Re: War: why everyone wishes it would stop but no one can stop it.

In article <1147971035.398910.199060@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
<chris.editrix@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:


Ian Davis wrote:
In article <1147705702.774826.304580@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
<chris.editrix@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Even so, the central problem of rape isn't rape. It's believing that
our needs are more important than other people's needs and that we can
inflict harm on others to fulfill our desires.


That is the left wing take. The right wing take is that the central problem
is that there will always be people who hold these beliefs, and that therefore
they need to be controlled, constrained, or denied the opportunity to rape.
I take more of the right wing position, since I don't hold to the communist
belief that the perfect society can create the perfect man. I don't want
to see the current US leadership replaced with people who put other peoples
interests before there own, though clearly that would be "nice". I want
to see that even bad leadership operates within systems that thwart their
natural desire to do harm. Ergo, I wish to see the US draft laws that veto
the rights of a commander in chief to ever initiate a pre-emptive war of
aggression against any other nation, period.

It makes me uneasy that you conflate the "left wing take" with
Communism. That's an argumentative ploy to polarize people at extremes
and create an emotional response that may distract from finding some
sort of common ground.


That was my error. I wasn't attempting to make "left wing" and communism
seem one and the same. I was trying to say that the notion that the
problem is that people are selfish, can be addressed either by saying
that they shouldn't be, should be taught not to be or whatever, or that
the systems people operate within should be designed to minimise the
consequences of the problem.

You seem to place a lot of faith in restrictive rules, whether they be
related to war or individual human behaviors. To "control, constrain,
or deny the opportunity to rape" would require severe constraints on
the ability of women to move freely in society, a freedom many men take
for granted. It would put women under the protection of the state, a
protection enforced largely by men and not much different from
depending on male relatives for protection. It would harm the potential
victims more than the potential perpetrators. And it would enhance the
notion that men are beasts, unable to contol their impulses.


My personality is one which tends to be ruled based. I try not to break
rules, am not comfortable with others breaking rules, and am the antithesis
therefore of the "political activist". I think that the rules should be
ones imposed on those who would otherwise violate the rules, not on those
who respect them. So unless it was women going around raping men, I don't
think my desire to see the rule that "thou shalt not rape" enforced as
strongly as possible would in any way reduce a womans ability to move
freely within society. I would actually question whether it is I or
women themselves who limit their own freedom to move freely, because
they themselves are afraid of the consequences of doing so. As a young
adult male my risk of getting raped was less than that of a womans risk,
but my risk of getting physically assaulted was perhaps much higher. In
one such assault I lost a tooth; in another I was burned with cigarettes.
In yet another I was surrounded by thugs with knives. Call me a slow
learner but I have never translated those actual experiences into society
imposing any restriction on my freedom to move freely within society.
Fundamentally I think it would be a mistake to do so.

In effect, you ARE believing in a more perfect society created through
controls, restrictions, punishments.


Yes, and that might seem a bad thing. But I think most people if they
thought about it would say that it was in the interest of society that
controls be placed on peoples right to harm other people, restrictions
be placed on who may harm who, and that punishment are just about the
only means of deterring those who felt that neither the controls nor the
restrictions were applicable to them whenever they wished to harm others.

Actually I believe in something just a little more subtle. I believe that
people can be molded by the attitudes that they absorb as their own. I
don't think controls, restrictions and punishments work half as well as
evolving society towards being one that views certain actions as wrong
period. Joe public might think they think starting a war of aggression
wrong period, because this piece of paper or that says its wrong. I see
things the other way round. I think pieces of paper say things are wrong
as a consequence of there being widespread pior agreement that the thing
controlled, restricted, or subject to punishment, was something that
needed to be controlled, restricted or subject to punishment.

Systems are creations of people. How well they work depends on those
who operate within them. And being clever animals, we are most
industrious when trying to get around something.

Such systems do two things. For sure they create an environment where
some try to get round the system. But they also create an environment
where others are able to say that that is wrong. Right now we have an
environment where US presidents have it within their perceived rights,
the right to initiate wars of aggression. It is the US people who
permit the concept to stand.


I don't believe in a perfect society or perfect people. But I do know
that if people are fed, educated, have work that allows them to raise
their families; if they have beauty and kindness in their lives and
some control over their own destinies, they are less likely to behave
"badly." Though I suppose if you keep them stunted by overwork and
undernutrition you could make them too weak to act badly very often. .
.

Here I am in full agreement. I think Canada the better for not having
the same extremes of inequality that one can find in the US. We don't
have the same ability to pile wealth on wealth, with politicians giving
the tax savings to the richest, but neither (I suspect) do we have quite
the same problem with homelessness, crime, violence etc. which it is
inequality that feeds.

But was George Bush not fed, not educated, denied work which would allowed
him to raise a family; was there not beauty and kindness in his life. Did
he never feel in control over his destiny. I don't think your rational
can be applied to those who initiate wars of aggression.. my rational
which says they initiate wars of aggression, both because they can,
and because they perceive such action as being profitable to them,
seems the saner one for explaining their motives. And so my arguement
that one counters "the can" by legislation that says they can not, and
counter "its profitable" by its a crime and you'll make no profit out
of committing this crime, the better way of deterring war mongers from
starting wars, that the nation as a whole then pays for.

This doesn't explain why the privileged and powerful disturbingly
often seem eager to send other people's children to war. Your
suggestion of controlling THEM seems like a good one to me, though I'm
cynical that our congress--another set of privileged leaders--can be
expected to behave better than the president.


I'm cynical too. Therefore I think the best strategy is to play to the
"Now look what a fine mess you've got me into", and play to the notion
that this American lunacy of starting wars they then can't finish, be
treated as the lunacy it is. I'd sell vetoing wars of aggression as
not the right thing to do but the sensible thing to do. And this is
something that I think is possible to sell, more so now that the memory
of "what a fine mess you've got me into" is still fresh in everyones
mind. The German people have come to understand that their willingness
to start wars of aggression was wrong.. why not the American people.

I recommend Russ Feingold's May 8th speech. It was for me like a breath
of fresh air.

http://www.feingold.senate.gov/

Isn't that true of preemptive war as well? But in war, you need the
cooperation of many, and therein lies the role of manipulating
information.


Yes, but not all manipulation of information is bad. We can mold our
behaviour
to rules that we make up as we go along. That is the history of the evolution
of civilisation. Create a strong enough conviction that the very notion of
starting a war of aggression puts one on par with Nazi Germany, and the
people are going to be far harder to lead to war.

We make it ALL up as we go along. We could decide to act on something
besides precedent, but to do that would require a leap beyond the
confines of law making and law makers. The nature of the law is to
protect the status quo, not change it.

Your contention that propaganda be used to create revulsion and
justification connected with our feelings about Nazism is not so
different from Nazi uses of propaganda to create revulsion and
justification for a war against non-Aryans. In either case it involves
a group of protected people deciding what is right for others and
believing their superior understanding and position justifies the use
of any means to attain that end


Within my frame of reference it is different because I believe that all are
capable of agreeing at least broadly on what helps and what harms. I don't
have a problem with propaganda that helps.. Do you have a problem with the
"No means no campaign". And if you do is it not really the case that your
concern is not really with the propaganda but with the consequences of that
propaganda.. Are you not implicitly deciding on the merits of a given
propaganda campaign on the basis that it will either do good or harm.

Your argument supports the notion that people must be manipulated by
their leaders, and are not capable of doing "the right thing" on the
basis of knowledge, love, and justice. I don't buy that. Your faith in
better leaders, restrained by better laws, seems as naive to me as my
belief in people who don't have the deck stacked against them showing
leaders the way to go must seem to you.


You are turning everything I've said 180o and then giving it back to me as
if it were something I'd said.

I think that people should place constraints on their leaders, not vica
versa as you imply. As Feingold said he's not exactly sure what George Bush
thought he was swearing an oath about in agreeing to defend and uphold the US
constitution, given that he's subsequently done the exact opposite. I don't
have faith that you'll get better leaders.. if one examines history I'd say
a nation was extraordinarily lucky if it got good leadership one time in
10. It is not leaders I think people should support and trust in but the
systems that this leadership operates within. You are not to my mind
supporting the US constitution, when you fail to insist that the US
constitution be respected, honoured, and enforced. There is a big difference
between saying its my government whether or not I agree with it, and saying
that Stephen Harper (our current PM) is my man, and I must support him
regardless of my own conviction about the rightness of his positions.
I didn't say that I ever thought the people not capable of doing the
right thing; indeed I'd hardly be trying to educate that starting an
illegal war of aggression is just plain wrong, if I thought the readership
here incapable of grasping that truth first hand. And regarding my faith
in better leaders constrained by better laws, it might be seen as naive and
as wishful thinking, but for my part I see those who are unprepared to
even consider the need to have better laws and better enforcement of laws
to stop US presidents from doing stupid things that destroy the US in ways
that Al-Quaeda could only dream of doing, the ones who in aiding the status
quo are the enemies of whatever good future it is I might wish on America.

When you permit George Bush to be above the law, you do more than merely
permit George Bush to be above the law. You set the precident that all
future presidents may also declare themselves equally not bound by US law,
to also use their signing authority to declare that they are to be held to
no US law, etc. etc.

There is a fire blazing in the forest, and if it is impractical to suggest
that any might be somehow able to get water to the fire, it is to my mind
negligent almost beyond belief to not even be trying to work out how to get
water to the fire, instead arguing that the fire just has to be allowed to
burn and as a consequence do whatever harm it does. By the time the fire
reaches into the very heart and soul of America, it will be way too late
to do anything to control it. Indeed it already to me feels way too late.

Ian.
.

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