🚀 go-pugleaf

John M Atkinson wrote:
> 
> 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. . .  :)

Yes - especially when the understanding had previously been that once
they'd served their debt to society, they were no longer convicts, but
ex-convicts. There's also something in the Constitution about freedom of
association, etc - also that has generally been extended to support the
idea that the guilt of the one does not necessarily redound to the guilt
of the others, unless conspriacy is proven - in a court of law. With
RICO, the accusation of criminal conspiracy is almost tantamout to the
preconviction of conspiracy - and thus the taint is presupposed. Not a
good idea.

> 
> %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.

Those pesky acronyms! Orwell saw that coming... divide and conquer a
country, not with arms, but with jargon.

Um excessive presupposition from misconstrued context leads to
inflexible mindset that happens to be deluded in nature. That's how some
of the conspiracy guys got so "conspiritated" - relax that tendency to
presuppositions based on context and that "conspiritation" will clear
right up. Better than Milk of Magnesia.

> 
> %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?

I didn't say anything like that - it is you who are attempting to apply
reductio-ad-absurdam, and inappropriately I might add.

I do say that some might be willing to label you as a wacko. If the FBI
or whoever decided to burn your family (because you were a wacko),
wouldn't you think your "ghost" might want to see justice done? and if
the agency responsible for justice was the one that committed the crime,
what hope would there be for justice, unless some force could compel
that agency to revise its standard and replace personnel, until that
justice was done! 

The ability of the populace to defend itself tends to act as a force
which impels agencies to cleanse corruption. Admittedly, the greatest
and most powerful weapon the citizenry has is their vote, implimented in
our institutional reovlution, the electoral process. 

>  Check your own
> caffine intake.  I thought hurling 'racist' in lieu of argument was a liberal
> tactic.

Straw-man argument. I didn't call you a racist, I just said that
acceptance of elimination of anyone _because they are perceived as
different_ leads inevitably to genocide, if this acceptance becomes
institutionalized. For the public (or by extension, their agent, the
Federal Government) to accept a flat-out "witch"-burning as _de-rigeur_,
leads inevitably to an enlargement of the classes considered to be
"witches". 

For you, evidently, a Wacko from Waco is a perfectly acceptable "witch"
to burn. I argue that no "witch" is a good "witch" to burn, and argue
that to allow the burning of one is to allow the burning of all. The
point this: One simply does not permit the establishment of any
apparatus which empowers (or even ignores duty to destroy)
institutionalized harassment or murder of persons whose main crime is
being different.

>  Scale does make a difference. 

Yes. You nip it in the bud. First time every time.

> 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.

I have proposed this nowhere.

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

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