From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Sat Jun 14 2003 - 08:23:30 MDT
On Sat, 14 Jun 2003, Greg Burch wrote:
> Well said, Lee! If you care about this list as a forum for continuing
> discussions of vital ideas and issues, PLEASE read -- and REREAD --
> Lee's post and make a conscious and continuing effort to adopt Lee's
> pledge.
I agree with both Lee and Greg and have tried, at least much of
the time, to follow similar rules. The exceptions perhaps being
when I enter "rant mode" and I try to provide notification for that.
> A personal note. Someone recently asked for a statement by people
> identified with list governance about their own personal opinions on the
> war in Iraq. [snip]
I'll generally agree with Greg. I am not a pro-war person -- having
nearly been a draft resistor during the Vietnam war. I also do
not believe much of the justification for the war given by the
current U.S. administration (pointing to an intelligence system
manipulation or outright failure -- but after 911 its obvious
there are possible problems there). But I *do* believe, in
retrospect, that the war was/is probably very extropic.
I believe that Tom Friedman (NY Times) and Hillary Clinton have
both provided good reasons for that perspective, either in columns
or recent interviews (esp. with Charlie Rose).
The problem isn't whether Saddam was a dictator. Dictators
can manage a population quite effectively (and extropically)
[the movie "Anna and The King" suggests how this may be true
{ and at times be problematic }.]
The *problem*, pointed out perhaps more in retrospect, was
that Saddam was a "tyrant". So dealing with Saddam was
justified on entirely on a moral (and extropic) basis.
[I'm using a utilitarian analysis perspective here in
terms of lives preserved, which I know has gotten me
into trouble before, but this time I think it may be
correct.] Now, whether the utilitarian analysis plays
out successfully depends a lot on whether one can get
at least 4 "tribes" of people who do not generally
get along with each other to get along. It will be
interesting to see if that is a problem that can be
resolved successfully.
I will freely admit that the U.S. (and the UN) have significant
problems coming up with solutions to deal with "tyrants".
Progress for "humanity" (from an extropic perspective) requires
that that need should be dealt with.
Robert
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