JapanInc OBEYS the Smirking Chimp!

[cstaylor]

In every slave society in history, there was always a significant portion of the population that was opposed to slavrey: the slavery. From the little I have seen of the antebellum writings, the freed slaves hated their capitivity. This is not to mention others opposed to the slave trade.

Of course! Who would want to do forced manual labor?

Now that really does sound like an apology for slavery. The peasants of Britain, to give but one example of many, managed to get food, wood, etc. without the help of slaves.

Yes, and they produced many substantial works of history.

The majority of the early settlers of America made their living without slaves. The slaves do the master's work, then go on to meet their own needs after doing master's work. The system was not one of a commune. I needn't go on, I think.

And the British had their servants. Yes, it wasn't at the gross level of the southern plantations, but it surely wasn't glorious employment.

Now, am I saying that treating people as animals was moral? No... but if Washington thought it was moral, why did he free his slaves after his death?

I think the question is if Washington thought it was immoral (he probably did), why did he wait until his death to free his slaves?

Would you? Could you? First, do what I suggested (eliminate all of the conveniences of modern life), and then try and do something substantial. I'll bet that all of your time will be spent on the day-to-day living tasks.

[cstaylor]

Astounding. So, slavery was a good thing because it produced beautiful things?

When did I say it was a good thing? I only said that it is easy for you to point your finger and yell "bad! bad!" without having lived through that era.

And the British had their servants.

They did, but I see no point in going into the history of British slavery.

Why not? That's where the slave trade originated. Ever read accounts of the early drafts of the Declaration of Independence? Jefferson lays the blame for human trafficking on the British crown

I think the question is if Washington thought it was immoral (he probably did), why did he wait until his death to free his slaves?

Yes, I would.

Words are easy. What would you be giving up?

Yes, as I stated above, the majority did without slaves, so could I.

And the majority produced what? Did they write documents that led to the freeing of slaves?

As a bit of a survivalist afficionado, I have a fairly good idea what such a life would entail.

Ah, and that applies to all of the "survival equipment" as well. No torches, no knives produced in modern factories, no packaged food, no modern clothing. Think you could do it? I don't.

I fail to see how it is relevant to the morality of slavery, though.

No, I'm just tired of reading retreaded "presentism" arguments from people who did not live through that era in world history. Pointing your finger is easy when you live in the modern comforts produced through the indentured servitude of automatons, and you can pretend that you are a "survival afficiando" on the weekends, when these people had to make do every single day of the year without your day-to-day conveniences.

Here's my point: looking back is easy, because it costs you nothing. The people who you are discussing are long dead, so it's a painless exercise for you to make these comments.

[ramchop]

No, I'm just tired of reading retreaded "presentism" arguments from people who did not live through that era in world history.

And I'm tired of the moral authority the Western world has over the developing world. We live in a comfort based on advances fast-tracked through slavery.

Why shouldn't Gupta in Bangladesh be able to live in a comfort provided by his father's sweat-shop textile factory, writing philosophy which will revolutionize the world?

The world is fucked. A few wars or a major epidemic or two will only help in the long run. There are simply too many people. What we need is to keep the important people like George. He knows what's right and wrong, after all he's one of God's children.

Fuck it! The world's not going to die before I do. Now I've just got to find me a religion that'll send me to heaven and then I'll be OK. :P


Back to the smirking chimp issue. c.s.t., If the UN decides against immediate military action, do you believe US/UK/Aus/etc should attack?

[cstaylor]

Back to the smirking chimp issue. c.s.t., If the UN decides against immediate military action, do you believe US/UK/Aus/etc should attack?

No. What message does that send? That war is a viable option when dealing with sovereign nations? We're right back to pre-WW2 at that point.

However, I would strongly suggest that the United States leave Iraq completely at that point. Let the U.N. defend the Kurds, the Iranians, the Saudis, and the Israelis. Why are American and British lives placed in jeopardy every day patrolling those no-fly zones? Either finish it with U.N. support or get out.

As for NK, I've been listening to some old JFK speeches... they should just dust those off and exchange the words "Cuba" for "NK" and "Soviet Union" for "China". Might put some backbone into a country that gives over half of its foreign aid to NK.

Let me paraphrase JFK: "It is the policy of the United States to regard any missile launched from NK against any target in the Asia-pacific region as an attack, launched by China against the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response".



Just my 2 cents.

[ramchop]

No. What message does that send? That war is a viable option when dealing with sovereign nations? We're right back to pre-WW2 at that point.

Agreed

However, I would strongly suggest that the United States leave Iraq completely at that point. Let the U.N. defend the Kurds, the Iranians, the Saudis, and the Israelis. Why are American and British lives placed in jeopardy every day patrolling those no-fly zones? Either finish it with U.N. support or get out.

Now here I disagree. Justifiable for the US to demand the rest of the world pull its weight with the implementation of UN policy. There's no doubt the US contribute more than it should have to in that arena. But to pull out totally if a UN decision goes against them? That'd be like a child packing up his toys and going home sulking.

There are UN troops of many nationalities doing dangerous work on the ground enforcing UN policies in many areas of the world.

....a country that gives over half of its foreign aid to NK.

That's disgusting, I hadn't realised that. Who makes those sorts of decisions?

[cstaylor]

It gets worse... Japan gives China a sizeable chunk of ODA funds... so using simple transitivity, that means Japan has financed NK's kidnapping, drug running, and nuke building.

[cstaylor]

Now here I disagree. Justifiable for the US to demand the rest of the world pull its weight with the implementation of UN policy. There's no doubt the US contribute more than it should have to in that arena. But to pull out totally if a UN decision goes against them? That'd be like a child packing up his toys and going home sulking.

Have the French and Germans do it.

[ramchop]

oops - my pack up the toys sulking comment wasn't justified. The no-fly zone isn't a UN operation. It's a US/UK operation approved by the UN. Yes, maybe the Germans and French should do it.


As for the UN peacekeeping missions:

As of February 1, 2001 U.S. observers, civilian police and military staff officers account for only 888 (or 2.3%) of the 39,061 UN peacekeepers worldwide. From the U.S. perspective, UN peacekeeping operations offer U.S. policymakers a range of options between acting alone or doing nothing in the face of destabilizing conflicts in other nations.

[cstaylor]

The affront to morality that slavery brings to mankind has been long recognised.

Time isn't the issue here. People, especially those with wealth, have always delegated tasks to those in lesser circumstances. Can you list for me one rich person that you know that doesn't have at least one man or woman on retainer? Now we just have unthinking machines instead of human brawn, and thanks to progressive reformers like Theodore Roosevelt we don't have children working in the mines anymore, but those are recent events.

Around the time that Aristotle was busy making formal fallacies in an attempt to legitimize slavery in his work "The Politics", Diogenes of Sinope (the guy who asked Alexander the Great to stop blocking his sun) was condemning slavery.

And which man had a larger influence on events of that time and the events of today?

I forget the name of the 20th-century philosopher that used the "original position" argument, but using that strategy it is easy to see that slavery is wrong (or at least undesirable).

Long enough, in fact, for Jefferson and others to know that it was immoral and unjust.

They already knew it. What "radicals" (from your Zinn quote) won't do is put themselves in the exact same living situation, and then try and have a go at it.

Then why did they keep slaves? Was it because they couldn't cope with heating by "fire in the fireplace" or cooking their food "over a wood-burning stove" [incidentally, I've done both]? Was this drudgery so bad that it made slavery acceptible even when the majority of the U.S. population did not possess slaves or need them to survive?

Then why did they have them? Are you going to channel Jefferson for us? You don't think, given the choice between automation and human slavery, that Jefferson and Washington would choose automation?

You mention twice that slavery produced beautiful things and went so far as to say that the possession of slaves led to "documents that led to the freeing of slaves".

What I am saying is that it is easy for you to tell us your opinion, but I'm not sure where we'd be today without these men writing down ideas that they themselves couldn't completely realize.

This is an interesting Catch-22. We need slaves for rich, 'Enlightened Statesmen' [Madison's words], so those 'Enlightened Statesmen' will not need to do any work (outside of managing slaves). In this way, they will have enough time to devote themselves to the important work of writing documents that will free their own slaves.

Yes, that is exactly my point, although slaves don't have to be unpaid, forced labor. Today we have machines as a mechanized replacement.

Asking "the majority produced what?" is to throw most of history in the trashbin through the "omission of large parts of the human race." What did the majority produce? Among other things, the pyramids of Giza, which, contrary to popular belief, were build with paid labour [and who says Egyptologists don't make any discoveries these days], the work of Diogenes of Sinope and JJ Rousseau, just to start to get a taste of what the majority has done.

You consider Rousseau to be a member of the majority?
...Driven thence by peasant attacks
You are pointing out people that go against the majority. That's fine, although could you point out to me where he prepared his own food, heated his own home, and handled other day-to-day tasks?

Then we might ask just how beautiful the achievements of such a vile thing as slavery really were. As JK Galbraith points out "the southern states had lagged greatly in economic development [because of slavery]". [JK Galbraith, The World Economy Since The Wars: A Personal View, Mandarin:London, 1995. p. 193] Those familiar with Keynesian economics will have no trouble seeing why this is so (although the reasons run deeper than just Keynesian economics).

The reason is that the Northern states had started producing products instead of raw materials. Slavery made life too easy for the Southern elites.

Words are easy. What would you be giving up?

The words are not only easy, they are true. I would not have a slave. If I had the money to purchase a slave (or 200 slaves) I would surely be wealthy enough not to "need" one. But slavery is morally reprehensible to me, so, no, I would not own one. What would I be giving up? Relative power. An economic advantage over other folks. However, most importantly to me, I'd be giving up the brutal oppression of a fellow human being.

Are you telling me that Jefferson and Washington beat their slaves? I had no idea. If you mean that you'd pay your slaves wages (making them servants), that is a step up, although I'm sure you'd get no end of grief from your neighbors... you'd probably have to sell your plantation and move north.

You still haven't dealt with my argument that it is machines and automation that have removed slavery and indentured servitude, not philosophy. As you yourself have mentioned, philosophers from 2300 years ago thought slavery was reprehensible, yet it wasn't until the invention of the steam engine that the United States threw out slavery as an accepted employment practice.

[cstaylor]

By the way, what do the letters c.s.t. stand for? "Can't stand Texas"? "Cleave stones tenatiously"?

My name. I don't need to hide behind handles.

[Taro Toporific]

Well said. And it was realized after Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Tokyo, and Dresden to name a few places, that we can't play our favourite game of killing each other in an era of high-tech warfare.

... a poignant reminder of war in Japan, where anti-war protesters passed the Hiroshima memorial church - a legacy of the atom bomb. Sunday March 02, 2003 sky.com

See also Thousands of Japanese Protest Against Iraq War Reuters Sun March 2, 2003 06:03 AM ET

[ramchop]

oops - my pack up the toys sulking comment wasn't justified. The no-fly zone isn't a UN operation. It's a US/UK operation approved by the UN. Yes, maybe the Germans and French should do it.

oops maybe I should shutup now and leave it to those who are better read on the topic.

However, unlike the military campaign to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait, the no-fly zones were not authorised by the United Nations and they are not specifically sanctioned by any Security Council resolution.

And the French were doing it as well initially.


DJEB, what's the hippy pinko commie bastard solution to dealing with mass murdering tyrants like Saddam? :P

[cstaylor]

You know what I find interesting about FG? It's one of the few forums where posters from different ends of the political spectrum end up learning a thing or two from each other. I guess Ultra's quote makes sense after all.

BTW: Don't worry about the quotes, Douglas (you can drop the Mr. from my name... Chris is formal enough for me), posting here takes some practice... for example, those buttons over the posting form append to your post... so I usually ignore them and just type them inline.

[DJEB]

I'd love to try procrastination... first thing tomorrow morning.

It's my understanding that Madison was rather disappointed with the way things turned out.

When in time? Right after the revolution? After his presidency?

In 1792 (before he was president), James Madison wrote of "the daring depravity of the times, as private powers become tools and tyrants of government, bribed by its largesses and overawing it with their powers and combinations, casting over society the shadow that we call politics."

My apologies for the delay, Chris.

[cstaylor]

That's amazing... wasn't Madison in favor of a strong central government? Found a short, but good, biography about Madison at the whitehouse site.

[DJEB]

That's amazing... wasn't Madison in favor of a strong central government?

Give me another 9 months...

I think that Madison was of the conservative school that thought the better class of men would devote themselves selflessly to the betterment of the nation. The above quote would suggest that he was a little displeased at the way things turned out.

Found a short, but good, biography about Madison at the whitehouse site.

Thanks, I was looking at that yesterday...