At 05:56 PM 12/30/03 -0800, Major Variola (ret) wrote:

...

If I were a neocon asshole, I would. Instead, I regard liberation as a local task, and interfering with sovereignty as the initiation of force, ie an act of war.

Well, clearly bombing and invading them was an initiation of force, in

At 08:19 PM 12/31/03 -0500, John Kelsey wrote: the

most literal sense--we shot first. But while I can see that individuals have a right that you violate by initiating force against them, I don't see how that can apply to governments, especially governments whose main method of keeping power involves terrorizing their citizens.

(What, you mean like using the US police to deprive us of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?) My neighbors subject their offspring to a kind of abuse commonly called religion. Do I have a right to intercede? They are not harming *me*. Stay out of others family spats. Or as Gen'l W said, Trade with all, make treaties with none, and beware of foreign entanglements. (Mind you, as an reformed Objectivist, I do believe in absolute right and wrong; but does this give me the right to initiate force to clue you in? When do we start bombing Berlin?)