Some states are more sovereign than others

There is no morally relevant parallel between an invasion of Texas by China and the liberation of Iraq.

Some states are more sovereign than others, Dr. Paul.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• iraq
• war
• liberation
• christopher
• hitchens
• foreign
• policy
• neo
• conservatism
• neoconservatism
• intervention
• hitchslap

[spawktalk]

Both from the standpoint of pointing out how democracies have trampeled on human rights, as well as by asking how free a democracy is when the public is controlled by plutocrats.

[migkillertwo]

"democracies have trampled on human rights"

Let's be clear, are you drawing a moral parallel between the human rights records of western democracies and dictators in the Arab bloc?

[smartwarlord]

Based on this video. You can not oppose war with Iran, Sudan, Syria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. [Who are all worse than Iraq]

If you support the Iraq War in any respect, then you are no better than the murderers on the ground who killed children.

The last justified war was Korea. The last constitutional war was WW2.

Iraq had no WMDs, and even if they had them - we didn't go to war with the Soviet Union.

[migkillertwo]

"you cannot oppose war with..."

In principle, I would not oppose war with the 2nd or 3rd characters in your list, but obviously our situation limits our military to two ground wars.

"if you support the iraq war in any respect, you are no better than the murderers on the ground who killed children"

With all due respect, you're a piece of shit. Supporting any government policy doesn't mean that you support its abuse. I support the existence of police, that doesn't mean I think...

[migkillertwo]

...that I support police corruption.

"You probably also think Iran is a threat. HAH!"

A nuclear armed islamic theocracy that's close to collapse under its own weight could possibly be a threat to our strategic and economic interests? Perish the thought!

All that said, you're an idiot if you think a Ron Paul presidency is inevitable, or that this will somehow cause the iranian regime to "respect" us.

[spawktalk]

@migkillertwo state is more evil than our own because it has acted in such an aggressive way. I'm not sure why you think that the past isn't relevant to foreign policy. Nor do I understand how massive instances of murder are irrelevant to determining the relative moral standing of a state.

[spawktalk]

@migkillertwo I'm not sure what estimates you could have possibly looked at. The only explanation I can think of is perhaps you looked at estimates that didn't count civilian deaths. The wiki page on the war cites a news paper article that reports one million killed. You can take a look at that, if you'd like.

I didn't say that what our government has done justifies aggression against us. What I am saying is that, given our countries history, I don't think it makes sense to say that another

[migkillertwo]

"possibility of 1 million+ deaths"

Every estimate varies between 20-30 thousand deaths. Where the hell did you get the figure of 1 million+?

That aside, frankly, nobody cares about what governments did 30 years ago, nor should they when discussing foreign policies. That we overthrew governments through coups doesn't negate our government's duty to protect us, and it doesn't justify an enemy's aggression.

[spawktalk]

@migkillertwo A libertarian could easily view both systems as incredibly immoral. The point would not be that they are equal, I don;t know how one would begin to measure that, rather the point would be that they are both evil, and so a liberal democracy gets no assumptions of moral legitimacy.

[spawktalk]

@migkillertwo Just in those two countries alone you are talking about a possibility of 1 million+ deaths. And you could arguably add other instances such as Vietnam to this list. An, of course, the US has done much more in the way of unprovoked attacks via indirect methods such as coups. You can call it naive all you'd like, but that is were a consistent application of the typical libertarians natural rights based ethics leads.

[spawktalk]

@migkillertwo I'm not sure what you think my political philosophy consists of, but I can assure you that I don't believe anything that would justify killing all of those people. I probably would have supported removing hussien back in the 90's.

[spawktalk]

@migkillertwo due to its support of such groups.

I'm not sure I see the point in blaming the presidents. China could come because of things our presidents have done, just as we came because of things iraq's leader had done.

[spawktalk]

@migkillertwo You are correct when you state that the US only supported the groups that became Al-Qaeda. However, I think the general point which this was meant to be an example of still stands: that america has backed violently immoral groups in the past. I assume you know something of american foreign policy history, so I wont go into a list of dictators, and terrorstic revolutionaries we've supported. Given this I don't think that it makes sense to conclude that Iraq was a greater evil