<OT> Re: we shall remember them

[Bill Campbell]

On Sun, Oct 20, 2002 at 12:17:14PM -0700, Net Llama! wrote:
>That's a beautiful analogy, however it doesn't address anything i've 
>said.  I'm not debating, nor am i denying that Saddam is a nut job. 
>What I am saying is that the US govt's reasoning for thumbing its nose 
>at international majority opinion is flawed & hypocritical.

Whatever gave you the idea that something's right just because the majority
believe it?  It doesn't matter whether it's the U.S.  ``Government'' (Will
Rogers called D.C. the National Joke Factory), the U.N., or any other group
of people.  A majority of the people in the U.S. are products of government
schools, which are much more concerned with turning out docile droids for
the New World Order than teaching the young to think independently and be
self sufficient.  A majority of applicants for first-year teaching
positions in Massachusetts couldn't pass a test in basic math skills.

Leonard Read discusses committees and majority opinions very well in his
book ``Anything That's Peaceful'':

  ``First there appears to be no widespread, lively recognition of the fact
  that conscience, reason, knowledge, integrity, fidelity, and other
  virtues are the distinctive and exclusive properties of individual
  persons.

  Somehow, there follows from this lack of recognition the mischievous
  notion that wisdom can be derived by pooling the conclusions of a
  sufficient number of persons, even though no one of them has applied his
  faculties to the problem in question.  From this premise, the imagination
  begins to ascribe personal characteristics to a collective -- the
  committee, council, association -- as though the collective could think,
  judge, know, or assume responsibility.  With this as a notion, there is
  the inclination to substitute the ``decisions of men united in councils''
  for the reason and conscience of persons.  The individual feels relieved
  of personal responsibility and thus gives no real thought to the matter
  in question.

  Second, there is an almost blind faith in the efficacy and rightness of
  majority decision, as though the mere preponderance of opinion were the4
  device for determining what is right.  This thinking is consistent with
  and a part of the ``might makes right'' doctrine.

  Third, we have carried the division-of-labor practice to such a high
  point in this country, and with such good effect in standard-of-living
  benefits, that we seem to have forgotten that the practice has any
  limitations.  Many of us, in our voluntary associational activities, have
  tried to delegate moral and personal responsibilities to these
  associational abstractions.

  As a consequence, our policies and public positions are void of reason
  and conscience.  These massive quantities of unreasoned collective
  declarations and resolutions have the power to inflict damage but are
  generally useless in conferring understanding...''

Bill
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