Dear Ken, > I appreciate your input.
One is glad to be of service. > It seems to me that you are arguing for anarchy? No. Anarchy, as it is often transliterated from the Greek means "without rules." I'm not an anarchist in that sense. "Archon" means king or ruler in Greek, so the term "anarchony" was coined a few years back to suggest this idea of "without rulers." It is likely that anarcho-capitalists intend this "without rulers" meaning, as trade and commerce function with many rules. I'm a propertarian. I'm for property. Property and liberty and life are different aspects of the same thing. > You believe the state is useless I don't state it as a belief. The state is useless. I state it as fact, not hypothesis. It is a law of human nature, an observable phenomenon, an aspect of reality. It has been proven beyond any doubt. > and shouldn't have the power to punish crime. >From where would it derive a just power to do so? > It looks like these issues you have raised are based on > religio-philosophical presuppositions somewhere between > extreme Libertarianism and Anarchy. Then I apologize for not being more clear. I don't base these views on pre-suppositions. Propertarianism is a philosophy, but one derived from facts rather than any sort of pre-suppositions or tautology. > I don't think the e-gold discussion list is the place > to debate religion and philosophy, Agreed it isn't the place to debate religion or philosophy. I'm not doing so. In my view, I was criticizing what appears to be an e-gold or OmniPay policy of treating SEC agents with coffee and donuts while they peruse the records of e-gold accounts willy-nilly. I base that criticism on my views about the effectiveness of such behavior which I derive from observation. Yes, my views are my opinions, and my opinions are stated in the context of my personal philosophy. Having said all that, from the private responses I've seen, it appears that this thread is of interest to quite a large number of people. To the best of my ability I'll respond to all the private messages, although I got some fine URLs on my inquiry about co-lo in Latin America, so my time has other demands. > My presupposition is that Western civilization was > built on the idea that there is an objective ethical > standard of right and wrong, and that the purpose, > duty, and right of the State is to punish evildoers > after they have committed a crime (not to prevent evil > by regulation). Well, I think that's all mistaken. Western civilization is based on the slave-holding cultures of Egypt, Judea, Greece, and Rome. The concept of the state as an entity with the power to tax derives not from any moral authority, but from the application of greater force. The state was organized as a gang which could extort and coerce with trained soldiers in numbers sufficient to back up the whimsical choices of those who control the state. Another form of government, kritarchy, or the rule of judges, is the basis for clan structures in Awdal. The Celtic civilization which was over-run and destroyed by Rome had many similar features. One of the very powerful traditions involved is the notion that a criminal should be made to compensate his victims; that compensation is better than punishment. > That is the perpective I am coming from, given that it > seems to be the common assumption of most of society > around the world - The commonplace isn't always the best approach. It is reasonable to suppose that most people cling to the institutions with which they have become familiar, as Jefferson noted, even when these institutions amount to evil. "Prudence indeed will dictate that institutions long established should not be overthrown for light and transient causes, and all evidence has shown that men will suffer evil while evil is sufferable rather than change the institutions to which they have become accustomed." Or words to that effect. You could look it up. For at least five thousand years, the prominent cultures on Earth were all slave-holding cultures. It was a common assumption that society could not be organized without a class of slaves. That common assumption proved to be mistaken. (Oscar Wilde suggests that modern culture depends on the slavery of the machine.) > that the State should punish certain kinds of > wrongdoing (crime) with force and or confiscation > of property (theft, murder etc). Lots of people used to assume that the Earth was flat, that the Sun moved about the Earth, and that failure to wrap the entrails of a scapegoat about an evergreen at Winter Solstice would condemn the Earth to eternal cold. These assumptions proved to be mistaken, and much progress has depended upon abandoning them. A lot of people do assume that the State should punish crimes with force. But, what is "the State"? It's just a bunch of people, who act as though they have authority to do the things they do. And what does the State consider a crime? For the rather trivial matter of failing to file a few papers and pay some $200 in fees, "the State" in its noble authority came to Texas in 1993 and burned seven dozen men, women, children, and infants to death in a church. Alvin & Heidi Toffler describe such events as "surplus order" which does not benefit the guy who wants to keep his property safe, but which only benefits those who run the state. > My other assumption is that people have a basic > moral responsibility to be kind to each other, Again, I don't recognize an obligation to be kind to everyone at all times. Kindness, like trust and respect, may be earned. Kindness to those who are brutal or foolish may be a useful strategy, but I don't see it as obligatory. Again, I recognize only two obligations: to do what I think is right, and take no part in a slave society. > but is not the domain of the State to enforce. Shhhh! Don't tell the State! Those who run the state don't agree. Just a few years ago we were treated to Clinton's notion of compulsory volunteering in high school. High school students would be obliged to volunteer. The novelist George Orwell did quite a bit to expose the flaws in Newspeak with his book _1984_. > (The State should punish evil, I disagree. I disagree that the State does so, that it should do so, that its attempts to do so are in the least effective, that we should come to rely on the State for such a service, or that its own evil aspects can be punished by itself. Rather, I would assert that the State is doing a lousy job of punishing evil, is evil itself, practices evil to get the resources to punish anyone, punishes the good as often as the evil, has made a bunch of property transactions "evil" so it can have a bigger budget, and is poor value for the money we spend on it. Let's get a better tool. The State of Oklahoma prohibits any artist from conducting a tattoo business within its borders. A great many states prohibit various types of private gambling transactions, while promoting state lotteries (which offer such lousy odds the same games could not be licensed to operate in Nevada). States prohibit smoking in all kinds of public and private places. States prohibit all manner of private transactions having to do with agricultural products and all kinds of ownership and use of recreational pharmaceuticals. Those who run the state will tell you that all these things are "evil" and must be punished. Since you argue that "[t]he State should punish evil" then you should define evil. Because if you let the state do it, you condemn your fellow man to a slave society, and that isn't very kind. > but it cannot make anyone do good.) Yet, it tries to do so. "Will nobody think of the children?!" the soccer moms whine, so taxes are raised, and all manner of handouts are provided to the indigent, the transient, the shiftless, the lazy, and the actually needy. In fact, the "system" for coercing everyone to do good by those who "are less able" is so pathetic that actually disabled people wait years for government assistance, and actually ill people suffer from poor treatment, misdiagnosis, and malfeasance in the publicly funded hospitals. Veteran's Administration and Medicare funded hospitals are horror stories about how ineffective the State is when it makes everyone "do good" by paying taxes which are "redistributed" mostly to bureau-rats and politicians. Rather than doing good, these systems are killing people, butchering my friends and neighbors, and leaving body parts in their wake. So, in a sense, you're right, the State cannot make anyone do good, since it is incompetent to do good for anyone. > While it is probably safe to say that no state in > the history of the world has ever limited itself > to purely punishing evildoers, the reason people > have put up with the State for millenia is because > it does fulfill that basic function, even if it does > other bad things too. I disagree, of course. Go do an Amazon.com search for the book _Death by Government_ and then buy it with Bananagold.com's delightful interface. With e-gold, of course. The reason people have put up with the State for millennia is because the State kills those who attempt to do without it. For example, in 1991, the people of Somalia overthrew a dictator. They had colonialism until 1960, a corrupt democracy to 1969, a Marxist dictator to 1978, the same guy in pro-USA dictator mode to 1991, and they finally had enough. So this guy got on the radio in the capital and said, "Everyone should go home to the village where he was born. We have not worked out any basis for another government." Y'know, in Somali language. So, that's what happened. Everyone went home. In May 1993, after having fixed the problem of a famine in Southern Somalia, 20,000 USA marines went home. Then the UN sent Pakistani troops to take over a radio station that was broadcasting the message that the UN was there in Mogadishu to set up a new national government, to tax the Somali people to pay for the $2.6 billion (1999 value) of foreign debt created by the dictator. In other words, to enslave the people of Somalia to pay for the debt created by the slave master they had just gone to the trouble of overthrowing. Gee. The Somalis didn't like the UN's continuing presence. They killed some of those Pakistani soldiers. So, the UN initiated retaliatory strikes. On 12 July 1993, the USA military sent 17 helicopters to destroy a clan meeting in an apartment building in Mogadishu. TOW missiles, cannon, machine gun fire, and other rockets were used to annihilate 80 people in a surprise attack. Sadly, the clan meeting was called by moderates who wanted to avoid a war; they all ended up dead, including one guy who was 90 years old. Great work defending USA interests against evil doers, huh? So, of course, in October 1993, given the opportunity, the Somalis began shooting down American helicopters. You get to see all about it in January with the film "Black Hawk Down" by the same producer who brought you "Armageddon." Something tells me that Jerry Bruckheimer's version of events isn't going to be very complete. Don't take my word for it. Read what the Philadelphia Inquirer reported: http://www.philly.com/packages/somalia/nov16/default16.asp > I always argue from this perspective about issues pertaining > to e-gold, e-commerce etc, with the understanding that those > two ideas form a common ground on which we can discuss things > like fraud and how to deal with it. But these ideas don't reflect common ground. They reflect the way (a) the State wants to deal with it, (b) the fact that they'll beat up or kill anyone who tries to deal with it any other way, and (c) a great many people have given up on trying other approaches. It may be your preference to dismiss anyone who won't consent to these items of what you call "common ground" but, if any such persons exist, then perhaps that ground isn't all that common. > If you reject those ideas, it makes it kind of difficult > to have any conversation at all. So, if I don't agree with your premises, then we can't have a conversation. Or, if I offer another set of ideas, which challenge your pre-suppositions, I'm the bad guy. I'm not sure I follow you. Perhaps what you're saying is that it is difficult to have a conversation which rejects your pre-suppositions because the difficulty that involves is requiring a whole new perspective on the problem, thinking outside the box, a bunch of creativity, and challenging the notions on which modern culture is built. For my own part, I think that sort of critical examination is vital. Socrates said that an unexamined life is not worth living. Another philosopher I've come to respect, Sarah Lawrence, says that criticism is essential to the growth of knowledge, or words to that effect. If I'm critical of ideas which I consider faulty, I mean no disrespect toward you. > If you and your gun, No, Ken, I have many more than one. > and me and my gun are the only law, Where does that come from, Ken? How do you arrive at gunfights in the street as the only possible solution to disputes? That isn't how private parties resolve disputes, and you know it. How do neighbor's solve differences of opinion? They do some of these things: (a) talk about it (b) work out an exchange of some kind (c) hire a mediator (d) agree to binding arbitration (e) call a cop. The ones that work are a through d. Calling a cop is the last resort, and generally leads to no happy result. In many places worldwide, the "cop" is a private contractor, and has no affiliation with the state. (Indeed, nothing any state does is uniquely stately: private businesses do each thing any state does, always better, faster, and cheaper.) > and right and wrong is up to your personal interpretation > and mine, Right and wrong are concepts that the individual creates for himself, yes. There are some, such as Nietzche, who have abandoned the whole concept of good and evil for a more pragmatic, and in some ways more workable idea of good and bad, what works and what fails to work. I'm not in that camp. I prefer ethics and morals. However, if your ideas of right and wrong and my ideas of right and wrong are no good, where shall we get something that's better than bad? Is the State able to provide us with moral authority? When it steals false teeth with which to bite you, and bites easily, when everything it utters is a lie, should we turn to it for choosing between right and wrong? No. It isn't competent to say what is right and what is wrong. It can only tell us what is good for the State, and as that is invariably bad for me and you, we shouldn't pay attention to its preferences. > then we can understand why these scammers hack into > e-gold accounts and steal from other people. What can we understand about it? We can understand that bad things happen in the presence of your powerful State which is supposed to punish all evil. The State isn't working out very well in that regard, because lots of evil events keep on happening. The State disarms everyone who flies on commercial airlines, so that fewer than two dozen guys armed with nothing better than a razor blade each can take over four jets and fly them into large objects (Pennsylvania, two towers, and one pentagonal building). Really, the State is doing a lousy job of defending us against evil doers. Maybe I misunderstood George Bush, and he is just trying to fight evil Dewar's, that bad Scotch from the Highlands. I dunno. > They either have a different standard of right > and wrong than the rest of us, or they know it > is wrong and just don't care. The guys who sit around writing viruses have way too much time on their hands. The ones who try to crack into systems to steal have the exact same motivation as the State, which taxes for that purpose. Some of those who attempt to gain access to private computer systems to obtain private information work for the State, and have such tools as "Magic Lantern" and "Carnivore" and the ECHELON database. Declan McCullagh recently reported that the FBI was attempting to gain access to all the keystroke logs accumulated by the badTransB virus, without so much as a warrant or a subpoena. See www.politechbot.com So, rather than a different standard of right and wrong, I would say that the average cyber-thief has exactly the same standard as your average federal government agent: anything goes. > If morality is relative, who are we to judge them? Where in any of my posts have you found me taking up a position of moral relativism? I'm not. I believe in an absolute moral code, in the perfectibility of humankind, and in the ideals of liberty. I'm against initiatory force and fraud in all its forms. That means I have to be against the State, since it is force and fraud. My willingness to be consistent in my application of my moral system appears to be a sore point for you. > But if the rest of us are going to discuss how > things "should be" and how we should deal with theft > of my e-gold or yours, it requires that we have at > least some common understanding of right and wrong, > such as the assumption that lying and stealing are > morally wrong. By "the rest of us" I assume you mean everyone who is unwilling to be consistent in applying his moral code of ethics. Somehow, it is okay for you if force and fraud are used by the State against me, because I've got these weird ideas, but the rest of all y'all need to figure things out without me. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding your point. As of now, I don't have any "theft of my e-gold" to worry about. I hadn't heard that you had some stolen. I regret if that has happened, and abhor the deed. Theft is morally wrong. The State steals all the time. All that it has was obtained by theft. So, how can we possibly turn to the State to solve the problem of theft? We're dealing with the biggest criminal enterprise there is when we deal with the State, the most effective thief of all time. How does that help the rest of y'all work out this problem? Lying is morally wrong, but it is not the worst thing. Therefore, lying may be justifiable, just as homicide may be justifiable, if it is done in the defense of life, liberty, or property. Lying to obtain gain is fraud and is wrong; lying in self-defense isn't necessarily wrong; a third type of lie, bearing false witness, is also fraudulent and wrong. Saying "I don't know" and "no comment" to protect the private information of a client is something that I'm comfortable doing, although these may be "lies of omission." I'm very comfortable with telling a lie to save someone's life. Indeed, there are a large number of moral "authorities" which agree with this fundamental idea. It is basic to such underpinnings of Western civilization as the Hebrew Bible. > If you disagree with my assumptions, that's ok. Glad to hear it, although that is a substantially different statement than "If you reject those ideas, it makes it kind of difficult to have any conversation at all," which you also said. > I'll be happy to discuss it with you in private. Well, I would not, Ken. My purpose in posting to this list is to discuss issues related to e-gold where a substantial audience can view the posts. Since you've responded on this public message forum, so have I. If you send me private e-mail, as you have in the past, I'll respond with all the grace and courtesy I can muster. I reject the ideas you seem to hold dear, which makes it seem likely that any conversation would be fruitless, whether private or public, so long as you are unwilling to challenge any of your pre-suppositions. If you aren't willing to look straight at the State and see the thief, liar, and murderer that it is, then I don't see how a private e-mail discussion could be of benefit to either of us. Regards, Jim http://www.two-cents-worth.com/?101468&EG Coercion-free childhood? Yes! http://www.tcs.ac/ --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [email protected] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.e-gold.com/stats.html lets you observe the e-gold system's activity now!
