From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Sat Mar 15 2003 - 22:01:51 GMT
Hi Andy:
> I answer: I think the protests around the world are aimed directly at the
> US and its aggressive military policy, its production of weapons of mass
> destruction, and its dismissal of world opinions, treaties and
> organizations.
You call populations in a few countries "world opinion?" Have you
counted the protesters and compared it to the world's population? Have
you taken into account U.S. popular opinion? What world treaties has
the U.S. violated? What world organizations has the U.S. ignored?
>The US helped Saddam (as they did Bin Laden) obtain and use
> weapons of mass destruction. This is an undisputed fact.
You mean an undisputed myth. Cite the source for your supposed
"fact."
>The antiwar
> protests do not support Saddam, they just ask for the inspections to be
> allowed to work.
The inspections have worked. They have found that Saddam has not
disarmed in accordance with the Gulf War peace treaty and U.N.
resolutions demanding compliance over 12 years.
P:
>Also, how was the
> U.S. Constitution better 6 months ago? In your dreams, what provisions
> would you add to our constitution to make it better?
A:
> To the second part of your question, I think I have to ask, when was the
> patriot act signed? This is certainly a restricition on individual rights.
> This was probably signed over 6 months ago, so lets say since 9/11 2001.
What provisions in the patriot act violate rights guaranteed by the U.S.
Constitution?
> Ask any arab American how the US was a land of greater freedom
>before this
> date
How many Arab Americans have you asked?
>So to begin with we could get rid of the patriot act, at least those
> parts which allow infringement on are privacies. For instance, the right
> of the FBI to subpeona library records and bookstores for the thooughts we
> are reading.
Is this a "right of privacy" guaranteed by the Constitution? Where in the
Constitution do you find this privacy right?
> Finally You asked: Which of the following wars would you not have fought?
>
> American Revolution
> Civil War
> World War II against Germany
> World War II against Japan
> Korean War
> Gulf War
> Seriously, I don't know the answer to your question. I do
> believe in peace, but there are some situations I can imagine that would be
> worth dying for. I was only alive during the last war in your list and I
> was on the streets protesting against that. So I can say I would not have
> fought the first gulf war, although I would have pursued every other means
> available to get Saddam to leave Kuwait.
So even though U.N. was behind the Gulf war, you weren't?
> Mistakes? Well, Hiroshima is an
> obvious one.
Why was Hiroshima an obvious mistake?
> WW II with Germany might have been avoided if the peace from
> the Great war was negotiated differently.
So you've found a legitimate reason for going to war? A bad peace
agreement?
> The Civil War did not make the
> lives of Blacks much better immediately as pointed out by Squank.
So the end of slavery wasn't such a hot idea after all?
> I can't
> see much that was gained in the Korean war.
A free and prosperous South Korea means nothing to you?
> And the American Revolution,
> although it led to our constitution and bill of rights, which I support, we
> still had a government that spent the next 125 years or so killing native
> Americans "like bugs" and that also supported slavery, in addition to
> excluding women.
That the U.S. abolished slavery and extended full citizenship rights to all
means nothing to you?
> So, I am not sure where I would have stood on the
> position of war in any of the cases you present (other than the gulf war)
> if I was alive at the time. I would like to think I would have been part
> of an anti-war effort in any, though.
Your position then is peace at any price? Your liberty to express your
opinion and go "protesting on the streets" is not worth fighting for? I take
it you also disagree with Pirsig's observation that "The instrument of
conversation between society and biology has always been a policeman
or a soldier and his gun." (24) ?
Finally, have you read "Lila?" What parts of the Metaphysics of Quality
do you object to? The part about fighting biological crime perhaps?
Platt
>
>
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