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Missile Defense

Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

almarst-2001 - 11:38pm May 22, 2001 EST (#4160 of 4163)

" Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

Phylosophically and practically, I like the following statement of one of the great Jewish scholars (sorry forgot his name) who defined the most importand Jewish religious idea as follows: "DON'T do unto others as you would NOT have them do unto you."

The difference here is great and extreamly importand.

- The OTHER may have a different idea on what is in his best interest. Don't ever attempt to force YOUR GOOD and YOUR GOD on others.

- By doing what you may believe is good on other you implicitelly expect him to return the favor. And that expectation will inevitably cause disappointment and resentment, if unfulfilled.

The Jesus, if indeed this statement can be attributed to him, showed the lack of deep understanding of a human nature and some arrogance. He might indeed have believed in hiss mission. And that was later reflected in the history of missioneric history of Christianity, the intollerance, the inquisitions, the crusaiders.

Hence this old say come to my mind: "The road to hell is paved with a good intentions".

almarst-2001 - 12:08am May 23, 2001 EST (#4161 of 4163)

Lately, more and more I come back to think about the virtues of the Capitalistic society and hierarchy of the values this implies:

The competition

The personal fulfillement, advancement and achievement

The race to the top, to the power, to the wealth

My central question is this: "What is the POWER and the WEALTH, beyong the basic human needs, are for?"

And the only answer I came up with is: "To DOMINATE other people". To casue envy, the admiration, the fear. Show me the single good emotion such a drive can result in the minds of the others.

Some would say "That's what drives the "progress". I however see no good in such a "progress". It is a self-fulfilled prophecy, the road to nowere, the endless futil strugle, conflict, war and death. It has nothing to do with a human basic needs and human development as a specie. It creates the monsters who view the world as a buttlefield and the life as a constant fight for self-promotion. It breeds the brutality, the arrogance, the disconnection, the narcissism.

As the most profound case of the DOMINANCE is RAPE, I come to conclusion that such a siciety must breed the nation of rapists.

To check my assumptions I am seriously became interested to find a statistic of relative frequency of the rape among different nations.

artemis130 - 12:10am May 23, 2001 EST (#4162 of 4163)
caveat venditor

And the road to Kabul is paved with broken Buddhas.

rshowalter - 06:10am May 23, 2001 EST (#4163 of 4163)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

almarst , I understand your position, your emotion, and also understand that there are more examples than you can fit in your head that fit what you say.

But it isn't that simple. And there are, and have long been, many truly beautiful things that have been done by capitalists. Many for reasons most people would approve of. Sometimes by the same people who have done other things that most of us would agree were very ugly. But sometimes by people who managed to get success without much nastiness at all.

The question --

what are the values that are being served?

is central. And the answer is not simple.

One thing seems clear to me -- that the values in American society, or world society, are not homogeneous, and though you can surely find plenty of bad ones, there are good ones as well.

Coexisting, and to a large extent, not logically coupled.

Otherwise the world, which has plenty of bad, but more good things than you can fit in your head as well, would be far worse, and less functional, than it is.

Often, however, good and bad coexist in uneasy ways.

At the same time, it seems to me that when we converse with gisterme and the people she (?) most admires, you really are in contact with something monstrous. Not in all aspects of their personalities. But in some of them.

The good things from capitalism, and the bad, do go together to some degree. But the proportions, and the values served, can differ very much. And the mix of capitalist function, and state welfare function, can be very different from place to place.

There's a lot to hope for -- though I can understand your anger.

If you feel that you're being asked to choose between stark capitalist values, and stark values of communalism - then you have a right to reject the request - you have to refuse to make the choice. Americans, in practice, do as well as they do because they accomodate both sets of values, in complex ways that often fit cases --- thought they sometimes do not.

For human decency, and a decent society, both kinds of values are needed.

For peace, both are needed.

To make the world work well, according to any value system at all, takes honest, careful bookeeping, and an ability to deal with complex circumstances without distorting them with ugly, misrepresentative models.

A necessary condition, where there is a lot that needs to be done, and a lot to hope for, is establishing facts.

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