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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!decwrl!bottom@katadn.DEC
From: bottom@katadn.DEC
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: to interfere or not ot interfere
Message-ID: <301@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 4-Sep-85 10:44:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: decwrl.301
Posted: Wed Sep  4 10:44:15 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 5-Sep-85 09:35:51 EDT
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TO: decwrl!decvax!genrad!panda!dpn whoever you are.

I think you should read (oops almost said re-read) my original posting.
I did not mention any Government actions. I was asking people who are
advocating interference of any sort in South Africa to justify their
positions. Especially as these are some of the same people who feel
that our involvement in Lebanon and central america is wrong. Where is
the difference?

My postion is essentially isolationist. That is someone elses' country
and we have no right to interfere no matter how we may feel about the 
way they run their country. It's their business.

To make this more clear to your feebly operating minds I'll give you an
example:

It's nine o'clock. Your eight year old child is watching some violent TV
show. So you send this child to bed. The child fights. Your neighbor
(over for a few beers) says in front of the child "it's ok let them stay up"
That's interference. It is the same as the US telling any other government 
to change their behavior towards their own citizens. 

When we fought the British we gained the right to determine our country's
destiny, we did not gain any such rights over any other governments. We have
no such moral right, obligation or anything else.

Morally there may be a time and place where it is proper to indicate that
you as a nation fell that some behavior is despicable, this does not justify
any active interference.

Now you (panda!dpn whoever you are) seem to be leaning towards some government
sanctions of South Africa.  Why? What right do we have to tell a government
(legal government) how to behave? Justify your position if that is indeed your
postion. Please spare me any emotional justification, use logic instead.

The problem is simple: When is a nation justified in interfering with the Legal
established government of another nation, when the interference deals with a
constitutional issue not trade, not war, but essentially their bill of rights?

Is this interference justified because it's a racial issue? Then why isn't
interference justified when it's a religious issue?

Racial, religious and the freedom to choose a form of government are
what we fought for 200 years ago. So if we should be fighting for racial
equality in South Africa, then it follows that we should be fighting for 
religious equality in Lebanon and we should be fighting for freedom to choose
a form of government in Central America etc.

Too may fights for me. I'd rather we (the US) became an example to the world
on how to guarentee these rights to our citizens rather than trying to 
guarantee these for someone else's citizens. Wake up folks there is alot
of work to be done right here at home. We don't need their civil wars. We
could have our own if we don't deal with our problems. It's their problem let
them solve it. We have to solve our own first.

I seem to remember a quote "first remove the log from your own eye"

It fits, wear it.

Dave Bottom
DEC Augusta Maine
!dec-rhea!dec-katadn!bottom

Oh yes folks, he is for real.