I'd suggest a third way: historical relativism. Degrees of social rights and civil liberties available to peoples are usually relative to their countries' levels of economic development, political history, and so forth, though exceptions can exist. Poorer countries sometimes literally can't afford them due to civil wars and the like; much more often, a majority of peoples in poorer countries have ideas about rights and liberties that are rooted in their levels of development and accidents of history, rather than the same ideas as people in, say, Norway.
On 10/29/06, Michael Pugliese <michael.098762001 at gmail.com> wrote:
> <http://inthesetimes.com/> In These Times
> The Selective Solidarity of the Left
> By Danny Postel | 11.24.03
<http://inthesetimes.com/members/profile_view_ind.php?id=182>
<snip>
> A simple stance of "hands off Iran" is not what those struggling for
> change in Iran need from progressives around the world. Of course we
> should be steadfast in opposing any U.S. military intervention in
> Iran—that's the easy part.
Good to know that even Danny Postel is against US military intervention. I suppose something like war fatigue has set in among liberals and leftists in the West. But I'm also against economic sanctions and the like, no matter how much Shirin Ebadi, et al. want them. -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>