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Missile Defense

Nazi engineer and Disney space advisor Wernher Von Braun helped give us rocket science. Today, the legacy of military aeronautics has many manifestations from SDI to advanced ballistic missiles. Now there is a controversial push for a new missile defense system. What will be the role of missile defense in the new geopolitical climate and in the new scientific era?

rshowalt - 06:30pm Sep 29, 2000 EDT (#346 of 396)

When the Republicans lay special claim to civic virtue, the claims ring false. No matter how concerned one may be about moral failures in America, the arguments blaming the democrats don't fit.

If one talks to people outside America, and asks what offends them, you'll hear few criticisms of the sexual depravity of Americans, which is not especially noticicable by world standards. One hears little talk about American financial improprieties either - Americans are, by and large, pretty careful about money, and about fulfilling their contracts. One does hear bitter criticism of our nuclear policy. Once, I met with some Russians here over on an exchange. How, they asked, can Americans consider themselves moral in any way, and permit themselves the right to a first strike with nuclear weapons. I had no answer for them. I don't think there is any answer to their question that can stand up to a determined cross examination.

A determined cross-examination wouldn't be hard to find, especially now that digital videotape and the internet combine so easily. Would anyone care to come and defend the morality of first strikes with nuclear weapons, with a moderator, on videotape, and with time for follow up questions? A transcript would not be so convincing.

Can anybody, actually making comparisons, stand up and justify our "we reserve the right to make a first strike" stance as morally defensible action? Can they do so with their faces, and facial expressions, on view to anyone on the internet who cares to watch them?

America teems with skilled clergymen, eloquent lawyers, distinguished general officers, successful politicians, and vice presidential candidates on the Republican ticket. Anybody for a long (a few hours) set of videotaped questions and answers about the morality of nuclear weapons, with answers and facial expressions available on the net for all to see? Is there anybody who, after a few careful questions, wouldn't be ashamed of advocating the use of nuclear weapons?

I wouldn't like to meet such a person, but it would be interesting to see what he would be like. (I'm assuming that any such person would be male.)

Our nuclear policy is morally indefensible, and corrupting.

If one can justify a first strike with nuclear weapons one can, by a quick comparison, justify anything else.

To say it is all right to use nuclear weapons under any circumstances is, pretty quickly, to throw out any workable judgements about better and worse in morality.

We should get rid of our nuclear weapons, so that we can get rid of this corruption.

rshowalt - 03:43am Sep 30, 2000 EDT (#347 of 396)

The (very good) applbaum piece above ends:

"The lawyer is not lying only. She is also advancing the legal rights of her client, fulfilling her professional obligations, taking her part in a system that, in equilibrium, seeks truth and justice--the list goes on. The lies lawyers tell and the deceptions they stage may be justified. But that, to repeat the refrain, is an evaluative matter. We cannot evade the hard work of moral evaluation and justification by claiming for the action or actor a different description. Does "liar" misdescribe the lawyer?"

People have had "reservations" about lawyerly conduct since well before Shakespeare delivered his famous line. End results, in my view, matter most, in judging what lawyers, and others, including all the rest of us, do in the negotiations they do that involve some degree of deception. How does it come out in the end?

One might also consider the work of clergymen. I'm close to some, and my grandfather, who I loved well, was a clergyman. Have any working clergymen ever saved a soul, or even preached a sermon, without some indirection amounting to deception? For myself, I doubt this. How does it come out in the end? Whether it comes out well or badly, that's the big test.

Nonreligious people interested in old movies might enjoy "The Bells of Saint Mary's" which also offers a fine look at the beauty of Ingrid Bergman. The dialog in that movie is full of deceptions, many of them very beautiful, most from people hoping, and sometimes achieving, redemptive purposes. I think this is humanizing and realistic dialog in important ways.

To dismiss a politician as a liar seems so infantile to me that it is hard for me to restrain negative feelings. I have no pull with the almighty, but if I had, I'd argue that people who seriously make such claims may deserve warm placements for very long times.

If the Republican party purged all the liars in its own ranks, who would be left? If, and I doubt this, anyone would be left, who would it be, and would they be any use at all to themselves and other people?

lunarchick - 03:49pm Sep 30, 2000 EDT (#348 of 396)
Barrier Reef - not the place4 - NUKE SUBs !

http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/prg/applbaum/liar.htm

http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/prg/topics.htm

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