Assassination is Un-American

Post #1376

One aspect of living in a totalitarian nation is that assassinations become the norm. While writing about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Sam Faddis (CIA, retired) includes a video clip called The Great Purge, which summarizes events in Soviet Russia under Stalin. Apparently, no one was safe from getting shot back then.

Here is a loose paraphrase of a section of the video:

Former allies of Stalin?
Shot (sometimes after a “show trial”)

Judges presiding over those show trials?
Shot

Man responsible for shooting the former allies and those judges?
Shot

Man responsible for shooting the man responsible for shooting allies and judges?
Shot

When your political philosophy is “Rule-by-Force” then human dignity is lost. Another way to refer to that is “jungle law” or the law-of-the-jungle, where predators get away with killing prey for the simple fact that they were stronger. But humans beings do not have to live like brutal animals, we have an alternative. Here is John Locke on that:

No one ought to harm or take another’s life. Our nation’s founders relied on the writings of philosophers such as John Locke. In the Federalist Papers, they explicitly said so. Have a look for yourself at something John Locke wrote:

Locke is talking about the original setting-up of a government, and how it is being set up for some very specific purposes. The reasons humans create government are for things like Unity, Comfort, Safety, Peace, Enjoyment, Personal Property, and Security from potential invaders. Where have we seen those concepts before? Oh, I know, here:

When a great majority of people develop an understanding that it is very beneficial to work together for certain common ends — i.e., those things which enable human beings to thrive, instead of to just survive — then you end up with enlarged pockets of peace and prosperity. If we stay true to the course, overwhelming peace and prosperity.

Not everyone is on-board with the specifically-human project of respecting individual rights and the Rule-of-Law. Some of them are puppet-masters, while some of them are the puppets, and a minority simply (sometimes innocently) lack a mature understanding of what it means, of what it truly means, to be a human being.

When researchers first predicted how people would treat each other when set up as “opponents” in certain structured games, they wrongly predicted that human beings, for the most part, face something called the Prisoner’s Dilemma. In a Prisoner’s Dilemma, two criminals are interrogated separately, to see if either will flip.

If both criminals stay tight-lipped (if they don’t “rat out” the other guy), they get the lightest criminal sentence. If one stays tight-lipped but the other guy rats out his partner in crime, then the rat goes free while the other one serves a harsh sentence. If both guys rat each other out, then they each get a moderately-severe sentence.

Researchers predicted that, in order to avoid harsh punishment, humans will overwhelmingly rat each other out. To their surprise, humans often cooperated with each other rather than to defect against one another. Future research revealed that humans do not often face a Prisoner’s Dilemma, but entire nations sometimes do:

NOTE: C is for cooperation, D is for defection

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At top left where it says “Status Quo” is when two nations are “getting along” — and that comes with the second-highest pay-out, a pay-off which each nation enjoys. At bottom right where it says “Arms Race” is when two nations keep putting more and more of their resources into tanks and battleships, rather than necessities like food.

Both nations are “worse-off” when enduring an Arms Race, as it is just so costly. There isn’t enough resources to create medicines that help people, to create devices that improve the capabilities of people, or to simply allow for enough material wealth that people are freed-up for higher pursuits, such as the creation of beautiful art.

But inside of a nation, if it is founded correctly (by taking into account the nature of human beings), then you can have growing and enduring pockets of peace and prosperity, even overwhelming peace and prosperity. When there are property rights and a Rule-of-Law, then it “changes the game” — i.e., no more Prisoner’s Dilemma!

These pay-off numbers allow you to compare the results of the combined choices of both players and the “Trigger” at bottom means you cooperate and only defect when the other guy did in the last round. The second game, the one that humans truly face when they interact with each other under a Rule-of-Law, has a funny name: “Stag Hunt."

A “stag” is a deer and the philosopher, Rousseau, is assuming it takes human cooperation to catch one — people mutually agreeing to expend effort together for a prize. But the story reveals that a rabbit can be caught without cooperation, though it does not offer as much of a prize. Here’s a better depiction of the contrast in pay-offs:

The S is for stag and the H is for hare (rabbit), and at right, the C is for cooperate and the D is for Defect. When humans work together instead of against each other, then they will find themselves playing the game at left, rather than the grim one on the right. Here is where the incentives lean:

While the numbers are approximate, they show that working together makes you 3 times better off (gives you a life which is 3 times more meaningful and satisfying than you could have had if you been stuck inside of a Prisoner’s Dilemma). There is empirical data indicating that this is accurate:

In the USA in 1987, we respected the rights of others, including property rights, while living under a Rule-of-Law, rather than living under the Rule-of-Man, like the Soviets did. In terms of goods and services affordable to us, we were 3 times better off. When not respecting the rights of others or not having a Rule-of-Law, then we stay primitive.

But look at the terrible loss of life to violence when humans live like that:

Besides one group of islanders (a very special case; confined in space), the !Kung Bushmen are the most peaceful non-islanders known to exist, having an original annual murder rate of 42 per 100,000. But check out what is possible when rights are respected, and that respect is enforced by living under a Rule-of-Law:

When most realize that cooperation is beneficial, then murder is at least 40x lower. That’s what our nation’s founders realized. To peacefully cooperate for mutual benefit is “American.”