America needs an enema...

[Jim Choate]

On Tue, 2 Oct 2001, Duncan Frissell wrote:

> If we could do so without stolen money and without collateral damage, would 
> it be moral to invade countries and kill their governments to prevent the 
> oppression of their people?

No, such a policy is nothing more than 'might makes right' and 'mob rule'
in the worst sort of way. What makes your 'oppression' any diffrent than
theirs? 

     When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one
     people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them
     with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the
     separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of
     Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of
     mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel
     them to the separation.

     We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
     equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
     unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the
     pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments
     are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the
     consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government
     becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People
     to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying
     its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in
     such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their
     Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that
     Governments long established should not be changed for light and
     transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that
     mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable,
     than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are
     accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations,
     pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce
     them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their
     duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for
     their future security....

> That is, since all governments violate people's rights and some violate 
> them more than others, would attacks on governments by outsiders be proper 
> (as internal revolution presumably is)?

That's an assertion not a 'fact'. I look forward to your 'proof'. You
might start with Arrow's Impossibility Theorem and work from there.

Somebody around here doesn't understand the concept of 'freedom of
choice'. It is based around a incorrect understanding of 'citizen' and
'government'. To say 'all government' is abusive is to state in equivalent
terms 'all people' are abusive.

You make a distinction between 'people' and 'government' that is not
warranted by the facts.


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     The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.

                                             Edmund Burke (1784)

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