skells @skells@qoto.org

"The Cato Street Conspiracy was an attempt to murder all the British cabinet ministers and the Prime Minister Lord Liverpool in 1820. The name comes from the meeting place near Edgware Road in London. The police had an informer; the plotters fell into a police trap.

...

When Jamaican-born William Davidson, who had worked for Lord Harrowby, went to find more details about the cabinet dinner, a servant in Lord Harrowby's house told him that his master was not at home. When Davidson told this to Thistlewood, he refused to believe it and demanded that the operation commence at once. John Harrison rented a small house in Cato Street as the base of operations. However, Edwards kept the police fully informed. Some of the other members had suspected Edwards, but Thistlewood had made him his top aide.

...

Edwards had presented the idea with the full knowledge of the Home Office, which had also put the advertisement about the supposed dinner in The New Times. When he reported that his would-be-comrades would be ready to follow his suggestion, the Home Office decided to act.

...

The British government used the incident to justify the Six Acts that had been passed two months before. However, in the House of Commons Matthew Wood MP accused the government of purposeful entrapment of the conspirators to smear the campaign for parliamentary reform. Although there is evidence that Edwards did incite certain actions of the conspirators, the idea is not supported by modern historians. However, the otherwise pro-government newspaper The Observer ignored the order of the Lord Chief Justice Sir Charles Abbott not to report the trial before the sentencing."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cato_Street_Conspiracy

There's nothing new under the sun.

@smartbrain yeah, they do

@furgar I was waiting for this take, and I was not dissapointed

@11112011 @thatguyoverthere long may it last

@natecull the point Girard makes is that Christ's death made the scapegoating mechanism clear due to his innocence

and I meant that Caesar's assassination was a way for the society to overcome the tension and jealousy of his personality - clearly the following history shows it didn't work

@natecull talk to Girard, the whole of culture is based on this scapegoating mechanism

Oedipus, Caesar, Christ...

@zpartacoos @The_Quantum_Alpha "there are stranger things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy Horatio"

I've always kept a tentatively open mind on subjects like this, mainly because it's fun

@freemo @lucifargundam @retiolus @zleap @Chrisleon27

I think the crux of the issue is that guns are used to project power, either through the threat or use of violence

when people try to paint guns as evil, often their real position is "the state should have a monopoly on violence"

when people pretend they just want their guns for hunting often their real position is "I don't trust the state to have a monopoly on violence"

it's analgous to bitcoin - is it used for illicit activities? certainly, the reason people tout/oppose it is not to buy or sell drugs/stop the drug trade however - it's an expression on their political position on the control of money

@pasture fuck, I forgot to check the irony button