From: b645zaw@utarlg.uta.edu (General Boycott)
Subject: Re: Why Bother? (Re: FUCK CLINTON, harder, harder...)
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: The University of Texas at Arlington
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 05:01:00 GMT

In article <92Nov20.172438edt.566@neuron.ai.toronto.edu>, 
>steeg@cs.toronto.edu ("Evan W. Steeg") writes...
>

>In article <20NOV199213081339@utarlg.uta.edu> 
>>b645zaw@utarlg.uta.edu (General Boycott) writes:

My comments started with "several points..." so we seem to have lost
attribution of the poster who said:

>>>I've never seen so many people GLAD the Secret Service does/might
>>>monitor the net.
>>> ....
>>
>>Several points explain such behavior:
>>
>>1. There is little difference between the Democrats and the Republicans.
>>
>>2. Both Presidente Clinto'n and President Bush are basically wimps, and
>>   as such are a pushover for congressional/bureaucratic spending. The
>>   inevitable result of party politics.
>>
>>3. The Secret Service and other such tools are basically apolitical and
>>   mercenary, thus becoming the tool of whoever is in charge. In other
>>   words, "When it's my SS -- its OK."
>>
>>Mix and match, as appropriate. (Also compare "I Believe in Freedom of 
>>Speech -- mine not yours.")

>  Fun as it may be to compare those of us with an aversion to
>political assassination to jack-booted brown-shirted fascists,
>it really doesn't make any sense.  All of us agree that the
>government sometimes abuses power, or has too much power.

Or tends to totalitarianism no matter what it's original ideology.

>We bicker of course over which powers are the most abused or
>abusive.  But nearly all of us who are allowed to roam freely
>outside of mental institutions share a common faith in a basically
>democratic republic in which elections play a more major role
                              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>than do political assassinations.  
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Assassination (or attempts) may be crazy, but it has been effective.
Arguably moreso than voting. 

	Lincoln. Garfield. McKinley. Teddy Roosevelt(*)
	Huey Long. Truman(*)
	JFK. Robert Kennedy. MLK. Malcom X. 
 	George Wallace(*). Gerald Ford(*). Ronald Reagan(*).  

* -- attempts

For the most part these people have represented major change. 

Beyond the obvious, assassination may represent the strongest
statement the politically-alienated-individual can make. 
(Individual meant as an archetype.)

Point: Suppressing the open expression of political discontent
       results in violence.

So what all you *Hypocrites* haven't learned yet about America and
the wisdom of the first amendment is that it provides a way to
let off steam -- and perhaps more importantly to identify unrest
which should prompt a moderating response.

The original poster did not advocate-killing, nor express-intent,
nor reveal-a-plan. The very nature of the repetition of the post
suggested passionate-frustration -- for which public expression
is perhaps a very good outlet. 

>  I, for one, am not looking to squash freedom of speech.  I'll
>defend the right of anyone on the net to insult Clinton or anyone
>else as they see fit (and the right of the rest of us to ostracize
>and kill-file the more egregious idiots).  But threats of violence
>do not constitute a legitimate protected area of free speech.

There was no threat. If there were, then the poster would have 
said something like "I'm going to...."

>And there is a high, though not perfect, correlation between
>wackos who talk a lot about killing the president and wackos who
>eventually do try to harm the president or other prominent person.

Without substatiation -- you've expressed an opinion. Can you back 
it up? My point is that the "Kill Clinton-Repeat" talk is no more 
substantial than what youv'e provided. 

And it's certainly not as crazy as major new government spending
and borrowing on top of a $4 Trillion dollar debt -- which will
kill the Nation.

>Finally, the Secret Service's primary mission w.r.t. the topics
>discussed in this thread is the protection of the President, VP,
>their families, etc.  Is that so terrible?  Is their non-partisan
>("mercenary", in moronese) nature so terrible?  

Let me extend the mercenary comment to the rest of the Bureaucracy,
so as not to single out the SS.

>Cripes, of all the government agencies, breaking down the doors
>of "suspected" drug users, tapping our phones, arresting people
>for blowjobs in Georgia, playing with passport files for political
>gain, selling weapons illegally to tyrants the world over -- it's
>the *Secret Service*, the guys in the ugly sunglasses who try
>to make sure our political successions don't happen like those
>in Liberia or Colombia, that you want to whine about?!!

No, it's the political climate of America that has allowed for
relatively passive succesion. 

The simple fact is that anyone who really cared-to, could kill the 
president -- secret service or no. In nations far more rigidly 
controlled than ours it happens all the time:

	Palme, Indira Gandhi, Aquino, Sartawi, Gemayel,
	Raji, Bahonar, El-Sadat, Tolbert(Liberian),
	Somoza Debayle, Hee, Mountbatten, Neave, Dubs,
	Al-Naif, Jumblat, Ngouabi, Murtala Ramat Mohammed,
	Mujibur Rahman, Faisal, Ratsimandrava, Davies, Tal...

>>The sad thing is that anyone thinks that killing Clinton would make
>>any difference, since Clinton is only a cosmetic change at best. 
>>Which seems like a far more rational basis for the discussion.
>>
> 
>Yeah, you're right.  Enhanced radiation warheads detonated every
>5000 metres across the continent is the only basis for real and
>meaningful change.  Right.
>  
>  -- Evan

Well Evan, glad to see you read my piece on Clinton and the Neutron 
Bomb. As an ideological Anarchist, I have a warm fuzzy place in my heart 
for petite-little-bomblets. (But if I were seriously intent on political
change-at-any-cost, I'd look into diverting serious toxins into the
headwaters of large rivers, which is something that could be done at 
an individual level.) My main point in the Neutron post was that El
Presidente will not be the same man as he was as a mere Governor. What
they're telling him now is changing him. `Most of us' are unmindful of 
the truly fragile nature of life in our mega-city society. The President 
doesn't have that luxury. 

Now returning to this thread, El Presidente Clinto'n is a cosmetic
change, which even a cursory examination of the voting records in
congress will reveal. Bush's vetos were token efforts or distractions 
at best compared to the far greater deluge of legislation passed by
Congress and The Bureaucracy and The Lobbys. 

Killing the President is meaningless in the US today,
precisely because Partisan Politics eventually results 
in the election of figure-heads and yes-men.

-= Change is the illusion of *Progress* =-

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