Against Freeing Others

Saving a comment I just made in This Thread on Watchblog.

Delzario:

So only the powerful should be free.

Do you think that America was more powerful than the british empire when we declared independence? Do you think the peasants of France were more powerful than the noble class? The issue is not strength, but a willingness to fight for one's own freedom. If one does not value freedom enough to fight for it, will they truly value it enough to hold onto when freely given to them?

Does our superpower status not give is a duty to help the powerless? What a world we live in when the GOP is arguing for helping the powerless and the DNC thinks that unless their powerful enough to gain their own freedom they should rot under a dictator.

First, I don't think that they are powerless. I'm not that arrogant. The citizens of a country always outnumber the people of the government, if it is truly their will to change their government they have the capacity and the right to revolt and overthrow their government. This is the basis of our own country's reasoning when we chose to break our ties to England. These were our words then:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

Read that again... it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it. Not the right of a foreign nation. Not the right of a superpower to save the powerless masses from an evil dictator. The Right of the People. The Right of the governed.

No, Pres. George didn't seek to remove King George, he would have certainly failed. But it didn't take long for us to stand up to Imperial Europe in the defense of the rest of the American colonies.

Correct... because the colonies made the decision themselves to stand as one against their common enemy. They pledged their own lives, their fortunes, and their very honor to see this thing done together, as one new nation. But they did not seek to free even one other british colony outside of America. They made the decision themselves how they would be ruled, and fought in defense of that decision. They did not decide how any other group of people would be ruled, however.

Posted by: Jarin at August 30, 2004 11:05 PM