[CLUE-Talk] Slashdot Gun Control

[Sean LeBlanc]

On 12-16 15:11, David Willson wrote:
> As the token almost-closed-minded conservative on the list, I want to
> ask a question:  I see many anti-war web-sites springing up, and many
> people taking an anti-war stance (sometimes combining it with an
> anti-Bush stance).  Generally, they refer to the potential for war with
> Iraq, and express a strong thought of "not in my name".  Now, let it be
> said that I'd have a very hard time declaring a war, too, but...  Well,
> I don't see a lot of alternatives offered by the anti-war crowd.  There
> are a classic set of motivators to war present, and we seem to be faced
> with a pretty simple choice. 
> 
> - We have good reasons to believe that Iraq is developing nukes, and
> that they have biological weapons. 
> - Iraq has been ordered not to have them, and to submit to searches
> which will "prove" that they do not have them. 
> - Iraq has not allowed the searches. 
> - The imminent threat of war has caused Iraq to allow the searches. 
> Years of preceding diplomatic interaction had failed to do so. 
> 
> What ought we to do, my peace-loving friends?  I love peace too, so I am
> honestly interested in your answer.  Killing people and/or threatening
> to kill people is a lousy solution no matter what the problem, but when
> no other alternative is available...  and a solution is needed (rather
> than 'wanted')...  Then w 

Well, as the token almost-close-minded libertarian :) on this list, I must
say you pose some very hard questions. Instead of trying to answer them,
however, I will instead put a link to some silly fun that a writer for WSJ
alleges he engaged in:

http://www.mail-archive.com/fork@xent.com/msg05298.html

I recently read P.J. O'Rourke's _Holidays in Hell_, and he has some funny
bits to say about, well, everything. He had some funny stuff regarding us
engaging Libya back in the eighties that I put on my page under the "Quotes"
section. They deal with the view of diplomacy that Europeans have vs. the
U.S. 

Okay, to get a little serious:

It's easy to say you are taking the moral high road and proclaim yourself a
pacifist, or, as a country, denounce America's so-called "imperialism", but
when you know that someone else will go fight to defend your liberty, or
that some other country like America will spend its blood and money so that
your country doesn't have to...is it *really* the moral high road? You are
in effect only redistributing your burdens to someone else. 

That isn't to say that I don't think there are some serious issues with
declaring war on Iraq. If there were viable options, I'd be in favor of
them. But what would they be? If it involves sitting by, ala Clinton, while
Iraq funds small-time terrorism, and prepares for big-time terrorism, count
me out. 

I've seen people say, "well, the U.S. has nuclear weapons, Israel has
nuclear weapons, why can't Saddam?" I'd like to pose a question to those
people. Let's say that both Saddam and the American government had the
option to kill each other (and this is the important part) WITHOUT anyone
else finding out who did it: a hypothetical superweapon that could wipe out
the entire country of the enemy, civilians and all. Which one(s) do you
think would do it? 

-- 
Sean LeBlanc:seanleblanc at americanisp.net  
http://users.americanisp.net/~seanleblanc/
Get MLAC at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mlac/
My own suspicion is that the universe is not only stranger than we suppose, 
but stranger than we can suppose. 
-John Haldane