Posted on 04/08/2003 1:49:20 AM PDT by WaterDragon
To the Editors:
In response to John Gross's interesting account of the current mood in London (“A Tale of Two Tonies,” March 2003), I should like to point out that there are British pro-American conservatives who are, nonetheless, opposed to the war on Iraq for sound conservative reasons.
We do not think it is in America's interests or in British interests. In my case, I am not convinced that this will be a just war as defined by the Christian faith, nor am I convinced that the good conservative policies of deterrence and containment should be so lightly abandoned.
I do not believe that there is anything conservative about war, which was the handmaiden and herald of state control and socialism throughout the twentieth century. And I fear that licensing pre-emptive war aimed at achieving regime change has serious implications for the conservative concept of national sovereignty.
Interestingly, Anthony Blair, who now seems beyond criticism in the United States (to the despair of many British conservatives, who see him as a menace to liberty and as the leader of the most rapaciously redistributive and anti-middle class socialist government here since 1945), is not what many Americans think him to be....(snip)
Click HERE For Complete Article.
Tony's a lot better looking.
In his novel David's Sling, Marc Stiegler noted that there are two basic approaches to problem solving: the analytical or "engineering" approach and the opinion-dominant or "political" approach. The engineering approach is fine for problems whose parameters are all hard data, measurable and knowable to fine tolerances, but it doesn't apply to everything. When it doesn't, we use politics, where the majority decides, sometimes directly and sometimes through its representatives, whose ideas will prevail.
I have no problem with those who argue against the war on respectable cost-benefit grounds. We can disagree without castigating one another as monsters. The odium belongs on the shoulders of those who assume that to favor the war marks one as a moral subhuman. That's not a reasoned position; it's an assumption of superior virtue, which is an unfalsifiable proposition, as well as an expression of infinite contempt.
Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit the Palace Of Reason:
http://palaceofreason.com
In the case of Iraq, the lives and security of families and children are of incalculable value. Securing their release from such a truly evil tyranny is to the human race -- "cost effective."
Ah, WD, but that's a personal valuation. Others might say, "Yes, the lives of those oppressed, brutalized Iraqis are of incalculable value, but so are the lives of our men-at-arms, and of others who might lose their lives as a result of our decision to intervene." Which is why the decision is inherently a matter of politics rather than engineering; there's no universally agreed, analytical framework by which to reach a result on which everyone must agree by sheer rational argument.
You, and I, and a billion other people might agree on this, and there'd still be room for disagreement. It's not like calculating the area of a triangle. We can't disprove the contentions of the dissident; all we can do is outvote him. Which is why, as long as they refrain from nasty imputations of heartlessness or venality, I try to treat them with courtesy.
Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit the Palace Of Reason:
http://palaceofreason.com
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