by Gilbert Halverson, Madison, WI
The United States of America was viciously attacked
without warning on Sept. 11, 2001. This horrific attack
resulted in over 5,000 deaths, a great city in partial
ruin, and our citizens shaken. The attack on Sept. 11 was
not just an attack on New York; it was directed at the
United States of America as a whole. We are a target
because we offer a model of development that is based upon
civility, equality, liberty, opportunity, tolerance,
freedom, and democracy. New York was perhaps targeted
because it is the best example in the world of a multi-
racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious society that works
and prospers.
It is not some historical accident that the United
States of America is a rich, democratic, multi-racial,
tolerant, free, open, and diverse society. Our standard of
living, our laws, customs, and institutions are a result of
over 200 years of progress toward offering a more perfect
union based upon gradual acceptance and implementation of
the principles of equality, tolerance, limited government,
and the rule of law under the constitution.
In the terrorists' eyes, we are not only infidels;
we represent a model of success that they do not want their
people to emulate. They do not want success that springs
from freedom including freedom for women and religious
freedom. They do not want a world that has no need for
religious police. In such a world, there also is no need
for leaders who hold narrow self serving views, based upon
a similar self serving interpretation of one faith. The
terrorists and the people who sympathize with them have no
place in diversity.
What should we do now? What should our response be
to this act of terror? How can we seek justice with a
moral purpose? One of the first principles that the
ancient Greeks codified was a prohibition on killing and
the right to self defense. It is moral to defend yourself.
Among Renaissance theorists as dissimilar as Nicholas
Machiavelli, Sir Thomas Moore, Thomas Hobbes, and James
Harrington, there was a consensus that only men willing and
able to defend themselves could possible preserve their
liberties. There is a concept of a just war, and in Henry
George's time he supported the union's cause with his
writings.
Perhaps we should consider giving peace a chance.
Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. used pacifism
successfully. These two great men struggled against
regimes that while not equitable or unprejudiced, had a
genuine respect for human life and a commitment to the rule
of law and basic moral tenets. Under these conditions,
pacifism can dispense a needed shock that reminds a
civilization of its moral tenets and values.
Pacifism does not work when used to neutralize
murderous groups like Nazis, Al Qaeda, Khmer Rouge,
Maoists, or Stalinists. These groups have no moral bearing
and their fundamental objective
is to terrorize into compliance and destroy human life. At
that point pacifism becomes appeasement, allowing liberty,
democracy and justice to be bullied into inaction. In the
case of the particular terrorists organization which we now
face, the only way to prevent them from destroying us is to
destroy them. The Al Qaeda have vowed to strike again, and
based upon their past behavior, the threat is real. In
successfully destroying them, we take the first step in
giving peace a chance for the people over which they reign
and the countries in which they hide. This would also be
the first step toward freeing those people in the culture
of hate, intolerance, brutality and the poverty associated
with it. We need to demonstrate that people who export
terror and who stone women to death for showing their face
in public will not be allowed to rule even one remote
corner of this earth.
The first charge of government is the defense of
its borders. Without that it matters little how much is
spent on prescription drugs for seniors, or how much effort
is expended to bring sanity and moral principles to our tax
system. Land value taxation can only be implemented by
democratic means by people willing to fly to conferences,
to discuss subjects without calling on their god, and who
have a moral compass that includes not killing your fellow
man because you judge him an infidel.
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(Halverson may be emailed at gib@execpc.com)