01-01-2003 17:11									#91
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Snowfire -

quote: Berzerker: Sigh. I asked which you would prefer, and never made any statement that his referred to a specific decision. It was strictly hypothetical.

And I said I prefer neither, but if I had to choose one, I'd say slavery in the South was preferable to the genocide of Indians. I still don't understand why you offered this hypothetical, slavery and genocide were wrong, so why attack "Southern heritage" as racist and ignore the genocide that is part of our "American heritage".

quote: Still, if you want a concrete, let's say the two (totally imaginary) decisions were the following: A) Let's reverse California and the Feds position for a moment. Imagine the Federal Government tried to impose the legality of marijuana on the states. Utah or some place criminalizes it anyway. SCOTUS says that because it's the Federal Government's job to set what is a crime and what's not all over the country, the law should be struck down. This is a statist principle to defend something a Libertarian like you would support (fewer drug laws). If used as a precedent for other decisions, however, it could imply the Federal Government imposing whatever whim it wants on states and localities via creative crime laws.

The federal government protecting our freedom is not a statist action, a state violating our freedom is a statist action. I don't know why you would call a federal action that prevents a state from violating our freedom as "statist" while the state that violates our freedom is not. Is not the state prohibiting marijuana a statist act? Removing or preventing that statist act is not itself a statist act.

quote: B) A person dies leaving no will and no relatives. The local government tries to impound his land and estate. His friends sue, saying that they should have it, or it be auctioned off, but not simply have the government take it. SCOTUS found this infringed on the person's right to own property and do what they like with it- since the person knew (or should have known) that the government would get the property without a will, the government was clearly enforcing that person's individual right to choose what to do with their money. I don't think you're a huge fan of gigantic publicly owned lands, but the justification here is on strict Libertarian principles, if a weird interpretation of them (I had to stretch a bit to come up with a good example).

Why should we assume the lack of a will meant the deceased wished the government to take their property? Frankly, I don't know where you're going with this or why you brought it up. All this seems quite unrelated to anything I've said in this thread.

quote: So in short: intentions matter.

Yes, they do matter. Which is why it is wrong to attribute the intent of those who view southern heritage as including slavery to those who do not. As to the very common inclusion of slavery to "souther heritage", I don't hear southernors who speak of their heritage embracing slavery as part of what they mean, only the accusation or insinuation that slavery is what these southernors really mean coming from liberals (primarily).

quote: Perhaps a better, if more blunt example, would be a bill passing all power in the USA to a dictator who has promised to govern the country on Libertarian principles, with the exception of an absolute dictator whose power passes on hereditarily. No matter how many wonderful reforms you agree with he passes, I hope you'd disagree with the terrible precedent of an absolute dictator- being that his son could, within his rights as king, turn around all of daddy's reforms.

The assumption behind a dictator - beneficient or not - is that the dictator (or those who've given him this power) has the moral authority to dictate anything in the first place. But I disagree with your assertion this would set a precedent, dictators don't need precedents. And what would this future anti-freedom dictator say? That because the previous dictator "imposed" freedom on us, he now has the precedented moral authority to impose slavery on us?

quote: So what's this have to do with anything?

Lol, you got me.

quote: The USA was not founded on harrassing Indians.

It was founded by taking their land, I'd call that oppression.

quote: Did the USA do it? Yes.

So why don't you apply the same standard to the South? What about the millions of southernors who never owned slaves but still believe they have a heritage as southernors apart from what slaveowners were doing? Most southernors didn't own slaves, why is their heritage sacrificed to the slaveowners? I believe it's because many Democrats and liberals seek power by pitting people against each other and race is a very effective means.

quote: Was there a line in the Declaration of Indepedence saying "King George didn't give us enough oppurtunities to kill Indians, and that's why we're revolting?"

I don't see a line in their complaining about the King not allowing enough slaves either.

quote: It's as simple as that. And yes, slavery is in the Constitution, so you can make an argument that it's part of American heritage, but that wasn't the point I was bringing up.

And I ask that the same standard be applied.

	01-01-2003 19:15									#92
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quote: Originally posted by Ted Striker That is messed up, Doc, I hadn't heard that. What are they thinking? I have heard alot of backlash against the US because the feeling was that Korea was destined to be reunited and we are interfering in that process. But you are right, why in the hell would you subject yourself to a senile wacko like Kim Il Jung? On a side note, the cave busting missles that successfully blew up the caves in Afghanistan were originally developed for use in North Korea. Check out this quote from 2000! http://www.korea-np.co.jp/pk/142th_issue/2000061902.htm

What I was referring to were the repeated demonstrations in South Korea. The most recent ones are in part related to the trial of the US servicemen involved in the accident, but there seems to be vocal sentiment for reunification despite the fact that Kim Il Jung has made it clear that reunification could only occur if the South agreed to put itself under his rule. You never here of people demonstrating against North Korea's repeated attempts to bully and intimidate South Korea.