On Aug 30, 4:29 am, frantheman <[email protected]> wrote:
> I find your stated intent admirable, BB, to break down a complex axiom
> into simpler units, so that you can logically analyse it better. It's
> just a pity that you didn't then follow your own modus operandi.
>
> What you have in fact done is to take a number of unsubstantiated
> statements, in many cases pejoratively presented, and then use these
> to support a basic (unclear) statement, i.e. Goverments wilfully
> decide on obscure causes and are capable of ignoring the rights and
> wishes of the individual citizenry; in fact, turning individual
> citizens into means to achieve their unclear (by the citizens
> unwanted) ends.
>
> This ignores many relevant facts. You used Vietnam as an example, ignoring
> the fact that (at
> least up to the time of the Tet offensive) majority passive support
> for the the war was still present in the US population. (That the
> general population had been worked into this mood by nearly 20 years
> of Cold War posturings and dire warnings of dominoes falling is
> another issue.)
But here you are arguing something that I see as not relevant or
directly "against" my argument. For instance you say that "often the
ends publicly embraced by
governments are shared (for whatever reasons) by a majority of the
population." Well this does not undermine my argument by itself.
My argument is not "who" favors the cause, it is those who favor it
often consider the means to achieve it secondary to the cause. It
doesn't matter who "shares" the cause, it matters how stongly they
believe in the cause and what they are willing to
"sacrifice" (lives?) in order to achieve it.
> "Governments are ultimate authorities once they are established." This
> seems to be the basic postulate of your argument. It is not true -
> unless you decide to let it be. In the end, the ultimate authority is
> your own moral sense, your conscience if you like.
So I could have stopped the war in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan?
There was much fuss about these wars, but it came down to a very small
handful of people to decide to start it, and once it is started, then
the cause has even more power. "Support the troops" (no matter what
they are doing) "Protect our freedom" (I don't even have to say
anything here) While you are right that I "assumed" that
government has ultimate power, and I can merely show examples of it,
"the people" can change it, form it, or vote for or against it. the
latter being extremely weak. Those who lose the vote to the other
side in effect had no say at all. I only offer the actual evidence of
atrocities that "have" occured, kept going for years, despite massive
protest.
>This does not mean
> that it will be automatically accepted, you may have to endure a lot
> of suffering as a result of swimming against the stream, but you are
> still free to do so (as did many thousands of draft-avoiders in the
> 60s by burning their draft-cards, hopping over the border into Canada,
> etc.). To follow the Vietnam example through, it took years of
> passionate debate, the suffering and deaths of many thousands, but US
> policy finally did change. Democracies are imperfect, frustrating, as
> hard to steer as a supertanker in the Straits of Hormuz, but change is
> possible.
Oh, after the damage was done for 10 years people finally changed it.
> There is, so it strikes me, an implicit shizophrenia in the immediate
> drawing of the divide between "us" and "them". In the end, "we" elect
> "them" to represent "us."
Do we? Half of the country did not vote for the last few presidents.
The loser gets nothing, (I didn't vote for either of the two parties)
and the issues that Obama campaigned on he has not followed through
on. He was voted in, among other things, to end the wars, and
provide universal health care. He did not push those very hard at all
after in office for some reason. So the reason you voted in the first
place, does not happen after in office.
>The duality is frequently the easier way for
> us - in that we manage to project our fundamental responsiblities onto
> "them", and then proceed to criticise and blame "them" when they do
> something we, individually, don't like. What we forgt, in the process,
> is that "they" are, ultimately, "we."
Yes, in theory, but I am arguing that in "practice" this is not how it
turns out all too often.
>Democratically elected, liberal
> constitutional states always offer the option of consciencious
> objection - even if it is often made difficult, still, the fact that
> my objection may force me to (theoretically) break the law (by burning
> a draft card) and thus risk time in jail, does not materially change
> this. Despite all our imperfections, hypocrises, inconsistencies,
> etc., the USA is still not Egypt, nor can France or Germany be
> compared with the Peoples Republic of China. This is one of the major
> underlying messages of Guantanamo; despite all the juridicial
> manoevering of the Bush regime, the responsibility for Guantanamo and
> what goes on there is the responsibility of the US American people,
> despite all penny-ante twists concerning territorial jurisdiction,
> because it was put into place by the elected representatives of the
> American people, and the people have a responsibility and right to
> demand this accountability.
Yes, you have good points except that Guantanamo went on for seven
years. There was plenty of outrage, yet It is still not over.
If we have this power you speak of, why do these things not only
occur, but carry on for years and years?
> "Sacrifice" is not the key word in socialism, "equality" is. I have
> commented here before that the clarion call of the French Revolution
> offers us the formula for getting it right. Liberty and equality will
> forever be in tension, because too much of one immediately limits the
> other. The key to balancing them lies in the third word, fraternity.
> Maybe that's the one we should be focussing on more.
I have problems with that word too but I will spare you for now.
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