From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sat Feb 22 2003 - 13:40:42 MST
Samantha writes
> [Lee wrote]
> > Hal posted about "stealth democracy" and the researchers
> > he quoted had me pegged pretty well: I wouldn't make (myself)
> > a great study of policy issues confronting my country, but
> > rather trust people whose ideology is close to mine, and
> > who are presumably paid professionals.
>
> I am sure many people in many aggressor nations and budding
> fascist states said the same thing at some critical points in
> history. How is this different from leaving the moral questions
> in the hands of those paid to consider them? What does that
> make you?
Oh, well, moral questions are something else altogether.
Consider the Bush administration's continuation of the
earlier administrations' War on Drugs, or consider their
take on cloning or abortion. Naturally I disagree with
that. But if they are such professionals, you are
probably wondering how it is that I can disagree with
them.
After all, it's their job to think about such things,
and they have the advice of hundreds of medically
gifted people, and so on.
Well, whenever I get a whiff of ideology, then I know
that merely acquisition of knowledge isn't sufficient:
(It's necessary, but not sufficient.) I totally disagree
with the Bush administration about drugs and abortion
because I'm on the other side of an ideological divide
from them.
When I spoke above of leaving "policy issues in the
hands of professions", I'm sorry that I didn't make
this clear, and you were right to call me on it.
What I do leave to them is---given that they have my
ideology---the intricate and deep issues of strategy.
For example, what should be the U.S. stance towards
Pakistan? On the one hand, we must question and
criticize many things that go on there---but would
such criticism do more good or harm there, given the
details of the situation?
Frankly, I am disappointed in people who only have
knee-jerk reactions to injustice. It's as if they
never think of the difficulties involved. It's
almost as if they never heard of the idea of "the
lesser of evils". I have been aware of that idea
since I was twelve years old, and, more importantly,
keep *acting* on it. Sometimes it---choke---is even
necessary to praise an evil, as hard as this is to
do, if it truly means preventing an even greater
evil.
Naturally, all this is extremely complicated to try
to figure out. Observe the complex scenarios discussed
by Max Plumm and Kai Becker: trying to calculate what
would happen if the Shah of Iran were to lose power---
would it result that the people were more free of
tyranny, or would a Communist or Muslim religious
fanatic regime impose even greater tyranny? Once
you have found the professionals with whom you agree
on an intellectual, a moral, and an ideological basis,
you MUST leave such questions to them.
I understand the motivation for protesting in the
streets---you seek to weaken the power of your
ideological adversaries. I do not understand an
inability to *understand* arguments based upon the
lesser of two evils.
> Were you napping
You and Mike Lorrey must derive great emotional
satisfaction from starting sentences like this ;-)
But that's okay..., it's entertaining!
> when Bush declared it as US doctrine that we can
> preemptively strike anywhere on Earth we feel
> threatened?
In the context of what he meant, I totally approve.
How "threatening" is threatened? I'm sure that you
would be the first, were you a part of some presidential
administration, to advocate instant and unilateral
action if intelligence people that you trusted said
that bio-scientists in Mexico City had just created a
plague that would finish all life on Earth, and it
was about to get out! George Bush meant, for example,
if a *real* threat developed, he would not wait one
second for all these U.N. decrees, and permission
from Cameroon (no joke).
Lee
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