My tone was lecturing also, so reciprocal forgiveness & tolerance is always appreciated and accepted.
1. Motives behind acts do matter: hence the notions of spirit of the
> law, and letter of the law. A case in point is the current
> administration's use of whistle-blower protection (which most of us
> would support) in a disingenuous way.
Motives matter in political discourse. I am all for attacking Rove & Libby politically. It is the actions of the regime that they represent that we both oppose.
But principles matter when opposing a law that protects the National Security State from exposure. That is why I said I would defend Libby and Rove in the specific case of exposing an intelligent agent or leaking secret documents, no matter what their motive would be. I would try to expose the hypocrisy of the regime that Rove & Libby represent, the atrocities of the ruling class for whom they function, and oppose the law that protects the National Security state from exposure.
If a Nazi is put in jail by the State for exercising his/her free speech I will defend him/her. (I would also defend counter protesters who I would hope scare the living daylights out of those Nazis.)
If Karl Rove had been arrested in Texas in 1990 for violating laws against homosexuality I would defend him against the application of such laws even though he is a gay-bashing bigot who uses homosexuality to get his friends elected.
I am not defending the "personalities" of these people or the ruling class function of Rove or Libby I am using the opportunity to expose a law that is a violation of democratic civil liberties or personal freedoms. Whether the violation of the law is unpopular or not is a measure of how much (self)-education our fellow United Statesians need.
Personally, I think that Rove and Libby and the whole Bush regime should be shipped to appropriate third world countries to be tried by the peers of the people who they have aided in killing and maiming. After we try these specific war criminals, the U.S. seriously needs something analogous to de-Nazification and a Truth Commission, but I think that will have to wait until a sea change in our social and political system. But opposing the exposure of a CIA agent as a political issue? If it wasn't for the other underlying issue it wouldn"t raise itself above the level of gossip.
2. To defend Rove/Libby is to violate another principle: that we fight
> against dishonesty.
I am not defending their dishonesty. By attacking a law that defends the National Security State that they want to use to hurt the rest of us, I am exposing their hypocrisy.
Personally, I just think that Rove & Libby and Plame, are negligible objects of gossip. I believe that in the U.S. gossip is politics by other means. I choose to ignore the personalities and focus on important things like making it easier to expose the National Security State.
>
> With regard to "principles" vs "tactics", it seems to me that you, not
> I, are the one compromising principles for tactics: the exposing of a
> CIA agent is a tactic you advocate, and you want to defend any
> individual who employs that tactic, irrespective of how his principles
> (in particular, in the application of this tactic) might differ from
> yours.
Well, if one's basic principle is that one should make sure that all secrecy laws go out the window, then when somebody violates those laws I will take the opportunity to defend them against prosecution under that law. If they are then prosecuted for lying to cover-up their hypocrisy, well maybe I will keep quiet or maybe I will defend them. Daniel Elsberg I would defend even if he had lied. Libby can hang in the wind.
I advocate the tactic of exposing CIA agents if it will do some good. (El Salvador in 1983 for instance.) Other wise I don't think leftists in general have better things to do and in normal times don't have much to gain.
But you don't seem to get the distinction between defending a person against a law that is politically oppressive, and should be opposed as a matter of principle, and advocating that we should all try to break that law. As a matter of principle I would defend, to my limited ability, all people against prosecution under National Security State laws. (This includes traitors opportunists and hypocrites of all kinds.) As a matter of tactics I rarely violate such laws and probably wouldn't advise other radicals to do so. Without knowing very specific situations it is impossible to answer these "tactical" questions one way or another. If the times were different the general tactical consideration would change.
If I had known every (or any) U.S. intelligence agent in Central America in the 1980s, when I was involved in those countries, I hope I would have had the courage to expose them because I am pretty sure it would have saved some lives.
> What the Plame affair shows, of course, is that the current regime
> > doesn't care about "National Security" even when it is narrowly
> > defined in their particular propagandistic way.
>
>
> Exactly!
>
>
> >
> > But Ravi, I am surprised at you. I don't think you really replied to
> > anything, I wrote.
> >
> > At around 19/6/06 1:11 pm, Jerry Monaco wrote:
> >> > I think that one should make a distinction between exposing the
> >> > hypocrisy of the current regime and defending the law that protects
> >> > the ruling class as a whole.
> >
>
> No need to reply to that, since that is my very point! ;-)
>
>
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