Rationalism vs. Nationalism (Was: War arguments)

From: alexboko@umich.edu
Date: Tue Jan 21 2003 - 09:53:45 MST


From: "Alex Future Bokov" <alexboko@umich.edu>
X-Mailer: YaBB

If the hawks are hawks because that's the conclusion to which a rational,
assessment of the situation takes them, then I respect their opinions even
though mine are different at this time.

However hawks who are driven by nationalism, religion, or some such hogwash
should really be called sheep. They remind me of Liberals who can't present
a reason why their pet policies would work, so they give up on practical
arguments and resort to morality, as if that's some sort of objective
standard.

It's rational to wish to live in prosperity and under conditions where your
rights are respected. It's rational to support a government that does the
least to hold back prosperity and infringe on rights. But when you forget
this and just start automatically defending everything your country does
be it smart, dumb, or outright insane, you are no longer a minarchist,
anarchocapitalist, Libertarian, or whatever the cool buzzword is this
week. You become a Conservative, if even that much.

Oh, and you do have the right to choose between life and freedom, but strictly
where *your* life and *your* freedom are concerned.

In conclusion, all countries are at best a necessary (and temporary)
evil. There's no such thing as a "good" collective. We can use the not-as-bad
ones to destroy the really-bad ones, but ultimately they all have to
go. Institute regime change everywhere... to "None of the above."

----
This message was posted by Alex Future Bokov to the Extropians 2003 board on ExI BBS.
<http://www.extropy.org/bbs/index.php?board=67;action=display;threadid=54451>


This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Tue Jan 21 2003 - 17:10:22 MST