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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (100604)	6/7/2003 1:17:04 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

More Kant: The problem of organizing a state, however hard it may seem, can be solved even for a race of devils, if only they are intelligent. The problem is: "Given a multitude of rational beings requiring universal laws for their preservation, but each of whom is secretly inclined to exempt himself from them, to establish a constitution in such a way that, although their private intentions conflict, they check each other, with the result that their public conduct is the same as if they had no such intentions." mtholyoke.edu My comment: The U.S., today, has no practical restraints on the exercise of her power, military or otherwise, and hence has exempted herself from all mutually-agreed international rules, treaties, and organizations. We are a Rogue State, and a menace to the freedom of every other nation. The idea of international law presupposes the separate existence of many independent but neighboring states. Although this condition is itself a state of war (unless a federative union prevents the outbreak of hostilities), this is rationally preferable to the amalgamation of states under one superior power, as this would end in one universal monarchy, and laws always lose in vigor what government gains in extent; hence a soulless despotism falls into anarchy after stifling the seeds of the good. My comment: So, when the U.S. uses Saddam's butchery and oppression of Iraqis, as a reason to invade them, and sets up a military occupation government, the only possible result can be a "soulless despotism", not freedom. mtholyoke.edu

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (100604)	6/7/2003 2:14:41 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Respond to of 281500

More Kant: realism vs. peace: mtholyoke.edu Now the practical man, to whom morality is mere theory even though he concedes that it can and should be followed, ruthlessly renounces our fond hope [that it will be followed]. He does so because he pretends to have seen in advance that man, by his nature, will never will what is required for realizing the goal of perpetual peace. The maxims which he makes use of (though he does not divulge them) are, roughly speaking, the following sophisms: 1. Fac et excusa. Seize every favorable opportunity for usurping the right of the state over its own people or over a neighboring people; the justification will be easier and more elegant ex post facto 2. Si fecisti, nega. What you have committed, deny that it was your fault... 3. Divide et impera. ...if it is foreign states that concern you, it is a pretty safe means to sow discord among them so that, by seeming to protect the weaker, you can conquer them one after another. ...they (Realists) do not refuse obedience to the concept of public law, which is especially manifest in international law; on the contrary, they give all due honor to it, even when they are inventing a hundred pretenses and subterfuges to escape from it in practice, imputing its authority, as the source and union of all laws, to crafty force.