Legal "assassinations": Crazy enough to work?

Author: Savant
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#1
Savant
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What if there was a way to effectively eliminate the incentive for political violence while also allowing a dedicated enough individual to remove a potentially totalitarian politician from office? One approach would be to have legal "assassinations."

Similar to an actual assassination, a citizen would be trading their freedom for a politician's career. However, this would not require killing them. The system I propose would work like this:
1. Any US citizen between ages of 18 and 40 can file to "assassinate" a politician's career.
2. They must prove they are in good health with a decently long life expectancy.
3. The citizen goes to prison for the rest of their life, and the politician is barred from holding office forever. If they are currently in office, they are replaced with the next person in line from their party.

This would ideally be used in a parliamentary democracy, where citizens vote for parties who then appoint politicians from a pre-published list. So an "assassination" wouldn't shift power from one party to another, but if a politician looked like they were about to make a grab for totalitarian power, it could stop them.
#2
Sir.Lancelot
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How would it work, in theory? A summary of the step-by-step process.
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@Savant
No.
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@Sir.Lancelot
How would it work, in theory? A summary of the step-by-step process.
A citizen calls the government and says "I don't want Prime Minister Bob in office anymore. I'll go to jail for life if he's removed from office." The government schedules a tribunal to ensure the citizen is in good health and making a significant sacrifice. If so, they are arrested for life and Bob is removed from office and banned from being elected ever again. Parliament then selects a new prime minister to replace Bob (presumably his party or coalition was in control already or he'd have been replaced).
#5
WyIted
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Yes but they have to be precisely 30 and healthy with an IQ of at least 140 . 30 protects against decisions based on immaturity and is young enough so the life amount sacrificed is significant but the politician can retake office when the person dies unless the death is murder. The IQ stops retards from ruining society with retarded decisions. 
#6
ADreamOfLiberty
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@Savant
I think it's based on over-simplistic-false (oversimplified to the point of being false) social theory that the wheels of history always move by the rare traits of a few people.

Now don't get me wrong, sometimes that is exactly what happens; but not all the time and there are categories where that is generally not true.

A think a repressive government is one of those categories.

Let's take Napoleon Bonaparte vs Adolf Hitler for example.

You kill Napoleon you change history, no doubt about that (in my mind) because Napoleon Bonaparte was a military genius who lucked out and was given an army in a time and place when winning battles could get you a country.

But would killing Napoleon make the french revolution any less bloody (Yes I know he was after the reign of terror), but suppose he kept it going? No it wouldn't end there. Just as there wasn't any one particular person you could kill to prevent it from happening.

History assigns a central role in all cases, in this case to Robespierre, but I believe Robespierre was 'surfing a wave' and not making a wake.

So was Napoleon in the social science sense. There was a thousand ways Napoleon could dominate his enemies on the campaign trail but there was really only a couple ways he could sell a narrative to the people of France and Europe.


Eisenstein was a remarkable man, but killing him would not have prevented the war which found a use for the atom bomb.

Adolf Hitler was not a remarkable man, or rather I should say his skills were not very unique. He was a brute with good rhetorical skills, there were hundreds like him, it was dumb luck that he ended up the fuhrer.

Trump is the same (morals aside of course).

These men and women ride the wave of history, and at the risk of mocking my own theory I'll use a sci-fi term: riding the flow of pyschohistory.

You kill one suffer, there are thousands more who will do the job. You take them out of politics, there are thousands more. Yes people convince themselves it's all about one man and his unique evil, but I think they're wrong.

If this system is implemented, I think it would prove it. There aren't enough prisons to hold all the people willing to go to prison to stop the next Hitler when they are so easily convinced the next Hitler is in front of them. Parties don't have enough candidates to field.

It would keep going until tens of thousands of people are in prison and tens of thousands of candidates are excluded and in the end nothing would have changed. The AFD would still exist. MAGA would still exist.

In fact what this would ultimately do is make sure the puppet masters never put themselves in the firing line by running for office.
#7
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yachilviveyachali
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How would this not be abused? There are many willing to serve time in prison to get rid of political leaders they don't like. 
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@yachilviveyachali
How would this not be abused? There are many willing to serve time in prison to get rid of political leaders they don't like. 
There are people stupid enough to do that, yes. Personally, I would prefer to let leader ruin country than go to prison. Prison is boring. Ruined country isnt.
#10
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Sacrificing yourself for others is very stupid.
#11
yachilviveyachali
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@LucyStarfire
You would not sacrifice yourself for someone you love?
#12
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@yachilviveyachali
You would not sacrifice yourself for someone you love?
I dont even love anyone.
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Savant
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@ADreamOfLiberty
There aren't enough prisons to hold all the people willing to go to prison to stop the next Hitler when they are so easily convinced the next Hitler is in front of them. Parties don't have enough candidates to field.
Politicians should be getting killed all the time then, right?
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@yachilviveyachali
How would this not be abused? There are many willing to serve time in prison to get rid of political leaders they don't like.
If someone's willing to go to prison for life to get a politician out of office, maybe that politician ought to be removed from office. It's not abuse, it's the system working as intended. They'd get replaced by someone from their party anyway, so it should barely hinder government operations.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Adolf Hitler was not a remarkable man, or rather I should say his skills were not very unique. He was a brute with good rhetorical skills, there were hundreds like him, it was dumb luck that he ended up the fuhrer.
Sure, but if he'd been removed from office before starting WW2, it's possible the Holocaust could have been avoided. There are more than a few cases in history where one person does a lot of damage. Maybe luck gets them into that position, but having a way to remove them might be a good idea.

But would killing Napoleon make the french revolution any less bloody (Yes I know he was after the reign of terror), but suppose he kept it going? No it wouldn't end there.
If King Louis had been removed from office peacefully, the French Revolution wouldn't have even been necessary. Plus he and many others would have kept their heads. I think killing perpetuates the cycle, but having a system that removes people peacefully from office might reduce violence. I'm also not convinced Napoleon was a bad leader for his time, but there were definitely leaders who should have been removed.
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@Savant
There aren't enough prisons to hold all the people willing to go to prison to stop the next Hitler when they are so easily convinced the next Hitler is in front of them. Parties don't have enough candidates to field.
Politicians should be getting killed all the time then, right?
I am surprised at how rare it is, here are some thoughts on that:

People's subconscious are sometimes more informed than their conscious. There is what they say and then there is what their actions betray.

"House the homeless refugee"
"In your neighborhood?"
"Hell no"

I think people are aware that my theory is correct. They know that it won't truly end because they kill one guy, no matter what the consciously think they believe.

There is also the martyr effect. What you describe would remove it.

Finally what you describe is a transition to certainties. People planning assassinations right now are not sure they will succeed and not sure they will survive one way or another. Many may even believe they could escape.
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#17
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@ADreamOfLiberty
I think people are aware that my theory is correct. They know that it won't truly end because they kill one guy, no matter what the consciously think they believe.
That should make them less inclined to use the system, then, right?

There is also the martyr effect. What you describe would remove it. Finally what you describe is a transition to certainties.
The goal is to transition to a system where politicians are easily replaceable and none of them abuses their power too much. That removes a lot of the incentive to remove one guy from office. Maybe it would be less rare than assassinations, but would it happen all the time if it would rarely change anything? I don't think the turnover would be too much to handle. Plus crazies can only do it once. Maybe there's a purge of widely-hated politicians at the start, but that might be a good thing.
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@Savant
Adolf Hitler was not a remarkable man, or rather I should say his skills were not very unique. He was a brute with good rhetorical skills, there were hundreds like him, it was dumb luck that he ended up the fuhrer.
Sure, but if he'd been removed from office before starting WW2, it's possible the Holocaust could have been avoided.
Not if Himmler was the man who replaced him, and there would be a thousand more after that.

If you're thinking "each removal is a chance that the guy won't be crazy", that's bad logic.

You have to sum all probabilities. Sometimes people will take out a ruler who wouldn't do the holocaust and replace him/her with one who would.

Since individuals are enough to make a difference, the only consistent bias will be that the more fervent and radical people will make more of a difference on average.

How many frothing mouth SS types would happily throw themselves in prison to replace anyone who dared to "go easy" on the jews?



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Savant
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@ADreamOfLiberty
fervent and radical people
The system doesn't favor fervent and radical people, it favors people who aren't selfish. Why does someone need to be radical to want Hitler out and be willing to put themselves in prison for that?

How many frothing mouth SS types would happily throw themselves in prison to replace anyone who dared to "go easy" on the jews?
Idk that many people would have been willing to throw their lives away for Hitler before the Nazis had complete control over propaganda. The Nazis were crazy, but they certainly weren't selfless. Also pretty much any Jew or other target of the Nazis would put themselves in prison to stop Hitler and Himmler. Targeting a bunch of people for extermination is a great way to guarantee you get removed under my system.

Also, would Hitler even try to get political power the way he did if he knew he'd almost certainly lose it immediately?
#20
ADreamOfLiberty
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@Savant
Idk that many people would have been willing to throw their lives away for Hitler before the Nazis had complete control over propaganda.
See, you're thinking about it the wrong way. "throw their lives away for Hitler".

They wouldn't be, and they weren't.

Hitler was an emotional abstraction like all god emperors to the people.

They did fight to the end for their abstraction in the hundreds of thousands.

Of course they worked themselves up to that state, and you can argue that they wouldn't have if every time they setup a rally the speaker was prohibited from politics.

I am certain you are wrong there. They would see this "symbolic assassination" as an attack because they're human and that's how humans think.

It is no different an effect than forbidding speech. They will say it anyway just so that you don't win (if nothing else). Every time someone "takes out" a potential leader, the supporters will double down on whatever was most radical in that leader's position.

They wouldn't just work themselves up to the fervor of the thirties, they would do it in the twenties.


The Nazis were crazy, but they certainly weren't selfless.
The true believers were absolute collectivists and collectivists are selfless.

You know the SS invented to suicide vest right?


Also pretty much any Jew or other target of the Nazis would put themselves in prison to stop Hitler and Himmler.
If jews outnumbered the core nazi faction then they could have stopped the take over democratically or physically.

The reason they did not is because every act of resistance created more nazis, and the exact same thing would be true of this method.


Also, would Hitler even try to get political power the way he did if he knew he'd almost certainly lose it immediately?
Well sure, they would just make repealing your rule and undoing all the exclusions the first thing they would do when they control the legislative body.

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#21
Savant
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Hitler was an emotional abstraction like all god emperors to the people.
Yeah, after he'd been in power for a while. I think he'd have been taken out before then.

They would see this "symbolic assassination" as an attack because they're human and that's how humans think.
So who would they remove? Nazis, to be replaced by other Nazis? Or members of another party to be replaced by others in that party? Once Hitler and Himmler were out, the Nazis would likely settle for a less crazy person who repeated a lot of his talking points and was equally charismatic but not as insane as Hitler. Hitler had name recognition, but it's not like everyone in his party loved how unhinged he was.

Nazis would still hold the same number of seats, but Hitler and Himmler were uniquely dangerous and were known as radicals even within the party. There's a difference between "oppress the Jews" and "burn a huge amount of our potential workforce in gas chambers." We know that because even racist leaders don't usually go that far. If most of the Nazis wanted gas chambers, why wasn't it an official party position before Hitler came to power? Did they all have a secret agreement?

If jews outnumbered the core nazi faction then they could have stopped the take over democratically or physically
The core Nazi faction was relatively small early on. There were just a lot of people who feared communists or hated other groups and were willing to vote Nazis. They wouldn't throw their life away just to make the Nazis more unhinged.

they would just make repealing your rule and undoing all the exclusions the first thing they would do when they control the legislative body
Sure, but someone who saw Hitler's insanity coming would probably remove them before then.

With cults of personality, it's not like the craziness is the main selling point. If someone like Trump was removed with my rule for being polarizing, who are Trump supporters going to turn to that's more polarizing than him? They'd probably be fine with Vance. No one except Trump has gotten as big as him in the current climate by being controversial, and that's because controversy =/= charisma, they just sometimes go together. If Pelosi was removed, it's not like Democrats would insist on replacing her with another corrupt stock trader.
#22
fauxlaw
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@Savant
What if...
If/then logic is almost always the first wrong step into a morass of illogic, because in most conditions of if/then, the "if" clause is not currently true, and, therefore, cannot justify "then" unless "if" is changed to a valid statement, but then, there goes then, entirely, because it is still not justified.
You're just talking a more warped version oof the 25A, and who, with a functional brain in their head would agree to life in prison for the imponderable result of removing a pol from office. 
What mystifies me is in the 50-odd years since the 25A was ratified, Congress has avoiding giving itself the authority to be a player in the intrigue of removing a president, or other federal officer, from their political position for life, but retain that life in all other respects. That's hardly 'assassination."
#23
yachilviveyachali
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@Savant
If someone's willing to go to prison for life to get a politician out of office, maybe that politician ought to be removed from office.
Why? Some people are mentally unwell, or they are psychopaths. Both can be difficult to prove. Courts are flawed and judges are only human.

It's not abuse, it's the system working as intended. They'd get replaced by someone from their party anyway, so it should barely hinder government operations.
The system is more flawed than the human.
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#24
Savant
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@yachilviveyachali
Some people are mentally unwell, or they are psychopaths.
And under the current system, they'd probably kill the politician. My way is better for everyone.
#25
yachilviveyachali
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@Savant
The goal is to transition to a system where politicians are easily replaceable and none of them abuses their power too much. 
Why do you think this is a problem in western countries? They go through politician after politician, and none of them help their country.
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@Savant
They would see this "symbolic assassination" as an attack because they're human and that's how humans think.
So who would they remove?
Every non-nazi canidate.


Once Hitler and Himmler were out, the Nazis would likely settle for a less crazy person who repeated a lot of his talking points and was equally charismatic but not as insane as Hitler.
That is wishful thinking.

If they say the same things how would your savior types know that they don't have to "assassinate" this one too?

What they would do is have a candidate who is a puppet of Hitler and Himmler but says nice things about jews while winking and the nazis all know it.


but Hitler and Himmler were uniquely dangerous
That's the premise your system is based on, as I said, and that is what I think is incorrect.


If most of the Nazis wanted gas chambers, why wasn't it an official party position before Hitler came to power? Did they all have a secret agreement?
You're leaving out the obvious possibility: Hitler and the inner circle worked themselves up just as the rest of the party and the country were.

They didn't start with genocide in mind, and they would not have been the only ones who ended up there.

I look at history the objectivist way, which (pun intended) I think is objectively superior at making predictions. To sum it up: Philosophy first.

Philosophy makes men, men make history. You see only "men make history" and think "no man, no problem".


If someone like Trump was removed with my rule for being polarizing, who are Trump supporters going to turn to that's more polarizing than him?
Steve Banon, Alex Jones. If they couldn't get them they'd start a civil war.


If Pelosi was removed, it's not like Democrats would insist on replacing her with another corrupt stock trader.
and yet they refused to give up on Biden despite his obvious issues.

If someone had tried to invalidate Biden, they would have been enraged. They'd start a civil war too.

Again, not because it is about one personality, but precisely because it isn't. All that matters is that somebody took away their choice and that didn't change their mind on anything.
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@yachilviveyachali
Why do you think this is a problem in western countries?
I think there's a big incentive for politicians to build a cult of personality or stand out by passing terribly policies. When a very bad decision is made, it's often a decision only that politician would make. When a good decision is made, it's usually one plenty of people could have seen was a good idea.
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@Savant
My way is better for everyone.
Your way invites constant change, of which nothing good will be achieved. It will cause instability and further erode the nation.
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@yachilviveyachali
Your way invites constant change
Only if people were as crazy as you suggest, in which case why aren't politicians being assassinated all the time? Even before the Secret Service, assassination of presidents was rare.
#30
yachilviveyachali
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@Savant
I think there's a big incentive for politicians to build a cult of personality or stand out by passing terribly policies. When a very bad decision is made, it's often a decision only that politician would make. 
We are already ruined by politics. Some are more ruined than others, but we are all ruined. More politics means more problems.

When a good decision is made, it's usually one plenty of people could have seen was a good idea.
Not when you have media influence and terrible groupthink among the masses. They believe what they are told to believe, and doubt what they are told to doubt. Who needs AI when we have the human?