I'm trying to establish if it is even worth posting to tejek on global relations that involve military conflict between nations (such as Iraq, perhaps N Korea, perhaps Taiwan, etc.). The answer seems to be "no", because in his mind it is ALWAYS wrong.
One of the assumptions that you make is that we are better than others (at least better than most) and we are only trying to help others to get better even if it means that we have to invade them and kill some of their people.
That sounds simple, but it really is very complex.
There are three assumptions:
1) We are morally superior. That may not always be the case, but just to simplify matters, let us say that that is true.
2) We are only trying to help others. That may also not always be true. We are a very big country and we have a lot of people in it. I agree, we have an awful lot of good people, but we also have a lot of bad people. Some of us really would like to go into another country to help them out. But there are also a lot of us who want to risk our own lives to go into another country because they think that we will benefit - that 1 (we may be "safer" if we went in and killed their bad people or 2 - (we may profit - because their bad people are trying to keep us away from oil or whatever) or 3 - (our God is better than their God - God is telling us to go in and kill their bad people, and finally 4 - (there are some of us - not many - but want to kill foreigners because they don't speak our language, have different skin color, or have different ways of doing things).
But, let us just say, you are right, we are only trying to help others. We are only going into another country to kill their bad people so that their good people could have a better life. And, that is the only reason we are going in to kill their bad people.
Suppose you are completely right - just for arguments sake. We are morally better and we only want to help others.
The argument against going into antoher country to kill is this.
We believe in freedom. We believe in all the good things. Our country was founded on intellectual principals that were handed down to us from western civilization. A civilization that collected all the wisdom from previous civilizations and added Judeo-christian principles.
If we are better - that is why we are better.
The principles of western civilization has been vetted over thousands of years of history.
As far as we are concerned, nothing has come along that is better.
The foundation of our civilization has been founded on two very basic and powerful principles:
1. Thou shall not kill.
2. Love thy neighbor.
No one has come along to replace Moses and Christ. Not Wolfowitz, not Ashcroft. No one has come along and said that Moses or Christ were wrong. What they taught does not work.
But, the problem has been, that people have come along and said, well I agree, but that is not very practical. We have to have some exceptions. We have to have some short cuts.
These short cuts are a problem.
I am not saying I know the answer, but I know these short cuts - even in the best of circumstances - are a problem.
I am saying, we should first make ourselves better. We could do good by setting ourselves as a good example. Going into another country to kill their bad people should be very low on our list of priorities.
|
