From: Forrest Bishop (forrestb@ix.netcom.com)
Date: Thu Aug 01 2002 - 02:07:34 MDT
----- Original Message -----
From: Lee Corbin <lcorbin@tsoft.com>
To: <extropians@extropy.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 31, 2002 10:08 PM
Subject: RE: Obedience to Law (was Penology)
> Randall writes
> No, I'd have to agree with you that if we are handing
> out blame, then the German people deserve some for
> electing Hitler. Hitler immediately dissolved democracy,
> and I'm saying that you cannot blame any democratic
> nation for megadeaths. In other words, I'm saying that
> while a nation is democratic (in every historical example)
> it does not kill millions of its citizens.
So... the American Indians and Negro slaves can safely be left out of this equation since they weren't technically citizens. We'll
also have to omit a half million+ dead Iraqis, several million dead Vietnamese, a few hundred thousand Latin Americans, and so on,
since they were also not technically citizens. Alternatively, we can model the US as just another rotted-out, despotic, oligarchical
empire and dispense with the democratic augument altogether.
> > >>Rwanda since at least 1991
An excellent example of the glory of democracy in full flower: 85% of the population voted to murder the other 15%. The will of the
people hath spoken.
...
> > >>Zimbabwe since at least 1979
Another wonderful demonstration of strength in unity.
> > >>Clearly democracy, in and of itself, is somewhat overrated.
You may enjoy Hans Hermann Hoppe's new book *Democracy: The God That Failed*. I haven't read it yet except for excerpts and reviews;
mostly quite positive. Democracy is completely overrated- the American Constitutional Republic was structured in a manner designed
to avoid the pratfalls of allowing a select majority the privilege of voting themselves the proceeds of the Treasury. The
contemporary, sorry debt/welfare/warfare State would not have been possible has the supreme law of the land been adhered to.
> Freedom and democracy
> aren't identical, but they are linked.
I'm not seeing any correlation here. Freedom to me means an absence of coersion and violence in the conduct of one's affairs. If the
violent offender was allegedly 'elected' by a majority or considers himself an "authority" because some third party said so, this
doesn't alter the effect of the offender's actions (cf Rwanda).
Forrest
-- Forrest Bishop Chairman, Institute of Atomic-Scale Engineering www.iase.cc
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