[From Bill Powers (2001.10.11.0545 MDT)]
Rick Marken (2001.10.10.2010)--
>> I should think that would depend on whether we agree that we have created
>> problems for other people.
>So there was no complaint about the US in the McVeigh case because
people agreed that the US didn't create problems for him?
McVeigh, as I sort of remember his complaints, was concerned about Ruby
Ridge, Waco, and similar stuff. He was not, of course, the first to point
out that the Government might have been out of line in some of these cases.
And it was a good thing that there were investigations and maybe even some
changes of policy -- I think there were enough concerns that these changes
were already under way when McVeigh decided to teach the Government some
sort of confused lesson. I don't see that there was "no complaint" about
the US in the McVeigh case. There were lots of complaints. But McVeigh and
his buddies carried their complaints about Government violence to the point
of insanity.
> Since the US
is a democracy, I think the majority of people in the US tacitly agree
that US policies did not create problems for Osama bin Lamebrain.
Huh? I think you're leaving out a couple of steps here, at least. Why does
going after bin L. indicate that we think we didn't create problems for him?
We're going after him because we will not tolerate his way of trying to do
something about his problems, whether we think we caused them or not. At
the same time, of course, we ought to be thinking about the problems of
which he complains -- the Palestinian situation, the children starving in
Iraq, and so forth, which I think are quite legitimate complaints. We
should at least make sure that any part of these problems that we have
caused is no longer being exacerbated by us, to the degree that we can
reasonably do anything about them. Of course we have no intention of doing
anything about his or the Taliban's complaints about our liberal attitudes
toward women, etc..
> Do you think that when people do wrongs to you, that gives you a free
> pass to do wrongs to them?
No. Of course not. But in the current situation I don't see our attempts
to capture or kill the terrorists as a wrong to offset a wrong. I see it
as self defense, rather like getting rid of a collection of Terminators
with the sole goal of killing Americans.
I agree. But we still need to address any wrongs we have committed that bin
Laden or anyone else has complained about. We have to make our own
judgments according to our own principles, of course, but I think that we
should consider the wrong, not the complainant, when deciding whether we
need to change some of our policies.
If there's anything germane to PCT about any of this, maybe it's the
question of whose system concepts and principles we can control. If we
justify what we do only by pointing to others who have done the same
things, aren't we setting outselves up, in effect, to let others'
principles and system concepts govern our lives?
> Or the other way around -- that taking responsibility for wrongs you
> have done to others lets them off the hook for wrongs they have done
> to you?
I never did. But I never really put such people on the hook for their
wrongs anyway. I expect very little from such people, in the way of
taking responsibility for their own behavior, and I've rarely been
disappointed.
I'm leery of concluding that some people are so fundamentally flawed that
we no longer have to think of or treat them as human beings. What do you
mean by "such people?" Is this a class of subhumans (as Ayn Rand calls
liberals)?
I think bin Laden is simply an example of a human being who has developed
an oversimplified and primitive system concept that permits him to commit
enormous injustices in the name of justice and never feel he has done
anything wrong. There's a lot of that going around in the Middle East to
varyinbg degrees; bin Laden is one of the outliers in the distribution.
Heck, there's a lot of it going around everywhere. The human race has not
evolved as far as it thinks it has. Look at our current President, who
can't seem to grasp a phrase with more than five words in it.
Terrorists are too dangerous to tolerate. I agree with you, let's wipe 'em
out. But at the same time, let's recognize that they are like waves moving
ahead of a rising tide. If we can do anything about the tide, maybe there
won't be so much garbage on the beach.
Best,
Bill P.