----- Original Message ----- From: "Justin Schwartz" <jkschw at hotmail.com> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Saturday, September 28, 2002 1:22 PM Subject: Re: Anti-Imperialism 101 Re: Hitchens quits Nation
> There's no relativism about democracy from me. I regard it as the besty
form
> of government, and I hope everybody chooses it. I just don't think that
> having it gives you the right any sense of the term to impose it on
> others--supposedly.
This is fallacious--I would say establishing a democracy in Iraq would be considerably less of an imposistion on Iraqis than Saddam himself (unless, of course, you think that Saddam enjoys genuine public support). The relevant questions as I see them are 1) how much suffering would a regime change inflict upon Iraqis (obviously, this is contingent in part on the sort of campaign undertaken) and 2) how much would the new regime better the lives of its citizens?
> The slippery slope argument is quite obvious and no
> fallacy here. Why stop at Iraq?
I think there are pretty obvious reasons to refrain from attacking states like Britain.
> Let's spread democracy everywhere
Terrific idea.
>--except for course to our god friends the Saudis and the Pakistanis and .
. . .
Somewhere's better than nowhere though not as good as everywhere. Perhaps Iraq is a decent place to start. My mind isn't yet made up on the subject.
-- Luke
>
> jks
>
>
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