2007-01-15

 

Philosophy

I've never formally studied philosophy, as I never saw the relevance. In fact, I have a tough time knowing what the difference between philosophy, psychology, morals, ethics, politics, religion, strategy and war is. All I actually know is that I was raised with Jesus's pacifism and while I attempted it multiple times, I could clearly see that it led to human rights abuses of both me and others, and I thus rejected this concept. But knowing exactly when to fight is rather elusive. It's not actually taught when to break out into violence. Through an enormous amount of thinking, which involved watching nation-states go to war and watching individuals interacting on the Iraqi blogs, I finally nailed it down to:

1. fight dogma
2. fight non-humanist behaviour
3. fight subjugation

Furthermore, I believe in using the brain as the primary weapon, and leveraging into the power of the security forces by acting within the law. I have no interest in proving how tough I am to some unspecified audience. I am only interested in winning. This is the rational strategy.

I didn't see how anyone could fail to support the Iraq war based on (2). Saddam was ordering the rape of Iraqi women. I thought the rape of women was something that everyone of every religion and moral code thought was abhorrent. It is illegal in more-or-less every country. It is against the Geneva Conventions. Just how much more cruel did Saddam need to be before people would be goaded into action? But as can be seen in the discussion in the comments section of this post, PeteS is challenging me to explain why rape is wrong rather than saying fighting (specifically war) is wrong.

To me it has always just been obvious. I wouldn't want someone to rape me, and would want others to protect my right to not be raped, so I also protect others. I know from thousands of conversations that this simple logic escapes others, despite the fact that it is the law of the land. In my opinion, there would be justice in this world if people who were lucky enough to be born into a wealthy western country were via some freak of physics transferred to be an unlucky citizen in a non-western country such as Iran. And that you should live every day as if it is your last as a lucky westerner. Trying to do what you can now to secure your position in the new country. To secure your human rights. Even if you're 100% sure that you won't be hit by any freak of physics that brings such justice, you should have been born with empathy that makes you care about those who are less fortunate than yourself. This is not a new concept. Our governments and citizens give money to tsunami victims. Why not care about the far more important problem of human rights at the same time?

Anyway, I can understand why a turtle does nothing to protect the human rights of Iranian girls being raped by their own government. And I can understand why a sociopath wouldn't. But I can't understand why someone claiming to be a moral actor wouldn't. If it were your daughter stuck in an Iranian jail being raped would you take action? What if your daughter were being raped outside your house? What's the difference? And what's the difference if it's someone else's daughter? What moral system are people using that stops caring at a particular distance or when some mythical line in the sand is crossed? It is truly horrifying that I can point this out to people and get no reaction. The reaction I was expecting was "wow, I never considered that - you're right, we need to take action - I was wrong to have opposed the Iraq war - what can I do to get more countries liberated?". If I'd gotten that reaction, I could explain my strategy. But I'm not getting that far!

Ideally there would be many such competing strategy documents. I know of Mark Palmer's book "Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025". But he is not proposing using all available resources (ie war) taking the least-worst option at every turn. However, I am at least happy that he wants to end up at the same spot. Sort of, anyway. I envisage an end-state of rational, humanist, non-subjugating governments, which will create the best possible environment (if I were to suddenly be transported there), rather than a dogmatic non-humanist government elected by uneducated voters. E.g. if I were transported to Iraq I'd rather have Paul Bremer in charge than Maliki. However, I recognize that achieving that is a step too far.

Anyway, I know with absolute certainty (divine confirmation) that I uncovered the correct philosophy (using all available resources and taking the least worst option to get the best long-term result). But I am still unable to put it into a form that is acceptable to a world seemingly full of sociopaths. Or maybe they're not sociopaths - they are simply dogmatic individuals who have a hangup over the word "war". A Finn probably solved that dilemma. He said that Europeans see war as something that is harmful and which takes a long time to recover from, whereas Anglophones view it as a time to go overseas to do a noble deed and then return. I wish I knew how to convert the 90% of Europeans and the Anglophone moonbats to care more about the word "rape" than the word "war". Hell, for the time being I'll settle for an acknowledgement of "security" and "national interest". The Iranian dictatorship has an official policy of "Death to USA" and is developing nukes and even that doesn't move them. MOONBATS!!! Even turtles have a better sense of self-preservation than moonbats. Better morals too I'll wager.



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