A desperate disease requires a dangerous remedy.
– Guy Fawkes, political activist, performance artist and architectural critic (1570-1606)
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Samizdata quote of the dayNovember 5th, 2014 |
 38 comments to Samizdata quote of the day |
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An interesting and serious question: When is it OK to kill politicians?
It was surely OK to kill Ceausescu. What about Mugabe, Mobutu and Mao? Kim?
If the UK electorate in a referendum voted to leave the EU and the government refused, what then?
Looking more closely at Guy Fawkes’ actions: when is it OK to try to overthrow the government on grounds of religion?
James, I rather like that US Declaration of Independance thing:
… But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Whether that means cheeswire and lamposts rather depends on how the old Guards take to the idea.*
And yes, there does sometimes appear to be a design to reduce us under absolute Despotism but on the other hand, the bread and circuses still keep coming.
*Realistically though there’s always going to be a few hanging from lamposts. It seems to be in the nature of these sorts of things.
So this Guy bloke is a religiously inspired fanatic, goes to fight abroad in a religious war, tries to incite religious rebellion from abroad, and then returns to try and convert the rulers of this country to his own brand of religion by killing people?
Runcie Balspune –
Nicely put.
But yes, that is why, some three hundred years later, we still burn him in effigy.
Indeed:
Remember, remember!
The fifth of November,
The Gunpowder treason and plot;
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot!
Guy Fawkes and his companions
Did the scheme contrive,
To blow the King and Parliament
All up alive.
Threescore barrels, laid below,
To prove old England’s overthrow.
But, by God’s providence, him they catch,
With a dark lantern, lighting a match!
A stick and a stake
For King James’s sake!
If you won’t give me one,
I’ll take two,
The better for me,
And the worse for you.
A rope, a rope, to hang the Pope,
A penn’orth of cheese to choke him,
A pint of beer to wash it down,
And a jolly good fire to burn him.
Holloa, boys! holloa, boys! make the bells ring!
Holloa, boys! holloa boys! God save the King!
Hip, hip, hooor-r-r-ray!
It was surely OK to kill Ceausescu.
Was much achieved by doing so? If you look at the trial and subsequent sentencing of the Ceausescus – you can find the footage on Youtube if you have never seen it – it has a horrible kangaroo-court summary justice quality about it. The same was true of the trial and execution of Saddam Hussein. In such notorious cases, I fear that this is almost inevitable. In both cases the people executed certainly deserved what they got, but as to whether it was right to kill them, I am less sure.
Of course, in these cases were are talking people who were in custody and could no longer do the harm that they had done previously. As to when it is okay to kill a politician in power, that is different. The obvious is would it have been right to assassinate Hitler if you could have done so? Of course yes. Where below that do you draw the line. I don’t know.
…but as to whether it was right to kill them, I am less sure.
Quite so.
Thomas Paine, after his sterling efforts to support the American revolution, shipped off to France, hoping to repeat his performance there. It all went brilliantly for a while, and he was elected to the government.
But then he criticised the execution of the king. He could accept the idea of exile, rather like the treatment extended to Kaiser Wilhelm II in the aftermath of the Great War, but execution, he thought, was not morally acceptable. And for his efforts he was imprisoned, only to be released by virtue of an accident.
FWIW, yes, I know that Paine was no libertarian. But his role in motivating the American secessionists is incontrovertible.
A religious fanatic indeed. Still, as has been famously remarked, he is “the only man ever to enter Parliament with honest intentions.”
James Strong asks “when is it OK to try to overthrow the government on grounds of religion?” As an atheist I would answer “never.” But what about overthrowing it on other grounds? Such as the illegitimate usurpation of power? The denial of individual rights? The imposition of crushing taxes? The willful destruction of a culture? Or, as Claire Wolfe would put it, when have we reached the point when we can no longer work within the system and it’s time to start shooting the bastards? In the end I suppose that we all have to make that decision for ourselves, and there will be those who object wherever the line is drawn.
Guy Fawkes may have acted on the basis motives (religious fanaticism) of which I don’t approve. But (as has Robin Hood, albeit in a somewhat different context), he has nonetheless become a symbol for something much larger: the right of the people to throw off the yoke of oppressive government. After all, his name has been taken as the nom de web of a blogger much revered in these parts, and whose link appears sui generis in the left masthead. I choose to use his likeness as my avatar.
In the United States we approached the task of throwing off that yoke in a very different manner, and ultimately succeeded. Fawkes failed. We revere our Declaration of Independence and celebrate the 4th of July with fireworks and parades. You remember, remember the 5th of November by burning Fawkes in effigy. But we would both do well to remember, if not the specifics of his cause, the aspirations which he signifies.
Better the Guy Fawkes way – blow up the King AND Parliament – than the half-way house we got only a generation later.
Remember Charles I was James’ son.
Killing Ceausescu was not quite in cold blood, there was still a risk that a faction of the State might liberate him and take revenge, whereas with Mr Hussein there was no realistic threat, with US forces in the country. Ceausescu was also evidently guilty of murder on a national scale. To reproach those who lived under that tyranny for tyrannicide would to me be incomprehensible.
Well compare Romania today to Romania November 1989.
And perhaps had the Kaiser swung, the sequel to the Great War might have been avoided.
Looking more closely at Guy Fawkes’ actions: when is it OK to try to overthrow the government on grounds of religion?
I would say never. It may be justified to overthrow the government on grounds of bad actions motivated by religion. For instance, it would be justified to overthrow the Aztec Empire for mass human sacrifices. Not for worshiping Huitzilopochtli, but for cutting out the living hearts of human beings as an act of worship.
What my neighbor believes about God “neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket”; but if his beliefs cause him to take actions that do, then I fight.
Or on grounds of bad actions motivated by opposition to a religion. There are reports that China imprisons Falun Gongists and then murders them for body parts to be transplanted. I think the Falun Gongists would be justified in overthrowing the Chinese government.
Well in England, we are very kind these days about politicians, even Mr Salmond’s effigy has not, in the end, been burned in Lewes, Sussex in the Bonfire Night celebrations.
Guy Fakes was merely trying to re-arrange the Houses of Maladministration.
In Astraya which has a mixture of Westminster and the American system of maladministration the left want to abolish the upper houses of maladministration so they can get on with fucking the economy unhindered with an adoring Meeja of goons, trumpet and tambourine players forming a sabot around them. Incidentally the so-called free press is cycling the drain with declining readership as most people don’t give fuck.
Whilst the print media is declining in Australia, the e-press is flourishing. GF was a papist. What would have happened if he had succeeded?
Well, i doubt if Britain would have become a Catholic Monarchy, his preferred hope. When Parliament got around to it, they would probably have invited in a foreign Protestant prince, as they did later. For lasting change, they would have needed to plot something with the French, and had some French army ready.
Nick,
While your assumptions are fair, that Channel is one mighty barrier plus The Englanders would have resisted like the Spanish against Napoleon, stragglers were slaughtered and they saw him off with help from an Englander Army that paid for every thing and didn’t mistreat the locals.
I am generally against the death penalty but frankly some people deserve to be shot in a backyard like rabid dogs. I shed no tears when I heard Gadaffi had been dragged out of a storm-drain, sodomised with a stick and then shot. Some of ’em so transgress decency they don’t deserve the dignity of a trial and a Pierrepoint.
There is one major problem with killing Hitler. Somebody competent might have taken over the job.
Ellen,
Mister Hitler was the Allies best General, every thing he touched he fucked up, the consummate politician and it’s some bodies else’s fault. i.e. you.
NickM, we should give them a trial to stay true to what we say are the differences between them and us. Whilst dictators don’t worry about trials, we should, precisely because we define that as a civilised action. Or else history will simply think we were both wrong.
As for killing Hitler, maybe Himmler would then have become Fuhrer. Or maybe the Communists would have taken over all of Germany, in the 1930es. That makes for a chilling alternative history! Maybe Doctor Who could explore all these possibilities.
Nick,
The National Socialist Goons fought the Communist goons for control of Germany, pity the Communists didn’t win, that would’ve killed Communism. It was failing in Russia till Hitler attacked.
Actually, if Germany had voted for a communist party, then the Russians would simply have assumed that this proved Karl Marx was right. They would have pointed to Germany as proof that the world was embracing Communism! It wasn’t happening overnight, but it was happening, nonetheless. And German comradly help to their fellow communists would have turned other nations red with envy.
What irks me about most atheists is how they presume they have a moral high ground because *obviously* religion is a crock, and therefore whatever the religious adherent has to say is crack pot material. here’s a bag of sand for anyone who takes that stance.
But, if we are asking about justification to kill a politician, for religious reasons, such as’thou shalt not steal,’ at some point, violence is justified, religiously or not, dont you think?
I think we are overthinking the question. Putin is one of the greatest thieves in history… is it justified to kill him?
Putin has not personally murdered anyone, has he? Has he told anyone to kill anyone? I think Putin should be ousted, by getting the Russians to kick him out, but that is as far as I would want to take it.
he has nonetheless become a symbol for something much larger: the right of the people to throw off the yoke of oppressive government.
I never understood this symbolism, he’s anti-government in the same way as, say, Moazzam Begg is. To describe either as against oppressive government is facile.
I do not find a rebellion a la 1776 difficult to justify in principle, there are plenty of persons in power who deserve all that they would get. Whilst they have not set out to impoverish and bully the people, that is what they do. At some point recklessness does merit the harshest punishment regardless of intent. But justification for rebellion also requires a version of the conditions set out by the ‘Powell doctrine’ to be justified. Reading the BBC news article about the motivations of the ‘Anonymous’ protests yesterday is pretty depressing, with some of the protestors quoting ‘austerity’. I fear 1776 would turn into 1789 pretty quickly. People are pretty crap and that is what has made me more conservative in my political outlook over the year.
Because Runcie after 300 year symbolism changes. Circa 2014 the notion of religious wars in England does not even compute. Hence Fawkes is seen to most as either a generic cartoon villain, or simply an equally generic counter culture hero cos he wanted to blow up The Man. Do u really think most people who wear Che T-shirts know he was a racist homophobic misogynistic mass murderer?
Murderer, yes, and so they celebrate him.
Central Banker, not the least of his faults, no.
Nah, I had this discussion with countless Che T-shirt wearers, back in the days when I gave a fuck and still grossly over estimated the mental capacity of most people. If I had kept a straight face whilst conversing with most of the folks I was challenging, I am certain I could have convinced them Che Guevara was a bit like Tony the Tiger, an invented character used to market a kind of cocktail that was a bit like a Cuba Libre.
I don’t agree with the comparison with Che, considering just those who use him as a political symbol apart from the dumb fashionistas, many of them still worship what he stands for and what he achieved, and would willingly partake in the next revolution of the same sort. With Guy I doubt any of his symbolic supporters are as fashion conscious or would ever approve of what he was trying to achieve.
My favourite facebook page.
I remember an interview with a Pole who survived WW2 into the Soviet occupation, he said that the Nazis always hated the intelligent. Plenty of fodder for tyrants in Che-T-shirt wearers, if they’ve lost all moral compass.
I shall have to ask the next one I see why they are wearing a T-shirt commemorating a homophobic Central Banker, but I shall ask in Spanish first.
Nick (Natural Genius) Gray @ November 6, 2014 at 5:19 am: Putin has not personally murdered anyone, has he? Has he told anyone to kill anyone?
Yes, unquestionably. Russian troops acting under his orders invaded Chechnya and killed over 100,000 people. There is a prima facie case that this was legitimate warfare.
However, there is also strong evidence that the apartment-house bombings used as casus belli for the invasion were in fact false-flag operations by the FSB (the Russian successor to the KGB). If so, Putin gave the orders for those killings, and the Chechnya war was murderous aggression.
Furthermore, several Russian journalists who reported things Putin didn’t want reported have been murdered – for instance Anna Politovskaya.
FSB defector and anti-Putin activist Alexander Litvinenko was murdered in London by polonium poisoning; this is universally believed to be an FSB killing at Putin’s orders.
Finally, the Russian army forces who are operating in eastern Ukraine and have killed, among other people, the crew and passengers of that Malaysian airliner, are acting under Putin’s orders.
Personally I am very much a member of the sic semper tyrannis school of thought on the subject.
Shakespeare, surely:
Hamlet: Act 4, Scene 3
And I recommend the work of Juan de Mariana: http://www.juandemariana.org
I had always assume that was Fawkes paraphrasing Shakespeare, as Hamlet was written 5 years before Guido came to a sticky end 🙂
So was President Lincoln a tyrant, Perry? Or just a hapless pawn of circumstances?
Pawn? Hardly.