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trancaholic
Danish Prophet of Doom

Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Aalborg

Innocent civilians?

I was thinking: Considering that Bush might come out of this election as the victor, can Americans really claim that terrorist attacks in the homeland are unfair? Assuming that Bush does win, at least 50% of Americans have either voted for him (approving his policies on (vs.?) Palestine, Iran, North Korea, and Iraq) or didn't bother to show up to vote his reign to an end (essentially an approval).
Running along with that reasoning, a sizable act of terror, by a muslim terror group, would have a high probability of hitting a large bunch of people who indirectly have declared war on extremist Islam (by approving Bush's actions). How would that differ from a cruise missile fired into a Baghdad neighbourhood in the hope of killing more terrorists than bystanders?

Of course, the same reasoning would go for Brits, if they re-elect Blair, Israelis, if they re-elect Sharon, (and Danes if we re-elect Rasmussen - who I just happen to support ) etc.

So I guess what I am really asking is: Are there such things as innocent civilians in a democracy?

Oct-02-2004 03:10 Denmark

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Arbiter
Naked Power Organ

Registered: May 2002
Location:

I don't think you can hold the public responsible for the actions of the officials it elects, especially under a two-party system. It could easily be the case that both candidates held egregiously damaging positions on different issues. In such a case, a vote for one candidate would indict you for responsibility for HIS poor decisions, but a vote for the other would indict you for responsibility for HIS poor decisions.

It is, quite clearly, an unwinnable situation. Only in a genuine democracy does the will of the people actually determine policy. In a representative republic, they people can only choose between a finite number of candidates. If none of those candidates are acceptable, what are the people to do?

In this particular case, I don't disagree that people who agree with all of Bush's foreign policy decisions probably deserve to be blown up. But there are people who vote for Bush even though they disagree with some of his policies, because they think his opponent has other policies which could be even more damaging. Kerry and Bush are so similar in their positions on so many issues it's difficult to really say that the people have a choice.

Oct-02-2004 03:49