[extropy-chat] Proactionary Principle vs. Pre-emption

[The Avantguardian]

My point is that democracies are not built with guns,
they are built with pens, paper, and minds with ideas.
The bullets come when it is time to win the democracy,
but the democracy as a memetic construct must be
firmly in place in everyone's minds first. The
founders of America realized that, even if the Bush
doesn't. Which is why when they wanted democracy in
France, they sent Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin
Franklin and not the Continental Army.
 

--- Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:

> We did that schtick in 1991. It sorta worked for the
> Kurds, but not at
> all for the Shiites. The peace love and coexistence
> thing doesn't
> really work well when the other side is still
> exterminating whole
> villages each day.
> 
> --- The Avantguardian <avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> 
> > The Doctrine of Pre-emption can be succinctly
> phrased
> > as "Do unto others BEFORE they do unto you." This
> > still leaves much room for honorable conduct. One
> can
> > just as easily pre-empt someone with kindness as a
> > "shock and awe" missile attack. We could have
> > airdropped food, pornographic pictures, and arabic
> > translations of John Locke's "Rights of Man" on
> them
> > and had gotten just as much chaos for a whole lot
> > cheaper in money and lives. 
> > 


The Avantguardian 
is 
Stuart LaForge
alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu

"The surest sign of intelligent life in the universe is that they haven't attempted to contact us." 
-Bill Watterson

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