That's why I conceded the defensive war. Defensive war is about security. Initiating a war against Brazil, OTOH, is another matter.
Its about security. It might be a lousy and stupid security decision but its in that area.
The point is that PETA is a significant and serious group--they have the same reaction to killing animals as murder, just like the other interest groups we discussed, but we don't cater to their special moral sensitivities. So what's different about embryos or Brazilian soldiers or death row inmates? Or more to the point, why are the embryo protectors any more deserving of consideration than the protectors of those other murder victims?
1 - Many other issues don't involve government funding, but rather whether or not government should ban something. The threshold of banning would be higher then what would be required to avoid funding.
2 - Yes war against Brazil and federal executions do require federal government funding. But then I would also be opposed to declaring war on Brazil, and more importantly both criminal justice and military concerns fall under governments core responsibilities.
3 - I don't think considering animal life to have equivalent rights to human life has the same level of support as the idea that unborn human life has rights. A less extreme version of animal rights does have a lot of support. If under the principle that I laid out, someone wants to end federal funding of inhumane animal research (rather then all animal research) I think that I couldn't exclude them from the umbrella that I've created. (Of course the umbrella might be so leaky as to be useless, I don't think a majority accepts my idea here). For similar reasons I would oppose federal funding of abortions, and actually might continue to oppose it if I wasn't pro-life.
More generally I think the federal government does too much. If it is decided that stem cell research is a good thing that doesn't mean it has to be funded by the feds.
Getting back to the "core government functions". While I consider use of the military (even invasions of other countries) to be a core function of government, aggressive use of the military in highly controversial ways should in general be avoided. That having been said I don't think you can do security policy by polling, and in particular don't think you can change on the fly in response to polls.
Or to put things another way even in the core areas of government responsibility one should think twice before engaging in operations that a large segment of the population considers to be an atrocity.
But applying this to a specific real world situation, while Iraq is highly controversial, I don't think a significant portion of society regards our activities in Iraq as one big atrocity. A very minor segment does, while a significant segment is against it without really considering it to be something like the Nazi's match through Europe or the Rape of Nanking.
Tim |
