On 4 Aug 2002 at 11:52, rhinoceros wrote:
>
> [rhinoceros 1]
> Is there any historical experience of periods characterized by a
> negation of the established legal structures, or is this the first
> time?
>
> [Joe Dees 2]
> It happens all the time in different places. Was it legal for France
> to employ commandoes to sink Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior in the
> Pacific so it could not interfere with their nuclear tests? Was it
> legal for Nigeria to engineer the murder of democratic opposition
> leader Ken Sara-Wiwa? Was it legal for Myanmar's military junta to
> hold Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel peace Prize winner, under house arrest
> for years for the unforgiveable offence of willing a democratic
> election? And what about what Vaclav Havel underwent before the
> Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia?
>
> [rhinoceros 3]
> Am I to assume then that the negation of the established legal
> structures we have been discussing here should be seen as a usual
> phenomenon of limited scope with negative moral connotations?
>
It's not heralding the end of the world as we know it, if that's what you
mean. It is sometimes necessary for established legal structures to
evolve so they may remain relevant to different circumstances (such as
the communications revolution occasioned by the internet and the
burgeoning ability of less and less people to terroristically kill more and
more, and faster, with the advent of more easily available/constructable
weapons of mass destruction). And nations will still violate them from
time to time, when their cost/benefit analysis leads them to the
conclusion that the benefits accrued from breaking a law in a particular
situation outweigh the costs associated with the disapproval of the
international community concommitant with its violation.
> ----
> This message was posted by rhinoceros to the Virus 2002 board on
> Church of Virus BBS.
> <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;thread
> id=25915>
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