everybody's got a right to have an opinion
>about everybody else's lifestyle.  The problem is that if you get
>a misfit subculture that is a minority but sticks out like a sore
>thumb, what's to keep "fed-up neighbors/relatives" and the like
>from putting prices on the heads of such individuals?  Certainly
>not majority rule.

It won't happen that way.  Your analysis lacks the inverse reaction: weirdos 
unconsciously congregating by each putting an independent buck on the head of 
a redneck...

As soon as you could identify a group, it could become a victim.  Study 
clearly show that if only 1% of a population carries a concealed weapon, crime 
rate on the honest citizen go down dramatically (around 75 to 85% depending on 
the crime).  Which redneck will like to run the risk of being killed?  "Which 
one of you sirs will volunteer?".

How will the AP market evolve?  I dunno.  Initially, it will probably 
dominated by prizes on dictators and notorious SOB's.  As society evolve over 
decades, will the politics stabilize to a Natural Rights level?  If so, the 
prizes amount and frequency will probably decrease.  What will happen next?  
Will it bring us to a society built out of several groups targetting each 
others?  If the possible outcome of a group's win yields no advantages to the 
winner, will the fight keep going?  I dunno, it depends on Human Nature.

>The fact of the matter is that if you create a situation like
>this where raw democracy (the free market system, if you will)
>is allowed to be the deciding factor when it comes to the kind
>of people who are allowed to live versus the kind of people who
>are shot in the head, you are paving the way to tyranny.

Your analysis is not consistent with reality again.  People will not get 
"allowed" to live, they will simply mind their own business and live without 
making enemies.  "Live and let live or get killed", "MYOB or else" will be the 
rule.

And NO, people won't resort to killing to settle petty disputes.  In any 
dispute, parties know each others, which puts the risk on both parties.  If 
one has the other eliminated, he'd better enjoy his victory right now for he 
won't have a long time to do so.  Rich people have more money to allocate to 
eliminate adversaries, poor people have more solidarity and often more family.  
Beside, by the nature of the system, since hit-men will often be insiders, can 
the rich man trust his maid?  His chauffeur?  His cook?  His mechanic fixing 
his limo's brakes?  


> When
>the US was created, it was not created to be a Democracy.  It
>was created to be a representitive republic, regulated by a set
>of laws that required a huge, mass-majority vote to change.  In
>essence, the will-of-the-moment isn't supposed to rule here. It
>is not the way the US was designed to work.

Yeah, but hte way it is ran now (and my beloved Kanada too) is NOT as a 
representative republic.  You live under Admiralty Law, in the world of 
statutory law.  Admiralty Law imposed on the land is despotism and this is in 
the regime you live.  Forget about Natural Law and Anglo-Saxon Common Law, I 
don't think there are Common Law courts in NY state!

Wether the penalty for violating other people's right is applied by "govt" or 
by a private AP system doesn't matter a lot.  Natural Law is not called 
Natural for nothing: it comes from the intrinsical sense of justice of the 
Human Animal.  People won't put money on the head of others lightly.  And if 
they do, the amount they put will be representative of what they really think.

Also, realize that some rich man who wants to eliminate somebody for sure will 
likely not use AP for AP doesn't guarantee that the job will get done, it only 
puts a probability of a hit on the head of somebody, which is contingent on 
the context, the present offer and demand (i.e. the market), etc.

I expect to see many people with price on their head modify their status so 
that the bounty is not active anymore.  A prize could get awarded to, as an 
example, "any level so and so IRS agent".  If a given individual wants to 
reduce the risk, he'll quit his legalized extortion agent job...

>It was designed that way for a good reason -- to remain resistant
>to the tyrrany of majority rule.  I'm not saying it's perfect,
>but the ideals that birthed this country work (when applied), and
>were, in my not so humble opinion, better thought-out than the
>idea of AP.

I agree that the founding principles of USA are great.  Only, see how they got 
corrupted over the life time of any given individual...  And history only 
repeats itself.  I am not advocating AP, I simply say that it's mechanics 
(economic theory) entails that it is not _automatically_ a monster.  I might 
become one, for unforeseen reasons, but up to now, nobody came up with a cast-
in-armed-cement argument.

I am not very at ease with the idea of living in an AP world, but mostly 
because of the implied unknown.  We all fear the unknown.  But come to think 
of it, the status quo has a lot against it anyway...  How many million of 
people died in the last century because some illuminated govt official decided 
that killing was the solution?  (Mao: 50 million, Stalin: a bunch, etc).  Some 
very detailed excrutiatingly evaluates it at 150 millions caused by 
collectivist ideas (communism, socialism) alone.

Ciao

jfa


Definition:  FASCISM: n.:  a political and economic movement, strongly nationalistic, magnifying the rights of the state as opposed to those of the individual, in which industry, though remaining largely under private ownership, and all administrative
political units, are controlled by a strong central government.
        -------------------------------------------------
"One of the ordinary modes by which tyrants accomplish their purpose, without resistance, is by disarming the people and making it an offense to keep arms".  - Joseph Story, U.S. Supreme Court Justice.
        -------------------------------------------------
the German gun control laws were enacted by the "liberal" Weimar Republic government that preceded Hitler, and were a strong aid to his coming to power -- because they disarmed Hitler's opponents, and Hitler's adherents ignored them -- as criminals have always ignored gun control laws.

Disarming the public is a frequent first step toward dictatorships and genocides.  Once the disarming is complete, the public is helpless against those who have the guns.        -------------------------------------------------
"Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore 
 deprive them of their arms."
                                 -- Aristotle, "Politics"
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