From: Dickey, Michael F (michael_f_dickey@groton.pfizer.com)
Date: Fri May 24 2002 - 07:27:32 MDT
From: Harvey Newstrom [mailto:mail@HarveyNewstrom.com]
> condemn
> those who seek to defend extropy against luddism for being
> 'anti-extropian' by doing so.
"Assassinating people is not self-defense. Terrorism is not
self-defense. Killing infants is not self-defense. Racism is not
self-defense. Hatred is not self-defense."
I really do not think Mike Lorrey was advocating Assassination in the
original thread, as I mentioned shortly after he posted that. It seemed
much more reasonable to interpret his statements as justification for self
defense, which I too believe is extropic. Perhaps I am Noam Chomsky
defending Pol Pot before his horrific actions came to light, or perhaps I
havent been around long enough on this list to witness Mike Lorrey's
assassination plans, but I do think we can all be a little more reasonable
in judging people. We are, after all, on the extropy list here, I dont
think it rife with mass murderers.
"I know people keep insisting that they HAVE to do these terrible things,
or else worse things will happen. But even if you end up preventing all
the other evils, in the end you find that the only one being evil is
yourself. There is no way this strategy can win. You are breaking the
very principles that you claim to be defending. You can't promote life
with murder. You can't defend the law with criminal activity. You
can't extend peace with violence. You literally become what you are
trying to prevent."
Curious, I wonder how you would propose handling the expansionist nature of
an aggressive state which does not directly attack you. Taking a cursory
look at history reveals horrendous non-democratic corrupt despotic
governments murdering 10's of millions of people. Many of these murderous
regime's may have been stopped by an assassination or two. Are we just as
evil as that horrific dictator? If we had assassinated Pol Pot and the
leaders of the Khmer Rouge before they overthrough Lon Nol in cambodia,
approx. 2.5 - 3 million cambodian lives may have been saved. Or, for that
matter, merely continuing to provide support to Lon Nol to help defend
against the Khmer 'workers party' onslaught most likely would have prevented
that mass murder. Did we ever become what we were trying to prevent? I
have yet to see the US ban personel computer sales, music, or the internet,
let alone smiling, laughter, and expressing love as the Khmer rouge often
executed people for.
"I thought history showed that coercive murderous governments that
suppressed dissenting opinions with violence lost out to peace-loving
democratic self-rule by the people. Besides, no one is arguing for
pacifism."
Perhaps they do, in the long run. But in the meantime millions of people
are killed, poets, philosophers, artists, scientists... peasant farmers...
Where is the value in that?
"You are replacing the evil coercive Luddites with
our coercive terrorist dictatorship that kills anybody who disagrees
with us. How does this promote extropy or prevent entropy. You end up
creating the very thing you fear most."
Seems you are perpetuating a fallacy of extremes here, one need not be a
coercive terrorist dictatorship OR an absolute pacifist. It is a false
dichotomy, one could choose a middle ground.
Regards,
Michael
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