Singers jailed for lyrics

[John Kelsey]

At 05:56 PM 12/30/03 -0800, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
>At 07:48 PM 12/26/03 -0500, Michael Kalus wrote:
> >Then I guess you better start liberating the world.
>
>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 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.  Did the Iraqi 
government have a right to stay in power, or at least not to be 
invaded?  Where did that right come from?  From the rights of its people, 
most of whom apparently didn't have a hell of a lot good to say about 
it?  (That doesn't mean they like *us*, of course.)

In the most morally neutral case, this is like one criminal gang attacking 
another.  If the Sopprano family invades the Bozini family's turf, takes 
over their protection rackets, and hunts down their godfather, it could be 
messy, and it really will be an initiation of force in the most literal 
sense.  But is this the same kind of "initiation of force" that we normally 
talk about when, say, a mugger knocks me over the head and takes my laptop 
and wallet? (And of course, it's not that morally neutral.  It's more like 
a bunch of vigilantes from the neighborhood next door getting rid of the 
gang running your neighborhood, for reasons of their own, but probably to 
your benefit.)

None of this means it made any sense for us to invade Iraq, or that we did 
it mainly to liberate oppressed Iraqi citizens.  But I think using the same 
kind of language for interactions between individuals and between 
governments is a mistake.

--John Kelsey, kelsey.j at ix.netcom.com
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