>What are your personal opinions on assassination as a means to effect >policy by (or within) a government? It's morally wrong and ethically wrong. I'd say that it's ultimately bad for the health of the government in general. The standards a government uses to justify its actions tend to be used against it both within and without. A government that openly used assassination as a tool of policy is one that would tear itself apart as well as engender suspicion and mistrust among the populace. It's still wrong to use it in secret, of course, but in that case the question becomes "how good are you at covering your tracks?" If you aren't on the level of the Cigarette Smoking Man, then you'd probably be better off coming up with an alternate plan. This leads to a sort of unstated supposition of mine, which is that assassination as a tool only works for governments which are relatively static. When the functionaries change every couple of years, I would think it becomes more difficult to do the neccesary cover-ups and plausible denials. I'm not a big believer in the "shadow government" but I'd imagine that if such a system of agencies existed that they would pick and choose their targets carefully rather than allow themselves to be used as a tool of whatever beauracrat happened to in charge this year. >does this type of "moral blockage" lead to the type of abuses shown >in our own world (specifically the Meiji Restoration in Japan)? Hmmm... This is the first time I've ever heard the word "abuse" used in association with the Meiji Restoration. What sorts of abuses are you referring to here?