*sigh* I'm afraid you're not responding to my arguments, but rather what you believe my arguments are. Let me try again (based on your latest post).
The problem is that nation states have the intrinsic right to self-governance.When it comes to nation states, there is not "higher authority" per-se; They are all peers.
In principle perhaps. But in reality, only as valid as its enforceability. Here's the funny part that you valiantly continue to ignore - Why the hell should I respect this so-called "intrinsic right of self-governance" of a nation-state that does not respect its citizens basic human rights? If that's too strong, I'll weaken my point a bit to suggest where we might be talking past each other. I can agree to respecting the rights of the nation-state to govern itself while recognizing the fact that the government of that state is an entity distinct from the nation-state (which I take to mean the people who reside in it). Do you see the difference?
It sounds to me like the issue you have with the concept of blanket national soveriegnty is that it allows forms of government and political activities that you personally disagree with to go "Unpunished", as long as they dont start pooping in other people's cheerios.The issue is one of who watches the watchers.
Not really. The issue I have is simply that I shouldn't be expected to agree to (what you assume is a) "basic right" as it applies to governments that themselves do not agree with me with what human rights their citizens should have. It's a matter of symmetry. If you're an oppressive government, you can't fuck humanitarian principles in the ass when it applies to your own people and then shamelessly expect the rest of the world to respect your sovereign rights. As for watching the watchers, I'm a pragmatist. The answer is whoever has the means, motive and opportunity. Having said that, I fully agree that this can't be unilateral - though not for the same reason as yours (so I'm not sure why you're belaboring this point instead of responding to one of my major ones). I just think the US doesn't owe the world any policemen. Let the barbarians civilize themselves. It's a thankless job and is all too often like teen rebellion (doing something bad just to piss off the parents).
As for the question that brings up the spectre of Godwin's law: (I dont intend for this to sound aggressive, btw.)
Perhaps you missed out on Chairman Mao's little happy fun-ride through China? What did the world stage do about it? What is it doing about the aftermath of it right now? [exactly.]
Or, for a more recent example, Sarkosy (however you sell his name anyway) and the Roma extirpation; even though it does not involve extermination.
So, your argument is that global intervention doesn't occur for every example of government oppression, so we should just not do it at all?
The most that other nations have the RIGHT to do about these kinds of things are to 1) Condemn the practice publicly, and 2) withold trade from those countries.
I'll take a page from your relativist handbook and ask you - "WHO decides that this is the only right a nation has?" :p
Who decides what is ethical, what is justified, and what is a crime? (more importantly, who has the RIGHT to impose such arbitration?)
If we can't agree about what's ethical, and what's justified and what is a crime, on what moral basis are you arguing so vehemently for national sovereignty? Can't have it both ways boyo :p If even human rights are so morally ambiguous for you (ew! by the way) that mass killing or political imprisonment cannot be judged as wrong by anyone, why is national sovereignty the only unambiguous principle you adhere to? And that's the crux of the issue here - WHAT moral principle could possibly justify the idea that should I respect the right of a government to exist without molestation if that government does not respect the rights of its citizens to exist without molestation? This is completely analogous to criminals being imprisoned and not afforded the right of personal sovereignty. You consistently fail to address this issue and continue to treat national sovereignty as a moral absolute and everything else as relative. This is mind-boggling to me.
As for the questions about pre-war afghanistan and co.; These nations were ruled by a theocratic agency, more or less. The same could have been said about pretty much every european country during the dark ages. (The power of the papacy exceeded that of local kings. The catholic church's only real adversary was the islamic nations, only later to be replaced with protestantism.) The question then boils down to one of "Do you accept the Taliban as a governmental entity" or not. (much like asking if you accept the papacy as being a government or not. Both are politically charged theocratic agencies, that hold territories. The taliban holds several cities and wasteland areas in the middle east, and the papacy holds Rome. The only outstanding difference that I can see is that the Vatican is internationally recognized as a soveriegn nation, while the Taliban is not. It is this issue of being recognized as a "peer" that is important when a newly born nation declares independance, as such recognition is what confers national soveriegnty; the right to self-rule.)
I would personally recognize neither the Taliban nor the papacy as sovereign. If only they followed my advice ...
Considering I live in the here and now, the fact that Europe was ruled by people who were just as horrible as the theocratic assholes infesting the world today seems to me an argument AGAINST tolerating this sort of abomination (from any faith) in today's world. Legitimizing it will simply delay their equivalent of the Enlightenment because then it becomes acceptable and commonplace.
To summarize the last few paragraphs. My solution to the discrepancy you raise would be to remove sovereignty from the Vatican, not grant it to the Taliban in a misguided attempt at "evening things out".
As for materialistic wealth and standards of living; [...going off on a massive tangent...]
A perfect example of what I started this post with. Let me try to clarify the point I was making (added stuff in italics to the stuff you were responding to to make the point clearer)--- "The standard of life (in materialistic terms at least) is seen to be better in the "freer" countries. The people in the theocratic countries see the 'godless sinners prospering' while they themselves have a hard time barely surviving. The theocratic promises start becoming more and more abstract (since the concrete becomes undeliverable). However, they can only be made so abstract before more and more people start catching on to the bullshit."
All that time you spent on the material wealth stuff was unnecessary. The whole idea is about perceptions and what governments do to adjust.
As for the last part of your post, I personally find that it smacks of democratic elitism;
Hogwash :). It's not my fault that you automatically equate "this government does not assrape its people" or "the people enjoy certain freedoms" with a "democratic form of government". In fact, I was EXTREMELY careful to NOT bind myself to any particular form of government as GOOD. You convict yourself. But history (your european examples work well here) has shown time and again that theocratic states are a particularly BAD form of government. Surely you're not falling prey to the temptation to deduce what I think of as GOOD merely by negating my BAD. That's too simplistic for a moral relativist besides being embarrassingly dualistic. Besides, the last paragraph was meant to show you that while that particular idea of "them hating our freedoms" is often abused, there is a well-defined way in which a modified version of that statement is quite true (I made all these caveats quite clear back then). Again, you missed the point. *shrug*
It has much the same sentimentality that communist countries extolled about marxist (and it's bastard derivatives) communism-- That it was the one and only "True" way to run a country.
To hell with comparing modes of governance. I've focused ONLY on human rights issues. If you're going to start matching presence or absence of human rights with specific forms of government, that's your problem, not mine :p
Say what you will, but Dicatorships DO work. Same with communist governments, and same with theocracies.
Define "work". From the point of view of the rulers, they probably do. From the point of view of the ruled - hah! Now, who's elitist?
(Granted, in all cases the proposed government must govern rationally, and realistically, or else they tend to collapse.)
A rational theocracy is a contradiction in terms. Make a theocracy rational and you have a board of directors :p. The entirety of the human rights violations are based in irrationality. Same with dictatorships. A benevolent dictator is fine in my book. His future spawn usually doesn't maintain that benevolence. But, again, I have no problem with ANY mode of governance that grants its citizens basic human rights. YOU insist on granting sovereignty to certain types of governments because it would be "unfair to discriminate between modes of governance". I think that's irrational reasoning.
Simply because their choice of government is in conflict with your own, does not make their government illigitimate, and/or unworthy of soveriegnty.
Again. Their choice of government is not the issue. How the government treats its people IS. Regardless, I have already stated that this is NOT reason enough to invade the fucking country. But it is reason enough to not want to have anything to do with the fucking country - hence the refusal to recognize sovereignty. That's a diplomatic solution by the way - an alternative to military action. I couldn't care less if they choose their leader based on the genuflections of lemmings or if they have child-queens a la Padme Amidala :p. As long as that leader doesn't trample over human rights in his nation-state, I'll be happy to recognize his government's sovereignty.
However, it should be pointed out that at least in Iraq, the residents WANT a democracy; They just want one that is FREE from outside interference, either from the religious extremists seeking to exploit the existent power vacuum left over from deposing their dictator (that the US put there, to control the region in the first place...), or from a certain powerful western country with hungry eyes on it's oil reserves.
I have to laugh at this. You merely emphasize my own point about this - "I don't think we have a moral obligation to respect the sovereignty of tin-pot dictatorships or "theocratic hellholes". Clearly, the vast majority of its people don't give a shit about who rules them (or they would have revolted). Why should we care?".
I agree that we should have stayed out of Iraq. Of course, if we had done that, the Iraqi people "who want a democracy" would still be living in a dictatorship and their "natural RIGHT to self governance" (your words) would be an abstract concept (much like string theory or the color of smell :p). The biggest irony of this is that my preference (and yours) of non-interference would have resulted in a non-democratic Iraq. And yet, you continue to stress the fact that we OWE them security because we inflicted 20 years of dictatorship on them. Careful - a wingnut could take your entire argument as support for deposing Saddam :p.
"National Soveriegnty" is quite a bit like a child coming of age in that respect. You HAVE To accept that they make their own choices, and you have to accept their RIGHT to make them.
There really is no room for any kind of "But only if they make the RIGHT choices!" kinds of interjection.
As L.M. Bujold wrote:
Adulthood isn't an award they'll give you for being a good child. You can waste... years, trying to get someone to give that respect to you, as though it were a sort of promotion or raise in pay. If only you do enough, if only you are good enough. No. You have to just... take it. Give it to yourself, I suppose.
Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign, 1999
I believe that says it all :p. Where you see justified rebellion, I see surly teen rebellion. Suicide bombers aren't acting "adult" in any way. They're the equivalent of "I'm holding my breath till I'm blue in the face". When these states grow up, they'll realize that national sovereignty is earned, not begged for.
I'm sorry if you disagree, but really, that's how it is.
No apologies necessary. But I respectfully state yet again, THAT'S not how it is; THIS is how it is. :p
