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NancyLebovitz comments on Stanislav Petrov Day - Less Wrong
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I used to think that, but I no longer find it plausible. The premise seems to be that leaders are detachable pieces.
In fact, assassination has a risk of making leaders more frightened and forceful. Additionally, a good many people may be loyal to a leader, so that assassination registers as an outside threat rather than a favor.
A sequence of assassinations is hard. Are you expecting enough of your group to survive and continue? Other groups to take up the project?
Not having a significant power base is rather a limiting factor when it comes to just about any political campaign. I suggest that it takes less surviving members to arrange assassinations than it requires to perform a rebellion via conventional tactics.
Has the sequence of assassinations tactic ever worked?
The Center for Economic Policy Research says yes.
Full text: http://ipl.econ.duke.edu/bread/papers/working/150.pdf
Thanks for the links, but what it actually says is that while successful assassination can significantly increase the chance of a move from autocracy to democracy, the odds of a successful assassination are sufficiently low that the net effect of trying to change things with an assassination attempt is close to zero.
Assassination has some effect on wars, though.
If I may say so, those odds seem a lot better than the usual options like 'write letters to the newspaper' or 'start a political party'.
The idea of someone trying to decide between writing a letter to their newspaper, starting a political party, and attempting an assassination is really entertaining me right now. I suspect I need sleep.
It's a good thing I'm not politically active. Those first two options sound horrible. ;)
On the other hand, the risks and costs of the letter are much lower than an assassination. The monetary costs of starting a political party are probably comparable or higher, but the personal risks are probably lower unless you're in a country where ending autocracy is a really good idea.
Is working within an existing party just too disgusting to think of?
Risking your life to get less war probably makes sense on utilitarian grounds unless the war is likely to get rid of a very bad government.
No, my point was the recorded odds of success for assassins is much much better than conventional politics, by like several percent. How many hundreds of thousands of eager young people have enlisted in the Republican Party and associated conventional routes over the past 50 years, dedicating their lives and aspiring to change things?
How many changed things as much as, say, Sirhan Sirhan or Lee Harvey Oswald?
Er, the US still supports Israel, and the US still opposes communism. Again, there's a difference between changing things and fulfilling your aspirations.
It seems odd to compare cherry-picked assassins to run-of-the-mill politicians. Surely the proper comparison to the hordes of eager young party members is the hordes of eager young killers? (Admittedly, someone who picks up a gun and starts shooting with the intention of changing things but is ineffectual may not earn the title "assassin" in popular consciousness, but it's not clear to me that that matters.)