🚀 go-pugleaf

Thus Spake klaatu <klaatu@clark.net>:


%> I'm not familliar with conspiracy-nut right-wing bullshit.  What's RICO??
%
%"Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations." It's a Federal law
%designed to make it easier to break unions by alleging involvement with
%organized crime. Actually it has served as a powerful wedge into those
%unions which _are_ racketeer-influenced. But it's also potentially
%usable against about anyone for anything. It's a sort of "one bad apple
%spoils the whole bunch" and my admittedly hazy understanding of this is
%that one criminal in a targeted organization can be used to take out the
%entire organization. For instance, one felony conviction of one
%high-level NORML member could be used as an excuse to have unlimited
%wiretappings on _all_ NORML members.

Damn, but it sucks when you hire felons. . .  :)

%Your ignorance of the existence of this law is astounding, but hardly
%moreso than your immediate categorization of someone else's awareness of
%a far-reaching Federal Law as "conspiracy-nut right-wing bullshit".

Take a look at the context.  I had absolutely no idea what the acronym referred
to, but when a couple of people pointed out the full name, I recalled it.  My
point is that the conspiracy-nut community has it's jargon and acronyms, and I
got a legitemate law confused with them.  Hell, OWG threw me for a loop the
first time I saw it on usenet.
 
%The point is that those "fanatics" have the same rights as anyone. Thus,
%anyone taking _you_ down wouldn't be just cause for a revolt. Or anyone
%taking down an entire neighborhood because it was "crime-riddled" by the
%same logic would not be cause for a revolt. Nor would, by extension of
%this logic, would be the elimination of an entire class, ethnic group,
%or race.
%
%This is called a "slippery slope argument" (or failure to notice that

No, this is called reducto ad absurdum.  If I don't think that taking down the
Wacko from Waco is just cause for armed rebellion, I'm in favor of ethnically
based genocide and therefore a racist, and probably a Nazi?  Check your own
caffine intake.  I thought hurling 'racist' in lieu of argument was a liberal
tactic.  Scale does make a difference.  If we resorted to shooting up the local
law enforcement every time someone made a mistake, or got too excited, or just
came up with a phemomenally stupid policy, we'd be in a constant state of
anarchy.  


John M. Atkinson
jatkinso@gmu.edu
"A nation which despises its soldiers will all too soon 
have a despicable army
                 --Jerry Pournelle