"In certain cases, I believe the name and professed ideology of the
system is unimportant. Stalin, ******, Pol Pot, etc. can be considered
criminally insane, and their actions represent the worst of a deranged
personality and not the tenants of any particular political system."
Patently, and rather demonstrably untrue. The psychopathology involved was
one of groups, not individuals... and socialistic/Marxist systems are
inherently vulnerable as are most other "systems" founded on the European
Counter-enlightenment (which includes Nazism). The key variable isn't
"left" or "right," but the degree to which the system requires state
domination of individual liberty and discretion. And all of this, Thomas,
is rather obvious and non-controversial except to Marxists.
"But Salvador Allende won a democratic election in Chile, as opposed to
being installed during a violent revolution. This makes outside
interference to remove him and his government profoundly undemocratic
and immoral if you consider democratic governance to be a right."
Well, apart from observing that some forms of democracy lend themselves to
the rise of tyrants (the PR system in the Weimar Republic, for example) I'm
not really excusing the action that was taken, just pointing out relative
evil between, fascism and Marxism. I don't think it was legitimate do
depose an elected leader. The fact is that Marxism has been responsible for
far more murders and deaths than fascism, by an order of magnitude... with
perhaps Nazism (which was more than fascism, but a blood cult). The reason
for that may simply be that Marxism is more attractive. Anyway, we supported
certain Marxist governments, most notably Yugoslavia's and China's, against
the "Soviets," clearly because of "balance of power" considerations, rather
than a conviction that Chinese Communism was necessarily "good" and Soviet
Communism evil. So it's not surprising that we supported fascist bad guys
for similar reasons.
Bottom line, although you can probably tar the anti-Marxists with violations
of purist morality there isn't any way to salvage from that justifications
favoring the Marxist systems they opposed. They were at least as evil as
chattel slavery, and probably worse.
Put another, and perhaps more intuitive way, the preservation of a
reasonably civil society within the liberal/capitalist democracies <em>does
not depend on the perfection of human nature</em>, and that's the real
difference. Liberal democracy assumes *human nature is not perfectible" and
therefore strives for the 'least bad" government. Totalitarianism, founded
on various "Ur Myths" strives for the "ideal government' (based on the ideal
collective, race perfection, or an ideal spiritual vision) which is an
entirely different thing. And furthermore, all of the latter have direct
philosophical ties to the European Counter-enlightenment.
"The road to Hell is paved with realist intentions. Immoral actions are
still immoral, even if the ultimate goal is a laudable one."
Strictly speaking that's not true. Being realistic doesn't guarantee
success, it just improves the odds. At any rate there's a difference
between the "realism" of accepting autocracies for the sake of stability,
and the realism of replacing them with liberal/democracies because the
stability and autocracy are now incompatible.
"Please show one example where I have condoned autocracy of any type.
This will be a futile task, since the above question has a false premise.
"Communist" autocracies in most cases have had the advantage of at least
providing for the basic needs of all people, while most fascist
governments pander to the wealthy elite’s while the masses suffer from
abject poverty."
Sounds like you're condoning them to me. But even if that had validity,
which it does not, it could hardly be argued that a system like Ba'athism
that *combines* fascist and Marxist totalitarianism is acceptable on any
grounds... autocracy aside.
"> 2. And most significantly (and I really want an answer to this one), why
do
> you now support the same foreign policy position in Iraq that you
disdained
> almost 30 years ago in Chile?
Yet another question with a false premise. My position on Iraq was that
the UN should have demanded a large, PERMANENT presence of weapons
inspectors in Iraq as long as Hussein and his ilk were in power in Iraq,
backed by force if necessary. Since from the fall of 2002 to the time
the UN withdrew its inspectors due to the immanent US invasion, Hussein
acceded to that demand. Therefore, the US invasion at the time it
occurred was unnecessary and immoral."
How would the presence of weapons inspectors, absent a will to enforce
anything, have made a difference? And it certainly would have made *no
difference at all* in terms of the totalitarian nature of the society. This
is an attitude that I find almost inexplicable in the left. The assumption
that because you "act" a certain way your conviction will translate into
good behavior of the opponent. Saddam only agreed to the inspections in the
first place, because there were a few hundred thousand US troops on his
border. Remove the realistic consequences for bad acts, and there isn't
much doubt that the bad acts would continue.
And again, the only thing "immoral" about the invasion is that it didn't
happen earlier.
"How the above position has any similarity to the position that the US
should not have interfered with the DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED Chilean
government of Salvador Allende is beyond me."
Well you brought it up, not me. Personally, I think it's irrelevant.
--
--Scott
"Tom Sherman" <
[email protected]> wrote in message
news:
[email protected]...
> Freewheeling wrote:
>
> > The number of murders that have been documented against Pinochet are in
the
> > hundreds rather than the thousands, but lets assume 3,000. A couple of
> > points:
> >
> > 1. That number pales in comparison to the number of people murdered
under
> > dictatorships of the left, which all-tolled in the twentieth century
number
> > well over 100 million (over 30 million under Stalin alone).
>
> In certain cases, I believe the name and professed ideology of the
> system is unimportant. Stalin, ******, Pol Pot, etc. can be considered
> criminally insane, and their actions represent the worst of a deranged
> personality and not the tenants of any particular political system. We
> could therefore consider Mussolini and Franco, but not ****** to be
> representative of Fascism; and Lenin, Mao, and Castro but not Stalin and
> Pol Pot to be representative of Communism.
>
> > 2. The operation itself was proposed and carried out *during a global
war*
> > with the above forces, which at the time had enslaved another 100
million
> > people in Eastern Europe and the Baltic States.
>
> But Salvador Allende won a democratic election in Chile, as opposed to
> being installed during a violent revolution. This makes outside
> interference to remove him and his government profoundly undemocratic
> and immoral if you consider democratic governance to be a right.
>
> > 3. There were lots of similar operations and policies aimed at "balance
of
> > power" and dictated by a "realist foreign policy" that had no interest
in
> > promoting democracy, and that is currently in an internal war with those
> > wishing to spread the franchise of democracy for security reasons. Most
of
> > these "realist" foreign policy professionals have adopted the racist
> > position that Arabs are unfit for democracy and that we should therefore
> > simply appoint a strong man, a Pinochet if you like, in Iraq... and
leave.
> > They are also the primary advisors to John Kerry.
>
> The road to Hell is paved with realist intentions. Immoral actions are
> still immoral, even if the ultimate goal is a laudable one.
>
> > Which leads me to a couple of questions:
> >
> > 1. Why is it you oppose autocracy always and only if it involves a
rightist
> > dictator, and never if it involves a (usually far more murderous)
leftist
> > dictator?
>
> Please show one example where I have condoned autocracy of any type.
> This will be a futile task, since the above question has a false premise.
>
> "Communist" autocracies in most cases have had the advantage of at least
> providing for the basic needs of all people, while most fascist
> governments pander to the wealthy elite’s while the masses suffer from
> abject poverty.
>
> > 2. And most significantly (and I really want an answer to this one), why
do
> > you now support the same foreign policy position in Iraq that you
disdained
> > almost 30 years ago in Chile?
>
> Yet another question with a false premise. My position on Iraq was that
> the UN should have demanded a large, PERMANENT presence of weapons
> inspectors in Iraq as long as Hussein and his ilk were in power in Iraq,
> backed by force if necessary. Since from the fall of 2002 to the time
> the UN withdrew its inspectors due to the immanent US invasion, Hussein
> acceded to that demand. Therefore, the US invasion at the time it
> occurred was unnecessary and immoral.
>
> How the above position has any similarity to the position that the US
> should not have interfered with the DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED Chilean
> government of Salvador Allende is beyond me.
>
> --
> Tom Sherman – Quad City Area
>
>
