From: Damien Broderick (thespike@earthlink.net)
Date: Fri Jan 17 2003 - 20:43:54 MST
Ron h. mentions:
> a rule of etiquette that doesn't seem to be well
> known in the general population -- gentlemen do not attempt to tell other
> countries citizens how to see to their own security -- I won't do
> it. You see if I advise Australia wrongly the Australians take the
> consequences while I go free.
Quite so, Australia being small fry. But you see if America is advised
wrongly, and acts on that advice, *we all* suffer the consequences, and
those consequences can be large and terrible.
This was the gravamen of the angry spat between Robert Heinlein and Arthur
Clarke over SDI plans; Heinlein felt insulted to be given contrary advice on
his own soil about the actions of his own nation; Clarke quite correctly
spoke out in defence of us all, Americans and otherwise.
The question then becomes not what is gentlemanly, but which advice is right
and which is wrong. Of course this list is almost certainly not the forum
for that to be established, since it won't affect matters one whit what
either of us, or any of the others, `advises' either nation's power wielders
and citizens to think or do.
Damien Broderick
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