At 05:27 PM 5/26/01 +0200 J. van Baardwijk wrote:
>>Do you believe that openly declaring that you intend to take by force every
>>other country in the world counts as self-defence? Does actively
>>attempting to take over every country that you can (cf. Poland,
>>Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Afghanistan,
>>Angola, Nicaragua, El Salvador, etc.) count as self-defence also?
>
>What? Greece and Turkey were taken over by the Soviet Union? And we *still*
>let them join NATO? Incredible...
I said *attempted* Jeroen.
>Nicaragua wasn't "taken over" by the Soviet Union, btw. It had an *elected*
>Marxist government.
My mistake......
>You argue that is was morally right for the West to defend itself against
>the East (by having a huge military presence along the entire border with
>the Eastern block), but that is was morally wrong for the East to have a
>huge military presence on their side of that same border. That is
>absolutely ridiculous. We are allowed to defend ourselves, but they aren't?
>Puh-lease. Why should they have any less right to defend themselves?
>Because they weren't capitalists? Because they were called "evil"? (What do
>you think the West was called in the Eastern Block, huh? Exactly: evil.)
Big difference. The USSR *was* evil. We were not.
More to the point - the issue you are ignoring is that the USSR was *not*
solely engaged in self-defence. They were an aggressive empire which
threatened its neighbours. I know of no moral system that characterizes
attacks on weaker neighbours as "self-defence." Big difference #2.
>>Geesh, Jeroen, you sound like Weyoun defending the Dominion.
>
>Jeez, thanks for the compliment! :)
>
>Well, Weyoun *is* one of my favourite characters on ST:DS9. I find him
>quite fascinating...
Sort of in the way that Goebbels was fascinating......
Founder: "I want you to kill the Cardassians."
Weyoun: "Which one?"
Founder: "All of Them."
Weyoun: "With pleasure....."
JDG
__________________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - ICQ #3527685
"The point of living in a Republic after all, is that we do not live by
majority rule. We live by laws and a variety of institutions designed
to check each other." -Andrew Sullivan 01/29/01
