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

[Mike Lorrey]

Not technically accurate. Guns keep a democracy, once won, from being
turned into mobocracy or terrocracy by thugs and demogogues, or at
least they help slow the process. Who controls the guns becomes the
center of power, either the people, or the state.

They didn't send the continental army to France because there wasn't
one, by that time, pretty much. The French, btw, were going overboard
with violence quite will without our help and despite our counsel to
moderate themselves. However, the French Revolution's contrast to the
American one demonstrates that you are generally correct about minds
with ideas being of most importance, versus demogogues and thugs.
Jefferson and Franklin did not go to France to bring democracy there,
they went there to get money from the French for our fight, and did so
before the French Revolution.

I don't think Iraqis are ignorant of democracy, I think most people in
the world are pretty well exposed to the ideas of it, though they may
be tainted by local propaganda and disinformation, and short on details
if they do not research it closely.

The stability of Kurdistan over the previous decade demonstrates to me
that people with little direct experience with it can pick it up pretty
quickly. 

The problems we have today IMHO are primarily extremist groups of
islamist fascists who insist on enslaving the rest of the moderate
modern muslim world and don't want democracy. That they are now killing
anyone who supports the government, even Sunnis who start dealing with
the govt, demonstrates they are not interested in taking a seat.

That the moderates in the muslim world have not done a good job of
fighting for their point of view is a serious problem. My experience
conversing with people in the muslim world has taught me that ideas of
altruism toward people they don't know is generally unheard of,
strange, and viewed with suspicion about ulterior motives, particularly
in Iraq and Iran.

As we are speaking of Iraq and Thomas Jefferson in the same thread, I
would suggest anyone who hasn't seen Charlie Rose today to pick up his
interview with Christopher Hitchens, who just put out a book on Thomas
Jefferson and is noted as an english liberal who is ardently
pro-American and pro-Bush.

It is his view that the conflict now underway is a global civil war of
humanity, with what he describes as Jeffersonians in the west and the
moderate muslim world on one side, and islamo-fascism on the other. He
documents that al Zarquawi was in Iraq as a guest of Saddam before
9-11, and how Zarquawi built his organization of foreign fighters at
the behest of Saddam, so claims that there is no real link between
Saddam and terrorism (beyond his $50k bounties to the families of
suicide bombers in Palestine) are implausible.

--- The Avantguardian <avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> 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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Mike Lorrey
Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
                                      -William Pitt (1759-1806) 
Blog: http://intlib.blogspot.com


		
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