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| Another casualty | |
Many enlightened folk admire the U.S. of A. for her views on freedom and the pursuit of happiness. Unfortunately the
occasional distortion of this view makes the soaring eagle look more like a
vulture - as US citizens who made themselves 'human shields' in operation Iraqi
Freedom face hefty fines for violating the embargo against Iraq. It's just as well we already know the US are the good guys, otherwise it
might be hard to tell. Clearly a country which promotes liberty and individual
freedom has an obligation to prevent its citizens going to other countries -
allowing people to go to other countries would restrict liberty and
freedom. Just like the iron curtain protected the liberty of the proud citizens
of the Paradise Soviet
Socialist People's Utopia
from capitalism and
individualism. Sarcasm aside, it is difficult to see why the US couldn't reach the rational compromise with
these people - ie allowing them to go to Iraq and then simply bombing them to
oblivion along with the targets they were 'protecting'. Any country truly committed to liberty and individual freedom would happily
have let them make this choice. Particularly as the human shields were such
champions of freedom. Your ABC reports that ex- school teacher and human shield
Faith Fippinger of Florida wrote to her government explaining "please be
aware that I will not contribute money to the United States Government to
continue the build-up of its arsenal of weapons". Apparently Faith feels that no-one has the right to force someone to pay for
something they don't want to pay for - truly a laudable position. One wonders
if she applies the same reasoning to the other 90% of taxation expenditure - like
expenditure on wages of school teachers? Why are those who embrace the notion of collectivism so strongly
always the first to scream when the collective will chooses something they
disagree with?
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