humanities.philosophy.objectivism

On Mar 14, 10:16 pm, Gordon Sollars wrote:
> In article > @e6g2000prf.googlegroups.com>, ilou...@hotmail.com says...
>
> > I immediately noted the word "preemption" is not used once,....so
> > obviously no distinction was made using that specific term (at least
> > not in the example you provided me). I would also point out a hundred
> > and fifty year old example isn't exactly strong evidence to support
> > that there is strong legal distinction between the two concepts (and
> > wouldn't have Bush leveraged it if there was?)
>
> Sorry, but you are quite wrong. It is trivial to find many current
> legal cases citing to legal opinions that are 150 years old - although
> the legal effect of this is different in international law than it is in
> the English system of law.

You are being unfair to my points by casting such a wide "quite
wrong" comment. Many many legal cases that are 150 years old are
absolute garage too. I hope you are not arguing that the age of the
case you provided works in it's favor of being legally relevant today.
My point does have some merit, especially in this instance, and
shouldn't have been casually dismissed (although of course not
conclusive by itself)

You also skirted around my other point about Bush. Mark himself said
Bush didn't make this distinction. Why didn't he then? Surely it would
have been to his advantage to not associate himself with
"preventative" wars right?

I think the answer can be found in that this is not simpler times
where vast armies took large amounts of time and money to assemble
along borders... a big hint of a possible attack. Warfare is
lightening fast today. Trying to compare the realities of 21st
warfare to 19th century warfare isn't logical. This is especially
true in a modern world where [apparently] all a government leaders
have to say is the magic words "he's getting the bomb" (regardless if
true)... and the threat instantly gets cast as imminent by large
numbers of people. How many times have we heard "it's 1938" since 2001
again?

Forget theories. Again... in this instance...was the distinction
relevant in practice? You are telling me "ought to be" I'm telling
you what "is". If America's most powerful lawmakers (that were elected
to represent the laws of the land) thought it was relevant they would
have changed the "ought" to "is" in Iraq. (or Iran for that matter).

> because it used the terms "preempt" and "prevention" but because it
> articulated the importance of the notion of necessity in this context.
> Mark wants to maintain a distinction between "preemption" and
> "prevention". To get past a mere quibble over words, you need to look
> to what "preempt" represents.

> What I suspect you want to argue is that in the contemporary world, the
> time between when a preemptive strike would become justified and when it
> would be too late is too short to make preemptive attacks useful. But
> that does not resolve the moral question of, In whose favor is the
> uncertainty to be resolved?

I would frame the question differently.

The game has changed. The world is much smaller and more fragile
than it once was. Given the long term realities of a trend to nuclear
proliferation, and the potential consequences of attacking first (by
no means a "slam dunk" result), is it wise for the various nations on
earth to keep making those sorts of gambles forever forward into
time? Is acting out on one's own cowardice and being wrong many many
times forward in time (and having the same wrong done onto you
eventually)... worth the cost to our planet?

My personal view is all-out wars are nearing obsolescence due to the
modern realities of nuclear technology. What will replace them is
limited strikes by multilateral forces, a movement towards non-lethal
technologies, and information awareness of small scale threats so that
aren't allowed to emerge into large scale ones. All wars will
eventually be permanently considered immoral. (I'm guessing within a
few more centuries)

Well... either that.... or it seems inevitable our species should be
preparing to face a population cull of epic Armageddon proportions.