Okay. I don't agree with that, but at least its a bright line. And to avoid messy details, I'll give an overview reason why. I think the United States has the best chance of surviving as a free democracy if it is not alone in the world. It makes selfish sense for us to support economic freedome and democracy elsewhere in the world where it is possible and practical to do so. I also think that a long term strategy of ignoring your enemies until they are at your doorstep is militarily, economically, and politically unwise.
National sovereignty is a long standing tradition recognized the world over for many centuries.
Wrongly so, IMHO.
Only in the very modern era have we decided there is a higher global authority
I don't think there is a "higher global authority". Or at least, there shouldn't be. I'm speaking of a moral authority, which is all you have in the absence of a higher legal authority.
Also remember that quite a few Americans at the time of the Nuremberg disagreed with the idea of these trials as it set a precedent and established a global governance that claims authority beyond the nation state thereby eliminating sovereignty. Now if you're against national sovereignty then I question your conservative credentials as conservatives have historically been opposed to global government.
I don't know where you get the idea that I agree with some form of global governance. I never said anything remotely hinting at that. I am proceeding from a far more basic premise -- that nobody has the right to rule anyone else through force. If you're a dictator who has taken power at the point of a gun, then you've got no cause to whine if some third party removes you from power forcibly. And it doesn't matter what the U.N. or anyone else says about it, either.
Just in our own history, the South may (or may not) have been correct regarding the right to secede. But if (and I'm not saying that's the case), the North had invaded solely for the purpose of eliminating slavery, I think such an action would have been morally justified, regardless of whether the South would have been "sovereign" or not.
In anything, that makes me a quintessential non-internationalist, because I don't believe the U.N. or any other "global" organization can or should trump that.
- You do not believe in national sovereignty (not even ours? or only ours?)
- Yet you do not believe in a global governance like the UN to set order.
That means you must want the US to be the dictator of the world. No nation has the right to police its own territory as it sees fit, only as the US sees fit and authorizes.
Since according to you there is a higher moral authority which supersedes national jurisdiction, a US moral authority I ask you how do you determine what is moral? The US has the death penalty codified by law. European nations do not. Are they more moral than us? Should they invade us to stop the death penalty and set up new laws according to their standards? Their view of morality would seem to justify it, no? If you disagree with the Europeans moral views would you resent their meddling in our affairs? Do you suppose others would resent our impositions?
You talked of genocide, how does one determine what that is? Mass murder vs. legal execution. It seems to depend on one's vantage point. What we consider genocide others consider keeping the peace or self defense. Who decides what is what? Solely a US standard? Who in the US decides? Should the president decide and with his sole authority through the war powers act crusade throughout the world dispensing justice? Should congress get back in the act and start declaring wars again? Truman didn't think he'd get a war declaration against N.Korea through congress so he went to the UN for authority to act. President Bush said he would go to war on his own authority to enforce UN resolutions even if the UN didn't want him to. But what if the president sees one action a morally worthy undertaking and the congress disagrees? Who then has the final say on morality? Should we dispose of our governmental checks and balances in favor of a higher authority - like presidential morality? So I guess when we elect a president we now are electing the king of the world. Might makes right, right? We're moral and we're powerful so what we say goes or else, right?
But are our leaders so moral after all? I've tried to point out in my other posts that so far our track record may be activist but it's hardly moral by any objective standard of the word. We turn a blind eye to acts of our allies. We've turned a blind eye to certain obscure conflicts and see only outrage in areas where our business interests could be lucratively enhanced through intervention or where we desire bases to further our projection of power. Not to mention that we have acted with callous disregard to civilian casualties on many occasions and others committed out right mass murder ourselves. Our leaders have a proven history of lying to us and occasionally using human rights as a public relations fig leaf for crass motives (Span Am war, W.W.I for starters).
Again, who decides what is moral? War for us is now partisan politics. Republicans did not support Clinton's actions in the Balkans. An action, by the way which Clinton claimed was a moral fight against genocide. Were Republicans wrong to oppose Clinton? Was Clinton right?(see my last post). Democrats supported war under Clinton but now oppose war when a Republican president is in charge and Republicans who claim we had no business in the Balkans now say that even if there was no threat from Saddam he needed to go any way since he was a bad man (just not so bad in the 1980s when he was our boy). So morality is political after all isn't it? Are politicians, who pander to special interest groups for a living and specialize in telling each group what they want to hear and who take money and return favors for a living, are these politicians the ones you trust to decide what is moral and to lead the country to war accordingly? Remember how Bob Dole was so outspoken for intervention in the Balkans? Did you know that he got a lot of money from Albanian lobbyists? So you can't fall back on the argument that Democrats are evil but you can always trust Republicans.
So how would you decide what is moral and what is not? In the Old Testament entire cites where laid to waste, every living being killed as it was deemed necessary to wipe out your enemy totally so they could not rise again to threaten you. Many in the world still live by that code. Their argument is hard, but logical. It may repulse our sensitivities but there is a logic to their reasoning. Is the Bible wrong? Even if you could decide what is moral how do you decide where to act? I assume you would not have us war against China or Russia would you? There is mass murder going on under the jurisdiction of each of these great nations. Are those poor people there not worth our blood and treasure? Should we only act against small defenseless countries where our casualties would be minimal? If that is the case then your morality is arbitrary, inconsistant and really not morality at all is it?
If the US Armed Froces only acted in strict self defense we all could with a clear conscience support war. One could truly tell the bereaved their loved ones died fighting a good fight. There would be no more Smedley Butler's saying "war is a rackett" with evidence to back it up.
and lastly here's something to think about:
> XJH: I am proceeding from a far more basic premise -- that nobody has the right to rule anyone else through force.
Please note, government is force- all governments. Without force governments have no authority. They set rules, you are forced to comply through fines, imprisonment or death. The police are highered muscle, law enFORCEment officials.
But if we are moral can we force others to comply with our version of morality and still be moral since we used force? Do we monoploize morality and have the exclusive right to use force? Are we by using force delegitamizing our morality? Because by your own standards "nobody has the right to rule anyone else through force."