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GOOD_GUYS_DONT_DO_BAD

                                              October 16, 2005

Ian Fleming's "Live and Let Die" (1954)

   "You have a double-O number, I
   believe -- 007, if I remember
   right.  The significance of that
   double-O number, they tell me, is
   that you have had to kill a man in
   the course of some assignment.
   There cannot be many double-O               That would make a pretty
   numbers in a Service that does not          good dig at British
   use assasination as a weapon."              hypocrisy, it's too bad
                                               that one gets the sense
     -- p. 47, "Mr. Big" speaking.             that Fleming was serious.

                                                 Why would there be
                                                 any such classification
                                                 at all if they did
                                                 not engage in assasination?

                                     This sort of
                                     strange               (If you feel
                                     double-think          tempted to insist
                These days, it's     once plagued          it might be an
                pretty rare to       adventure             honor bestowed on
                find this kind       fiction.              those who kill in
                of craziness in                            self-defense, allow
                fiction.             We're the good        me to point out
                                     guys, anything        that it is not
                It's reserved        we do must be         always cool to be
                for editorial        good.                 a pedantic nerd.)
                pages.
                                     Assassination is
                And presidential     bad, therfore when
                speeches.            we send out someone
                                     to kill it can't be
                                     an "assassination".

                                          [ref]


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