From: Mark Steven Heyman (markheyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Tue Nov 16 2004 - 19:04:10 GMT
Hi Sam,
Thanks for the interesting argument. Even though it's a slightly
disgguised variation of the old "If this country's so awful, why
don't you leave it?" argument, I'll take a look...
In an imaginary world where there existed some other "place"
untainted by brutal conquest of one form or another, I might agree.
But this isn't the world we live in.
We have to make our moral choices based on possible outcomes we have
some realistic chance of affecting. How realistic is it to to think
that the lands might simply be returned to the victims? And what
good would be accomplished by leaving one country to go to another,
who's wealth and privilages were derived from another set of similar
, if not worse, brutalities? Also, buried subtly in your argument is
the idea that the good arrived at in the home country is possible
only BECAUSE of the brutality. That is, that the brutality is a
necessary condition of the good. This, I hope you would agree, is
obviously false.
For these and other reasons, I find the argument unconvincing. It
seems to me my moral obligation is not to abandon my country, but to
make use of the freedoms it affords me to convey an honest sense of
its past, and present, the good and the bad, in an attempt to prevent
more and worse of the bad from being carried out in the future. As
we have just seen with the invasion and occupation of Iraq (by BOTH
our countries), such attempts are not always successful. But what
moral and realistic alternative is there, other than to stay and
continue the fight?
Thanks,
Mark Steven Heyman (msh)
-- InfoPro Consulting - The Professional Information Processors Custom Software Solutions for Windows, PDAs, and the Web Since 1983 Web Site: http://www.infoproconsulting.com "Thought is only a flash between two long nights, but this flash is everything." -- Henri Poincare' On 16 Nov 2004 at 15:47, Sam Norton wrote: Hi MSH, More years ago than I care to remember I was staying with some academic friends at Columbia Uni in NY. They were the two of most left-wing people I've ever met - they had been friends with Abbie Hoffman in the 60's, who if memory serves died whilst I was there, and they put across what seemed an incredibly plausible case that the CIA had poisoned him for his anti-social activities. I'm sure they were at least half-serious. Anyhow, the point I want to ask you came to mind when you wrote this: "Do you, or do you not agree that the U.S. Government planned and carried out mass exterminations of indigenous Americans in order to acquire their land?" You see, they also argued that this was true; in addition they argued that all those who benefited from this genocide had a moral obligation to leave the United States and not eat the fruit from such a poisonous tree, ie not enjoy all the good things which had been accomplished as a result of that genocidal activity. So all the land which the white settlers had ended up taking from the various tribes should be given back to those tribes, along with all the wealth that had been created on the back of that misappropriation. Do you agree with this? If not, why not? Cheers Sam MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org Mail Archives: Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/ Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at: http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org Mail Archives: Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/ Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at: http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
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