[117150] in Cypherpunks
Re: Sanctions (1)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Secret Squirrel)
Fri Aug 27 09:22:30 1999
Date: 27 Aug 1999 12:57:02 -0000
From: Secret Squirrel <secret_squirrel@nym.alias.net>
Message-ID: <78b0cdb3a72025cdea2e163d127cbe39@anonymous>
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Reply-To: Secret Squirrel <secret_squirrel@nym.alias.net>
On Thu, 26 Aug 1999 11:21:18 -0700,
Petro <petro@suba.com> wrote:
>>can bet I'll reserve the option to kick the living
>>shit out of the invader and send him packing or to Hell.
> The totally ignores the fact that your "friend" was
> getting the shit kicked out of him because he was
> violating his neighbors land, and stealing from his
> neighbor.
That seems to be less than clear, while Iraqi tanks and
soldiers in Kuwait were unmistakable.
> It also makes you a disingenuous bully.
Sosumi.
>>In the end, _all_ people run the risk of paying the
>>price for the acts and policies of the people they
>>tolerate in positions of power...
> So you really don't object to Bin Laudens actions
> against the imperialist actions of the US?
Have you stopped beating your wife?
It is certain that the people of the U.S. have also
tolerated bad leaders and bad policies, but I would
hardly put them on the same level as butcher regimes
such as Hussein's or Pol Pot's. To the extent that
anyone is powerful enough or smart enough to visit
the sins of the U.S. _on_ the U.S., that will
certainly be the harvest we reap for having sown
bad seeds. Whether I object, agree or disagree is
immaterial. The principle I enunciated was that
civilians are never completely innocent. That is a
universal, and as such applies just as much to the
U.S. as it does to any group. In judging the moral
righteousness, it is wise to keep in mind that
opinions differ widely, sin is in the eye of the
beholder, and justifications that seem reasonable
to one person or group may seem wildly irrational
to another person or group.
>>We have no privilege. If we buy oil, where is the
>>issue? I'm not aware that we've been invading and
>>stealing oil at the point of a gun. You seem to have
> Your lack of awareness doesn't change the facts. Who
> put the Shah of Iran in the position of being able
> to sell us cheap oil in the 60's and 70's while
> torturing many of his subjects who objected?
I suppose we did. And we seem to have been paying for
it since the fall of the Shah, in visible and probably
even more numerous, invisible ways. And that relates
to Saddam Hussein in what way?
>>Instead of whining, you should get busy helping those
>>backward and constipated nations reform their
>>inbred political systems and get their technology
> Those inbred political systems sustained and corrupted
> by the CIA.
You are sounding more and more like Zombie Cow, Petro!
I'll agree that the CIA has fucked with far too many
foreign governments if you'll agree to consider the
absurdity of ascribing the entire wealth of the U.S. to
the CIA. I'm sure the spooks would puff up with pride at
your assertion that we owe everything we have to the CIA
holding everyone else on the planet down in the dirt.
> No, Our government should stop fucking with other
> people.
Generally, I agree more than you might like to hear.
You (and Cow) seem to think that merely because one
is an American we are 100% aligned in mental lockstep
with government policy, not only now but back through
history. That's a bizarre view for someone on this
list of mostly U.S. malcontents.
Where I differ from the view that we should stop
fucking with other people, and where I differ from
the canonical libertarian view in this regard, is
where keeping strictly hands off would stupidly
allow us to be taken to the charnel house by tin
horn dictators willing to take advantage of our
good nature and fuck _us_ over. I am, when the
blood starts flowing, nationalistic. I spit on
one-worlders. If it were to come down to being
overrun by communist China or nuking them, I'd
nuke them with a clear conscience. Of course I
would _not_ appreciate being propagandized into
that position by the very people creating the
crisis, which is what seems to be the case all
too often.
>>> The point is that not everyone can live
>>> like you do,
>>
>>That's up to them, not up to us. You're addressing
>>the wrong audience. Instead of whining to us you
>>should be castigating the dictators and tin horn
>>tyrants of the world for restraining their people
>>and economies for their own personal gain.
> Who bombed the fuck out of Iraq? Who bombed the
> fuck out of Kosovo? Who sent large numbers of
> barely trained fresh faced 18 year old into Korea
> to preserve the free flow of platinum (or was in
> plutonium?).
Non sequitur. You are freely mixing unrelated issues.
The issue of U.S. interference in the affairs of
other countries would only have relevance if you
were to show that the U.S. has thereby cornered the
world's wealth, which is what you seem to be saying
indirectly. Bullshit. Last I looked, there was
enormous wealth around the world, including in the
hands of small nations and non-nations that have
never fielded armed forces or government-toppling
intelligence black ops. Pretty consistently, though,
the fucked up hell holes on this planet are all
characterized by fucked up governments. They do it
to themselves, which also ties back into my point
about no innocent civilians. The same princple that
blocked sympathy for German civilians bearing the
consequences of Hitler's policies and actions should
bar sympathy for the civilians of the Sudan, Ethiopia,
Cuba, etc. who are bearing the consequences of the
political and economic policies and actions of their
leaders or non-leaders.
(continued in Sanctions (2))
