Iraq

When everyone knew America was going to Iraq by the summer of 2002, I knew it was a farce. Simply by the fact that you're not supposed to know 8 months ahead of time that Iraq would "violate" this or that and justify their invasion.

I was pissed. I said, "Fine, if America is going to invade Iraq, I want cameramen to be there, to film every human die. Show every dead baby. Show everything." - paraphrased. Michael is my witness on this "early" resolve.

If you believe people have the right to bear arms, then you have no justification for war with Iraq. The only reason, the only reason in the world Bush used, was that they were armed. Certainly there were better reasons, but they weren't Bush's reasons. You could rationalize in your mind that the other reasons justified the invasion, but because those reasons were not the invaders reason, they would never be respected.

Let me give you an example that I believe is fair, but won't elicit any patriotic knee jerk. Imagine if the president decides that drug dealers shouldn't have guns. Certainly that seems to fall in line with just reasoning, and American law. But who are the drug dealers? If they are already known, shouldn't they be in prison, or already served time, or at least counseled? You would think to yourself, they could justifiably be arrested because they are drug dealers. BUT, that isn't what the president's goal is, that's your "justification". So federal police begin kicking in the doors, and shooting the dogs of every known or suspected drug dealers in America, but after awhile, the waters are murky, things are rushed, the goal of the president isn't to prosecute drug dealers, it's to take guns. In that respect, he won't need proof the person is a drug dealer, just suspicion, so fairly soon, the police are just kicking in the doors of anyone that's ever done anything. Parking ticket holders will have their doors kicked in, and their dogs shot. Sure, some people will get killed trying to defend themselves, but such anarchy is all the more justification to keep kicking in doors, and shooting dogs, and taking the guns. Soon enough drug dealers will find a way to continue their deeds without being the subject of a door kicking-in and a dog killing, they'll go underground, but the feds will continue kicking in doors, regardless of whose doors. While the Feds are wasting tax payer money killing tax payer dogs, the drug dealing will continue, and the fear generated from the invasion will cause drug dealers to kill more. The point is you have to look at the true goal, not your hope of what will come of the goals of others.

Invading Iraq, because they have weapons was an evil enterprise. Iraq has more weapons than it did before, and the fact that the U.S. military went in and took all the weapons from law abiding individuals has only made things worse. The U.S. military has no trouble disarming the good citizens, so the criminals are the only ones who are armed.

Often people say that Iraq was better off with Saddam. I can't agree with that, at least now they have a chance. Not a great chance, but a chance. The problem is that America's intentions are making it harder for things to get better. Weapons aren't the problem. Conflict is the problem, and Americans are the conflict now.

There's a saying "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." I'm not arguing that. I'm literally saying the intentions were wrong, they made hell on purpose. People bought into it for peripheral benefits, but those benefits haven't come to fruition, and they never will.

I've talked a long time with an Objectivist, and one of the issues was the morality of intention. Does it matter why a person acts? Is the reason for a good action important? And we both agreed that it absolutely matters. Even if an outsider could only guess to the reasoning, the reasoning will always matter. Iraq is a perfect example. Even if you saw the invasion as a good thing, because the reasoning behind it was different, the outcome won't be the same, because at some point there will be a fork in the road, where you would go one direction, the person with the alterior motives will choose the other. The fork was long ago.

Sometimes kicking in a door is necessary, but if your thinking it's good because there's a criminal on the other side, and the government thinks it's good, because there's an armed man on the other side, eventually there will be a conflict. Not all armed men are criminals, and the government will not care. That is Iraq. That is pretty much all the current conflicts in America, maybe even humanity.

People see this need to categorize people. Whether it's "liberal" vs. "Conservative" or "American" vs. "other" or "white" vs. "other" it really doesn't matter. The borders are artificial. Once the intention of the borders becomes altered, the border can become an evil in itself. For example, if you categorize people by American or other, it makes sense when talking about taxes, or laws, or participation in government, but when it becomes an issue about a person's rights to themselves, that's when it becomes evil. To assert that only Americans should bear arms in Iraq is one example. To assert that all Africans should be slaves is another example. "white" vs. "other" could be applied to learning genealogy, studying language, or custom, or history makes sense, but to use it to imprison Jew or Japanese descendants is wrong. People take things to extremes, and fight it out in these corners, either we have genetic variations, and we should kill those who aren't us, or there are no genetic variations and everyone is exactly the same. Both positions are wrong, yet those become the lines. The conflicts of man seem to be childish in this regard. These absolutes where both parties are wrong. Intention is a factor. If you intend to distinguish nationality, or national purposes, that's logical, but if you distinguish nationality to opress one group, or help another, that's evil. Unfortunately not enough people regard intentions, and seem to only respect action. Never the 'why', only the 'what'. 'Why' distinguish nationality, sex, religion, isn't asked. Only an abosolutist, 'what' sex, either no difference, or one must be superior, no nationalities, unless one is superior to the other. That's not how reality works, and that's why people die. War is not inevitable, but as long as people demand absolutes that are lies, there will be war. There will be death. That is the immediate result to their immorality. It is swift. Immorality isn't just, and neither is the punishment for it. War will never be just in this regard. As long as conflict is for lies.

I could rant all day.