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People Ain't Chickens, Neither
by Michael Bradshaw
evilgringo@usrepeals.org

Attribute to The Libertarian Enterprise

Regarding A.X. Perez's second letter to the Editor in TLE number 445:

I would like to excoriate, put down and generally disagree with Mr. Perez. Unfortunately, I can't, because he's right.

Oh, darn.

Instead, I would borrow his letter to use as a springboard. I hope he approves.

There are fundamental moral and philosophical differences between one who accepts collateral damage (wounded or dead third-parties or the destruction of their property) as a benefit of military conflict (he gets a sexual thrill out of it) and one who deplores such damage while accepting it as a necessary cost to prevent much worse damage as a result of failing to take defensive action.

The first person in the paragraph above is a politician. The second may be a libertarian.

This question has come up many times in the past. "Is it moral (or in accord with the ZAP) to kill one innocent person to prevent the deaths of thousands?" The answer I get from the libertarian purists is a resounding "No!". The answer from most conservatives I have talked to is "Yes!".

I think that, perhaps, it is necessary to take that question out of the moral and philosophical ivory tower and consider it in context. After all, the world that we live in—and must fight in—is nothing but context.

I am emotionally inclined to accept the purists answer, but I am then left with pacifism. Unfortunately, pacifism is tacit cooperation with evil. It is immoral, to me, to stand by and let evil triumph because I am not willing to take a chance on sullying my own hands with the blood of a very small number of innocents to prevent the genocide of hundreds of millions—which is exactly what we are now facing.

That genocide—of over 300,000,000 people in less than 100 years—is historical fact. Six sevenths of it was not in war, but in the outright murder of domestic populations by governments in the last century. See Prof. Rummel's web site at www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/. Prof. Rummel is a classical and conservative scientist. I think that his conclusions regarding the numbers are, as a consequence, very low.

Because I am a libertarian (and have dour-Scottish genes) I have no choice in the matter of opposing evil in the form of government, which is the greatest evil that mankind has ever seen or produced. To fail to oppose the evil of government would make me unable to look in the mirror without revulsion. I would be left with nothing but suicide to end the pain of self-hatred. I must oppose it to the extent that I am able. I must accept the risk of death for myself and innocent others. I must minimize it for innocent others to the extent that I can.

In order to do that I have done three things. I have sworn an oath to take the lives of the next government people that attack me; even if it means my death right then and there. I have acquired weapons to fight with and to leave to my friends to fight with after I am gone. The third thing, and I hope it is the best that I have done, is to make a new weapon for my allies in the form of a new way to fight. It is 5GW and is found in "Election and Revolution" in TLE issue #295.

The 5GW strategy is my effort to give a method of fighting the evil of all government with the least cost in innocent lives and treasure, with the least risk of collateral damage done by freedom-fighters, while giving the best chance of victory for the forces of freedom. It even addresses the "power vacuum" problem of all previous revolutions for freedom. It seems to me to be the best way to approach the world of "The Probability Broach" and maintain it over a long span of time.

I have been criticized by members of the freedom movement for advocating "murder" of politicians, and for inviting both collateral damage and reprisals from the enemy. In response, I would ask:

• What is "murder"? I thought it was the unjust killing of a person. Are not the politicians guilty of mass murder? Are they not the greatest rapists? Are they not the worst thieves? Do they not take and work and torture slaves? Are not any of these crimes just cause for defensive killing? Is it not just to defend against such a monster? If not, why not? Those who pass moral judgment have the responsibility to support their positions. Does the politician have rights—and we do not, as he tells us? Killing a politician is not murder—because it is just, both as defense and retribution. It is also making the criminal pay "the token" restitution to the victims. So that the innocent dead may finally rest in peace.

• Quoth Martha: "Oh, John, don't fight back against that horrible criminal (who is already shooting at us, while raping our kids)! You would only make him mad at us, and then he would hurt us!" Hey, Martha, get a clue! He is already raping your kids and shooting at you! You really don't need to worry about inciting a criminal to do in the (near) future what he is already doing right now. If you do not fight back, the politician will continue to not only enslave, rob and rape you; he will also continue to kill you (by the hundreds of millions). By fighting back you are not making the situation worse, you are making it better! Do you really, really want to continue the cycle of robbery, rape, slavery and genocide for the next 6,000+ years, just like the last 6,000+ years? Could it be that Martha is just a little-bit co-dependent? Does she suffer from the "battered citizen syndrome"? Or is she a masochist, and does she really like her chains and stripes? Sheesh!

• Would you really stand by and let the politicians commit hundreds of millions more murders—because to stop them you would have to take a chance on hurting or killing an innocent person? My answer is a resounding "NO".

• It is immoral to stand by and let evil triumph for another 6,000+ years as it has in the past. Now we can do something about it that looks like it will give a better chance of success than the Unites States Constitution did. History shows that you can no more have a stable and limited government (in Mr. Jefferson's words "Bound down by the chains of the Constitution") than you can be just a little-bit pregnant. Pregnancies come to term with babies; and governments metastasize and kill, just like a malignant cancer. Our forefathers fought a bloody war to shake-off the King. They failed to make the revolution permanent. Are we now too cowardly to repeat the experiment? With a plan for permanence and a better chance of success?

I used to be a minarchist because I could not find a way to preserve the peace after a successful freedom-revolution that removed the government. That was my answer to the "power vacuum" problem. I did not like it, but there seemed to be nothing better than repeating the last two and a half American centuries over and over again.

Now there is a method, "Assassination Politics"—invented by Jim Bell, to solve that issue. It has not worked as a stand-alone solution because Mr. Bell trusted the politicians to obey their own law. It does not include a method of bringing the politicians to their knees so that a "Bell Memorial Foundation" might get started to prevent the reemergence of government. Combining it with the top-down order of battle (used by our predecessors in the first American Revolution, and outlined by John Ross in his seminal novel Unintended Consequences) just might work. That is what "Fifth Generation War" (5GW) is all about.

As Mr. Perez said, "people ain't eggs". They ain't chickens, neither.

Michael Bradshaw is the Speaker (also the Lord-High Janitor) of the United States House of Repeals, www.usrepeals.org.
Copyright © 2007, Michael T. Bradshaw