Subject:
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Re: Thinking Out Loud...
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sat, 22 Sep 2001 20:34:17 GMT
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Viewed:
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911 times
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Hello Larry,
> this IS a war about morality. By our standards, which
> *are* correct, as has been demonstrated before, we are moral and our
> opponents are not. We are on the side of freedom, they are on the side of
> oppression. We are on the side of justice, they are on the side of violence.
While in tendency, I do agree, I would probably state these issues less
black and white.
Yes, our standards ARE correct, which for me means that we ARE allowed to
apply them in OUR part of the world. At least most of them.
Yes, we ARE on the side of freedom, at least freedom for all people who
happen to have money. I doubt, though, that this freedom includes the
god-given right to emit as much CO2 as we want, just to name one of the
examples where we may have to correct our behavior towards the rest of the
world. However, we have also at times oppressed other people in the name of
freedom. Unlike the islamistic terrorists, oppression is NOT our principle.
Yes, we are on the side of justice, with a few notable exceptions. One of
those is our YES to any action of Israel in the last 50 years. I think we
agree that not everything Israel did during that time really qualified as OK
in terms of justice.
As for the violence claim, here it gets hardest for the US, I think. I don't
want to count the deads, but certainly the US are not among the most
nonviolent countries in the world. I am not judging that right now, just
confronting your claim with reality ...
I wrote in one of my earlier postings, that IMO the US has lost its
innocence during the cold war, so positioning the fight against islamistic
terror as a war about morality is hard to justify. I would rather say, we
are not bad enough to have deserved this, so let's go and defend ourselves
as good as we can. Ideally, this would be done in a way than gains us more
rather than less right to talk about morality again in the future.
I am talking about "us" (as opposed to "you") even though I am not American.
I feel that we in Europe are with you even in this sense.
Greetings
Horst
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Thinking Out Loud...
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| (...) Eric, let's not go there. I happen to think Richard goes a bit too far but if we cannot tolerate voices of dissent and discuss this rationally we are too far gone to triumph, and too far gone to *deserve* to triumph (1). All viewpoints should (...) (23 years ago, 22-Sep-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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