This site hits public officials pretty hard, I like to think only when it’s merited. Threatening to kill a public official is never merited. It isn’t an argument, and it taints everything we try to do here. Do it on this site and you’ll be banned. Immediately.

I would not go so far as to say that killing, or threatening to kill a public official is never merited, given recent human history (Holocaust, Rape of Nanking).

Those of us in America are not there yet. We can only hope and work to avoid getting to such a point.

Banning is fine (your property, your right), but re-think ideas about handing over trace details.

No sensible wingnut (if there is such a thing) will post genuine Yog-Sothoth level madness without running through a proxy, a VPN, or TOR/JAP/I2P… or perhaps making use of a WPA cracker to access a neighbour’s WiFi router.

So you might wind up participating in a mechanism whose end point is sending the State’s goons to some poor sod who leaves his WiFi connection susceptible to any numptie who happens to download the required tools to crack the shit-awful encryption used for most WiFi.

So long as you’re comfortable with adding to the number of no-knock raids on the wrong schlub, you’re golden.

Cheerio

GT

Furthermore, the ‘chilling effect’ of the required public-awareness campaign will see to it that ALL members of the state’s thug-drone squads are aware of an increase in the costs of ‘business as usual’; likewise, decreasing the expected net utility of a career as a thug-drone will likewise harm recruitment efforts (with the irksome short-term corollary risk of attracting jelly-minded idiots who think that life is Halo or ‘Call of Duty:Black Ops’… the sublimated-homosexual war-cartoon addict).

As Grenadier1 pointed out, the British in India
(a) were already an Empire in the throes of decline who had lost the will to retain India; and
(b) had had sufficient difficulty in putting down uprisings in the past;
that they saw no net utility in assassinating Gandhi. Had Gandhi been a leader in the mid 1800s he would simply have been killed, and anyone who pretends otherwise is either a dupe or is selling something.

It is not clear to me why some ‘libertarians’ think that the Zero *Aggression* Principle means that we have to come over all Buddhist when confronting the sort of swaggering shitbirds who think a badge and gun gives them the right to treat us like mediaeval serfs. One can be ultra-violent without being the aggressor: like Grenadier1 I am perfectly comfortable with massively-asymmetric retaliatory violence – disproportionate response is required to account for the fact that the threat is ongoing.

Violence is perfectly acceptable – even necessary – as a reaction to tyranny; so long as one is not INITIATING violence. (That said: if one is constantly under the express threat that the State can ice you if it feels like, with no pretence at due process… almost all acts towards such an open threat qualify as defensive).

And yes, advocates of that sort of thing might be v& – it’s to be expected when the country has degenerated to the point where the people in charge can kill folks without pretending they need to answer to anybody.

Besides… the required markets already exist on freenet; you can get dox on a jerk in a matter of days and organise anything from harrassment, to a beating, to a dirtnap… so anything posted in an ordinary comments thread is probably only advertising.

Cheerio

GT

You provide the peacefull protest and I will keep getting ready for the alternative.

Great line, MPH. Ties in with what’s wrong with “if we only had the right people in office.” The whole system is the problem. What to do about it?

I guess that’s a compliment of sorts, the site is clearly effecting people’s feelings and opinions in a very strong way. Some people just need to cool it on the “vote from the rooftops” rhetoric, it’s unseemly and feeds an unfortunate stereotype.

Advocate for the removal of the office in question, or for the removal of the authority being used. Changing the person in the office using the authority will have little effect.

It is NOT the “abuse of power” that is the problem, it is the “power to abuse”. If a government official lacks sovereign immunity (too few do), when they exceed their authority they should go to prison, and certainly should be subject to civil penalties.

We need to take our authority back from the government. That cannot be done by threatening those who are currently “in power”. Indeed, this gives those “in power” the excuse for even more draconian measures. Don’t give them that. Use peaceful means to remove their office from the governmental structure, and return the authority of that office to the people.

“Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.”

Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776

“A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.”

Thomas Jefferson

“The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.”

Thomas Jefferson

Some classic quotes on the nature of government from two of the most radical of the founders (I am partial to Paine, but Jefferson was certainly brilliant, though deeply conflicted). A holiday gift from me to you, Cynical!

Your reference to Kant is very relevant and timely. In my area, violent crime has increased as the holidays get closer. The homicide numbers continue to grow, and with it the calls for the state to “do something.” As much as I abhor the drug war, I believe that the people involved in this illegal market COULD work together to reduce the violence if they had the desire, morality or mental stability. Instead they shoot randomly into houses and cripple children for life (no, their bullets don’t always hit their intended rivals).

People could also do things to reduce the likelihood that they will injure each other, whether through violence or traffic incidents (drink a little less, seek counseling for substance issues or relationship problems, etc). Instead, their irresponsibility becomes a criminal justice problem when they impose on or injure others. We The People are largely responsible for the growth of government and the associated infringements on liberty because we are a violent, entitled and litigious society that doesn’t really know what it wants.

In spite of it all, enjoy your holiday season. Cherish family, friends, good times, reason and learning. These are the things that make our society a “blessing,” not government, and not those among us who do everything in their power to encourage its growth and power.

Truth, every word of it. This is why violence is not just immoral, it’s atrocious game theory. The corollary is that there are several modern examples of non-violence being used to achieve political goals against the State (Gandhi, King, etc.). Of course it could be argued that these peaceful political movements exist in the context of statism and that the State wins either way, which it does. But for the lowest in society, these movements had meaningful positive results for a significant minority of individuals, so I have to give credit where it’s due. Kind of like how Balko wins some battles but the war seems unwinnable. I guess it’s all about scale and picking battles wisely.

Still Kant’s categorical imperative commands my interest, that if the vast majority can be persuaded to abandon violence as the organizing principle of society, then the State will disappear. Human nature seems to be the impenetrable barrier to that ever happening. Too much fear, too much greed, too much death.

Merry Christmas!

Non-violence is more than skin-deep for a libertarian. It is a defining characteristic.

You are absolutely right, my original post was poorly worded in that regard. Many posts here testify to the fact that non-violence is a core tenant of libertarian ethics. It is one of the things that largely distinguishes the movement from the reactionary and frequently bloodthirsty rhetoric present in political discourse today.

In other words, anyone who advocates the initiation of violent non-defensive aggression against another individual is not libertarian, period. The word for that person is “statist.”

Here is where I am going to disagree with you. I am not advocating aggression against individuals, I am talking about a more general response to the aggression of the state. Though neither of these is in itself the act of a statist. Using violence and advocating statism are mutually exclusive.

I absolutely agree with you that initiating violence against another person is unconscionable, one of the just purposes of government in a free country is to serve as mediator for conflicts to better ensure the safety and prosperity of all. But the calculus is a little more muddled what talking about the state and its agents. The state has the power to arrest, try, imprison, and execute an individual. If the government behaves unjustly the balance of power is woefully in its favor. I wish that as an individual I had the ability to arrest, try, and imprison those government agents who have violated their oaths to defend the constitution and who continue to violate the rights of citizens. If I had that ability execution would be unnecessary, unlike the state I don’t believe in the death penalty. Buy you and I can’t do that when it comes to dealing with an increasingly lawless police state, our options are limited to what we can do with our own means.

JOR said:

Anything up to and including exterminating them. This does not include actions that harm third parties.

Really thats where you draw the line? Waiting in a train on your way to a death camp? Why fight at all if you’ve already given up the other 99% required to get to this point?

Bomb Blasts in Rome, Anarchists Smeared

Just so we’re clear again, if you are violent, you are not an anarchist, you’re a statist. What you call yourself is irrelevant.

“And what’s so bad about cowardice?”

“Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste of death but once.” – Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare

I have come to believe that what is commonly called the American Revolution, as is the case with most statist history, was nothing of the sort. It was a civil war between the landed classes of England and the Colonies, each group vying for political control of the Colonies. I’m not sure how government has fared post-civil wars in general.

And in light of subsequent history, I believe your conclusion is speculative at best. Government by England then was vastly superior and preferable to the utter monstrosity we live under today. But in fairness, it’s absolutely apples/oranges as modern America bears no resemblance whatsover to colonial America. So, we’ll really never know.

But I absolutely concur with you that where colonial governments worldwide were overthrown and replaced with strong-man dictatorships, the quality of government deteriorated catastrophically.

For more analysis of the efficiency of British colonial governments in history, Unqualified Reservations has written volumes on the subject derived from source material analysis.

The beauty of being human is that one must decide for oneself. The ugly of being human is that one is always judged by one’s actions by one’s peers.

Rather than threaten death to defend oneself(???), why not simply kill your aggressor, then attempt to defend your actions as self-defense? From a practical standpoint, you would have eliminated the threat, whereas merely threatening death (cowardice) prolongs the situation and lets your target know that it might be in his best interests to kill you first. While I deplore the violence, I could at least respect the cold, reptilian logic of it.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got. Pretty sure you were just being cheeky, JOR.