PART II
Slavery was only one of the dividing factors that led to war. This is especially obvious given that, like their Southern counterparts, plenty of well-to-do Northerners owned slaves - and
they were no kinder to these people than were slave-owners in the South. (I suggest watching the whole thing, though I disagree with a bit of her view. The part that matters here, though, starts at 50 minutes in. Attend closely: All 13 colonies had slavery.)
I'm belabouring this a bit as prelude to a question: Who did more not only to end slavery but to mitigate some of its effects in those who were freed, Harriet Tubman or John Brown?
Tubman did not oppose violence, and may well have engaged in it herself. John Brown skipped over all the boring, inglorious work of deep planning, of seeking more effective alternatives, of helping people escape with their lives intact - which should have been a major priority for him - and went straight into a series of bloody incidents capped by Brown and company in an attack on the home of pro-slavery settlers. They took prisoners and hacked three of them up with swords.
I have a firm belief about which of these persons both actively and peripherally saved more lives...and I mean far more lives:
Tubman.
A part of your argument seems to be for the efficacy of violence in ending unjust activities.
But the most successful reformers leaned heavily on reason, on debate, and (when necessary) on limited, targeted violence carried out specifically to secure a desired end.
The violence was meant to have an end - and not an end where the victors, having secured their rights or needs, would then turn upon all their own principles and engage in wholesale acts of cruelty and slaughter against a defeated enemy.
What, in your opinion, would be the criteria for the just and necessary use of violence?
My own first principle would be Need. Have we no other potentially effective options? Are we in danger of being attacked, and to such an extent we can't trust our defensive capacities and must engage in a preemptive strike? (And when we're done with all that, how can we justly and effectively end the conflict?)
This brings us back to Bush, Obama, Trump, drones, and the prospect of a war without end that continues to spread, like cancer, across broader and more territory.
What Bush did right directly following the September 11th Terrorist Attacks was to urge a certain level of restraint among angry and frightened people unsure if this would start WW3 or not. It certainly could have. And for as little regard as I have for the leadership of Bush, I believe part of the reason things didn't escalate further and faster and turn into a far uglier backlash against American Muslims was that Bush - in that one moment when it very much mattered - led by example for a few days and did the thing well.
For seven minutes, Bush was silent. People criticise him 'til this day for it when in truth it showed first his utter shock - though he denies shock stopped his tongue, I frankly don't believe it; that would have been a natural and human reaction in anyone, and probably more potent for the POTUS - and then it showed he was thinking.
His unfortunately worded suggestion people 'go shopping more' was designed to encourage economic confidence while at the same time pointing out that a climate of fear would be counterproductive to the United States.
An instinct for self-preservation is of the utmost value in war. Panic and fear, on the other hand, are deadly. They lead to mistakes, to errors in judgment that cost lives. They lead to acts of cruelty and gross injustice.
And now on to your other point:
Drone strikes were literally the entire crux of Obama's foreign policy. Where have you been the previous 8 years?
I never said otherwise than that the Obama administration used drone strikes. Rather, I was highly skeptical about your claim that...
"Liberals don't oppose violence when it comes to authorizing force in Iraq and killing Middle Eastern children with drone strikes."
.
To be fair, I should have treated you better and pointed out specific problems I have with your arguments.
Your above statement, for example, is so generalised it doesn't mean much; "liberal" is too broad a category. Are we talking about card-carrying Democrats or about small-l liberals whose flirtation with politics may or may not even involve voting in national elections? Are we talking about people who know what drones are and how they're used or about people whose understanding of these weapons is limited to, "Fewer soldiers die"?
And then are we talking about people who see a benefit in the limited use of drones - ones unaware of just how many attacks have happened in how many countries - or about people who know something of the extent drones are used and about the indiscriminate damage they cause?
You then go on to claim that violence carried out presumably for the right reasons is justifiable while at the same time identifying drone strikes as one form of violence liberals support while ignoring other forms of violence you believe would lead to a change in the economic status quo to the benefit of the 99% generally and people in poverty specifically (or at least that's how I interpret your argument).
You proved me wrong, to an extent, when you argue a surprising majority of self-identified liberals polled supported the Obama administration's drone strike program - but, as I ask above, who are they and why do they support this?
Obama continued with a policy from the Bush II administration and greatly expanded it (though I was admittedly surprised to what extent while reading your cites).
As an aside, even as Obama did, Trump also supports and expands on the use of military drones: Trump Admin Ups Drones Strikes: Tolerates More Civilian Deaths: US Officials.
(cont...)
