Does it or doesn't it?

Your opinions please.  Lets keep it clean!

Boy, I hope so, or my icon is meaningless.

Seriously though, look at our own history.  Lincoln, Kennedy, Martin Luther King - these assasinations have all had profound political impact.

I agree with fight4yourrights.  Our history shows political assasination tends to have big effects on politics.  Heck, look at all the Brady legislation.  I bet if he had not been popped we would be with out a bunch of rediculas gun laws!

[beer]

On the other hand, though, how many dates has Hinckley had with Jodie Foster? [whacko]

If you don't define what it means for a political assasination to "work" then the question is meaningless.

I'm going to disagree because:

1/ Who KNOWs who is going to take his place.

2/ Did we kill Quakkidaffi when we tried to off him?  No, so it doesn't always work, and the consequences can be worse, same for Castro...we tried to knock him off a few times I hear...

3/ There is ALWAYS someone to take his place, could be even worse.

I think the only people who are likely to be assassinated are bad enough that this becomes an acceptable risk.  Look at the attempt to kill Hitler by some of his senior officers.  They figured he was really out of whack and it's not likely to get worse.  However, with some people, it's certainly worth the risk.  They may be replaced by someone as bad or worse, but at a certain point, that becomes an acceptable risk.  This is the problem with such speculation - we can come up with many examples throughout history where an assassination may have been beneficial.  On the other hand, those who were assassinated before they could get much worse aren't very memorable.  But it goes both ways - sometimes the good guys are taken out because they're making things tough on the bad guys.

welll lets c some one took a pop at reagon we get the MG ban some one kills 2 kennedys and martin luther king what do we get the GCA 68.

so umm yeah i guess it works at F*cking us over

Ask the Mossad.

Political bumping off has been around since (before) the Romans. The only problem, as illustrated above, is the "cause and effect" problem since you cannot predict the outcome of removing someone from office.

I believe that's why we keep the world in a certain order (Iran, Cuba or Libya) since we can better predict outcomes in certian parts of the world. You can kill anybody, the risk lies in what happens after you do it.

It depends.

It worked on Newt, and failed on Klinton.

If you are looking to make a change in the political landscape via an assasination, you have to make sure of two things:

1)  your people will fill in the void.  no ifs ands or buts.  if you can't guarantee getting someone in, then the results will be less than satisfying and it may even backfire completely.

2)  you are well protected.  starting the assasination game can be extremely deadly.

I think it would matter more how the media and the public perceives it.

if Al gore were president and then assassinated, the outcome would be diasterous. those evil right wingers were behind it all. it would be used to further their political goals whether or not any one "right-wing" had anything to do with it.

if George bush was assassinated, the media would just say oh well...no loss there. there would'nt be any left-wing conspiracies involved. any Republican who says otherwise would just be branded as a paranoid freak for assuming something like that with no evidence.

state media rules lib