[206] in libertarians
No subject found in mail header
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (damartin@ampere.mit.edu)
Tue Sep 13 23:51:35 1994
Date: Tue, 13 Sep 1994 23:49:16 -0400
From: damartin@ampere.mit.edu
To: libertarians@MIT.EDU
>I think the point is that this is simply not the US's problem. What,
>as Dan Quayle said recently, are our "vital interests" in Haiti that
>justify the shedding of American blood? I don't see any. I don't
When someone's rights are being violated, it is not in your
immediate self interest to help them, but in the long term, it is in
your own self interest because it ensures that there will be someone
around to help you when your rights are violated.
However, the US can't take over every country that mistreats
its citizens. It wouldn't be practical. We can't simply say, "Take
over any country that violates its citizens rights." There has to be
more to it than that. For instance, the Persian Gulf War was an
example of "Fight a country that is truly evil AND threatens our oil
supply." In that case, our long term interest in fighting injustice
and our immediate economic self interest coincided. In Haiti, we don't
have any immediate economic self interest. So Quayle may be right if
he means that we don't have ENOUGH interests at stake to make it a
vital interest for us.
-David Martin
