The (very large) quote of the day

But it's too good to let pass without posting it here. Found on Cold Fury is a comment from one Ric Locke. I'm pretty sure I've quoted Mr. Locke before, and reading this quote shows why.

And there you have it, sashal, the core. “Unjust war”.

It is a fundamental law of the Universe that if A = B, it follows absolutely that B = A.

Saddam Hussein and his followers were murderers, rapists, torturers, genocidists, and destroyers of Teh Sacred Environment. If it was unjust to remove them from power, if there is no moral justification for doing so, it follows that Saddam was perfectly within his rights, perfectly justified, in doing those things — and it follows from that that murder, rape, torture, genocide, and the rest are morally neutral, with no moral or ethical weight, to be used when the mood strikes.

Yes, I know you’re going to try to weasel out of that, because you’re confused in your own mind, but you cannot. You have accepted, and declared, an absolutist position: the war was and is unjust with no qualifiers; the war has absolutely no moral justification, full stop, end paragraph, end essay, close discussion. Stopping the poison-gassing of Kurds counts for nothing. Releasing ten thousand people whose mildest suffering at Abu Ghraib was splinters under the fingernails, exhuming bodies buried there so that their relatives and friends had to walk over them in a culture where showing the soles of one’s shoes is a deadly insult, is of zero weight. Not negligible weight, not insufficient weight, zero weight — their suffering and its release counts for nothing. They don’t count as “people” in your estimation; they don’t even count as animals, for whose maltreatment PETA might be willing to call people to account. They are nothing, nonentities, nonexistent. That’s what the absolutist “no moral justification” means. And you claim moral superiority for holding that position.

Furthermore: If A = B, and B = C, then A = C. If Saddam Hussein was perfectly moral, perfectly justified, in using torture at whim — which, despite weaseling and Jesuitry, is precisely what you are declaring — upon what rule of justice or equity do you base denying George Bush the same powers and privileges? Never mind any moral aspect of torture — you have already declared that gassing fifty thousand Kurds, destroying the habitat and livelihood of twice that many Marsh Arabs, flaying people alive, cutting off limbs and sex organs, and similar diversions are absolutely moral, because you declare that there is no moral justification to ending those practices. What you are declaring is that Saddam was superior to Bush in the same existential way that I and my fellows once declared that white people were superior to blacks. And again, you claim moral superiority by virtue of that declaration.

My reaction? F* you and the white horse you rode in on, with your Sword of Absolute Justice. I call you apologist, ally, and accessory to the worst, most offensive betrayers of moral and ethical standards on the planet, and thereby an adopter of their practices; just too finicky and elitist to get your own personal sacred hands dirty, so you appoint deputies to do it for you, and pretend it’s nothing to do with you.

Regards,
Ric

Bam.