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Subject: 
Re: A question of remembrance...
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Sat, 28 Apr 2001 21:44:35 GMT
Viewed: 
698 times
  
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Shiri Dori writes:
But think about it this way - if you just left the border, they would come
right back, now wouldn't they? As long as they're determined, they could
stay there and fight over the border for years and years. In a way, that's
what is happening in Israel - of course, that's oversimplifying it.

Well, see? Here is my point: acting defensively is totally ethical from my
viewpoint.  And that takes me fighting right up to the border -- my line in
the sand.  Once my would-be conquerors are on the other side of that line I
just don't care what they do, they are on their land then and it's not my
business.  Taking it beyond that line means acting offensively, and doing
that means the ethics get a lot more greyed down and muddy.

If they attack me from across the border, it is hard to know how to respond
but I would assert that I could/would go as far as anything that would take
me and mine decisively out of danger.  Yeah, that's a broad statement and
could mean a lot of things, but I assert that what I mean is to act
defensively in that I would act to elminate a known and continuing threat to
myself.  Beyond that nothing more would be justified.

The above is not to be taken to mean that I would at any time act
offensively, that's not okay in my ethical system.  It's not okay for me to
size up the situation and decide in advance of actual harm that I can go
"take out" another world player because it's obvious to me that they will
pose a threat at a future time.

I would defend my borders and leave the rest hopefully to diplomacy.  I
would defend those borders in such a way as to strike fear into the hearts
of would-be conquerors.  I would not be timid in defending those borders,
but that's all it would be and no more. The world would know that in peace
my hand would be out first to gladly shake the hands of my neighbors.  In
war, ON MY LAND, it would cost them rivers of blood.

Basically, I would guard my home and homeland as a mother does her children.
It's as simple as that, really...

I would just like to say that the right to the lands that comprise Israel
are hotly contested and in my view there is no clear answer to ownership.
It's just like the U.S. in relation to American Indians -- terrible things
have been done to take the land, and the rights of others have been savagely
diminished.  But that is the past.  The future hopefully will mean
reparations and REAL talk of peace.

BTW, my ideas of ownership to land have to do with USE.  Believe it or not,
In the U.S. you can lose land that you think you own through what is called
"adverse possession."  Example: You think you own the land because of a mere
piece of paper while someone else has been living on "your land" for years
and making USE of it, in open contradiction to your claim to the land as per
your piece of paper.  See if you can guess what the courts would rule in the
dispute...That's right!  Use wins! Scissors takes paper...

-- Richard



Message is in Reply To:
  Re: A question of remembrance...
 
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Richard Marchetti writes: <snip rebuffing-of-Scott-part> (...) I agree. That is definitely the key here. (...) I *completely* agree. I think I came off really different in my last post; don't get me wrong here. I am all (...) (23 years ago, 28-Apr-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

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