Quote:
Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla
I don't have that idea, and wonder where you ever got that notion. Prove it if you think you can.
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This was going to be really easy until I realized it was HLJ who posted the nonsense article in the 11/11 thread not you.
(I didn't read your previous link yet so if this is the same ground bear with me.) I think our views on Heinlen probably illuminate our differences. In terms of philosophy, I think
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress was his best work, but would expect you to be a
Starship Troopers guy. My problem with Troopers is that we have this worst case scenario where one species is going to wipe out the other. This justifies a lot of government action.
Let's look at the two stupidest cases in US history. Was the Kaiser really going to destroy democracy? This seems unlikely. The war was a stalemate. What democratic movement that was afoot was in opposition to dying for the old order, while democracy developed. In the States, going on a war footing trained the people to respond to bugaboos with submission to government. This was an awful precedent which continues to be abused by left and right alike. The Kaiser did not pass the alien insect test.
The second bit of nonsense is Iraq now. The bugaboo is terrorism. Bin Laden is invading the US when? Our control seeking government's response to terror is a much bigger threat to the Republic than any backward looking Islamist. Bin Laden, while a belly crawler, does not pass the alien insect test.
The right continues to pretend that we came into this war with clean enough hands to assert some moral authority in the mid-East. Our historic opposition to democratic movements, due to their easy infiltration by totalitarians, in the region undermines our authority. Neutrality would have been a good idea before and is a good idea now. Iraq may yet choose democracy, as our ancestors did, but it won't be on our timetable and the results will not be pretty. The only sure thing is that our government will try to grow and attempt to control more aspects of our lives. The question is whether the development of ideas and technologies which enhance or preserve freedom will outpace the governments attempts to subvert them. Militarism has undermined the foundation of American conservatism by creating the illusion of necessary government action. The optimism of the American Right has been replaced by fear-mongering.
To answer Mill:War in defense of the Republic and its people is justified. Offensive war brought on by fear-mongering and corrosive of the Bill of Rights is not justified.