<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2800.1106" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV>Justin wrote:</DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV>> Spoken like a true Sachsian (or Stalinist, same think, other side of the coin), can't make an</DIV> <DIV>> omlette, etc. Lets wipe out a coupla generations of Russians in the hope of the radiant future.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Admitting that a given course of action will have negative material consequences that cannot be dismissed is not equivalent to writing off the lives of an entire generation of people. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>> Don't you think the poor Russians have been subject to enough of that sort of crap over the </DIV> <DIV>> decades? Moreover, IF a Westerm style market economy is built there! </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I think it will be--check back with me in 50 years.  Unlike many, I'm willing to make predictions that are falsifiable, and then own up when I'm mistaken (like I initially was with regard to Afghanistan).  </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV>> And if pigs had wings, they could fly! What on earth makes you Sachsians thinks you just go </DIV> <DIV>> around building market economies at will? Look at what it cost to build the one we have -- </DIV> <DIV>> centuries of blood. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Building a market economy in a country that is _already_ industrialized seems quite feasible so long as it's possible to make the proper governmental reforms (e.g. develop a coherent tort law system).</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV>> Sheesh, for a utulitarian, you have a head for fantasy rather than social reality.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Why do you continually insist on drawing a link between what you perceive to be my naivete and my consequentialism (you are, after all, the one who has chastised me in the past for my flights from the political to the philosophical)?  For that matter, outside of maybe Peter Railton, I'd say the views of most notable consequentialists as to what the political "social realities" are probably resemble mine more closely than yours.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>> May I direct your atention to certain events going over Iraq, in which (though perhaps you </DIV> <DIV>> haven't heard) the US has made a claim to permanent, unchallengeable global dominance.</DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The Rice doctrine ("We're special") has frightening implications.  But there are many, many reasons for regime change that have nothing to do with hegemony.  Of course, those reasons won't appear to have force to those who think the prospect of Iraq with a nucear veto over any foreign meddling (uni or mulilateral) in the ME is perhaps not such a bad thing after all.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV>> There never was a rivalry with the USSR, except maybe in space. The terrible things to which > you refer, you mean what, Vietnam, Korea, Nicaragua, El Salvador? Were not inspired by </DIV> <DIV>> feart of a Soviet takeover. The concern was rather for the third world independence. </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>That's one of the more unique (dare I say fantastic) takes on the cold war that I've ever seen.  Henry Kissinger himself now says that preventing Vietnam from becoming communist probably didn't really matter.  Why?  I would guess because it's now readily apparent that carving out our own slice of Vietnam wasn't at all essential to defeating the Soviet Union.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>-- Luke</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>