[Peace-discuss] Would It Kill Us to Apologize to Iran for the Coup?

[John W.]

On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 10:04 AM, LAURIE SOLOMON <LAURIE at advancenet.net>wrote:

>  I will only add to your remarks John by saying (and this generally goes
> for all who focus on private charitable contributions as the way things
> should be) that whenever anyone gives someone else charity *there are
> always direct or indirect strings attached and humiliating hoops to jump
> through*.  Those that are doing the giving always  make the assumption
> that  receipt of said *charitable help is a privilege *and *not a right*and implicitly make demands that the receivers genuflect in front of one
> type of alter or another before their betters (e.g., those who are making
> the charity available).   If those receiving the charity do not give in to
> this or are not sufficiently contrite, then they are considered as
> ungrateful and undeserving wretches.  Those that are doing the giving do not
> see it as a non-optional moral obligation and responsibility to the
> community but rather as a praiseworthy optional  and personal good deed and
> sacrifice for which they should be given special recognition and thanks for
> doing the right thing.
>

I totally agree.



>  On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 12:53 AM, LAURIE SOLOMON <LAURIE at advancenet.net>
> wrote:
>
> >Courage to accept what?
>
> Courage to accept pure unqualified version of libertarianism, which is in
> many respects akin to anarchism where no state is preferred to a state and a
> very limited state, if a state is necessary, is preferred to a robust
> state.  In short, by implication, a state that is just short of complete
> laissez-faire government and society where everyone is for themselves in a
> war of all against all and the fittest survives. Instead, you qualify your
> libertarianism  with the adjective qualifier "Christian" and let in the back
> door state activism in those areas that you value and prefer such as the
> protection of private property, the protection of individualism, the
> protection of an individual's right to do what they please on their own
> property with their own property as long as it is not directly harming
> others or interfering with them, the protection of individual member's life
> and limb and right to survive, and other such things.
>
> Precisely.  Whenever I suggest to a libertarian that, if he truly believes
> in survival of the fittest without government intervention, then I oughta be
> able to just kill him and take his stuff, he always back-pedals about 90
> miles an hour and talks about the military and the police as being
> legitimate exercises of power by the state.
>
> And that's the thing about libertarians.  About 98% of 'em are white,
> middle class or above, have a lot of "stuff", and are very obsessed with
> their "stuff".  No matter how they acquired their "stuff", they want to keep
> it and get more of it.  Their TV is never big enough; their computers are
> never fast enough; they never have enough toys.  They say that they're OK
> with helping poor people as long as it's voluntary and not the government
> "holding a gun to their head".  But they don't actually KNOW any poor
> people, so they feel very safe in saying that.  When they do actually help
> someone, it's someone they know personally who is generally just about as
> affluent as they are, and it's only after their own needs and wants and
> lusts have been thoroughly satisfied first.
>
>  However, you stop at supporting government actions that tell people that
> they only have a right to private property if they use it for the public
> good and collective welfare of the society at large rather than  for their
> own individual good and benefit, that make it a crime to accumulate wealth
> beyond what one reasonably needs to survive happily at a modest level when
> others in society are unable to meet that level of quality of life, or that
> says that an individual's rights and freedoms are only valid  if and when
> they are exercised in the public good on behalf of the common good.
>
>  Precisely.
>
>
>
>  Thus, you are picking and choosing what areas you desire government to be
> active in and what areas you think they have no business in rather than
> taking the approach that, since we have no real basis for evaluating what
> actions are legitimate actions for government to be involved in, it either
> should be involved in nothing (e.g., we in effect have no government) or it
> should be proactively  involved in every aspect of collective life with
> private individual desires and needs having a lesser priority to the
> collective good (e.g., an ant –like society).
>
>
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