Anyone who wanted an amnesty for illegal immigrants could and should have voted for John McCain, and presumably did so. One assumes that Congressman Joe "You Lie, Boy" Wilson did not vote for Senator Lindsey Grahamnesty, but instead for his Democratic opponent, the Ron Paul activist Bob Conley...
Ninety-five per cent of blacks, the people most opposed to mass and illegal immigration or to any erosion of America as an English-speaking country, voted for Obama. By contrast, the Hispanics (and a pair of globetrotting uncles have given me a cousin who is now a Latina immigrant in Miami, to match the one who comes off solidly Palin-loving stock in Texas) kept Hillary Clinton's nuisance candidacy going for months on end.
Friday, 2 July 2010
The Love of Liberty Brought Us Here?
It has come to something when it takes Naomi Campbell. But here we are.
Ad hoc tribunals to try specific individuals are inherently illegal. Amnesty International rightly made that point, and did so very powerfully, in its 2003 report into the trial of the Grenada 17. Yet in 2007 that same organisation welcomed the trial of Charles Taylor before just such a tribunal, and called for its proceedings to be broadcast in Liberia for “educative” effect.
Be he innocent or be he guilty, Taylor is being tried, if it can be so described, by an unlawful body: a specially constituted branch of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, itself a creature, not of international treaty-making and ratification, but of executive fiat on the part of the United Nations.
Ad hoc tribunals to try specific individuals are inherently illegal. Amnesty International rightly made that point, and did so very powerfully, in its 2003 report into the trial of the Grenada 17. Yet in 2007 that same organisation welcomed the trial of Charles Taylor before just such a tribunal, and called for its proceedings to be broadcast in Liberia for “educative” effect.
Be he innocent or be he guilty, Taylor is being tried, if it can be so described, by an unlawful body: a specially constituted branch of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, itself a creature, not of international treaty-making and ratification, but of executive fiat on the part of the United Nations.
Reagan: Hawk or Dove?
Jack Hunter writes:
In a recent issue of Foreign Policy magazine, journalist Peter Beinart reassesses the legacy of Ronald Reagan by first restating the most common assumption about our 40th president, that “Ronald Reagan was the Ultimate Hawk.” Is this true? “Not so much,” writes Beinart:
“Today’s conservatives have conjured a mythic Reagan who never compromised with America’s enemies and never shrank from a fight. But the real Reagan did both those things, often. In fact, they were a big part of his success… Sure, Reagan spent boatloads — some $2.8 trillion all told — on the military. And yes, he funneled money and guns to anti-communist rebels like the Nicaraguan Contras and Afghan mujahideen, while lecturing Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down that wall. But on the ultimate test of hawkdom — the willingness to send U.S. troops into harm’s way — Reagan was no bird of prey. He launched exactly one land war, against Grenada, whose army totaled 600 men. It lasted two days. And his only air war — the 1986 bombing of Libya — was even briefer. Compare that with George H.W. Bush, who launched two midsized ground operations, in Panama (1989) and Somalia (1992), and one large war in the Persian Gulf (1991). Or with Bill Clinton, who launched three air campaigns — in Bosnia (1995), Iraq (1998), and Kosovo (1999) — each of which dwarfed Reagan’s Libya bombing in duration and intensity. Do I even need to mention George W. Bush?”
Reagan’s comparably humble foreign policy is worth noting, precisely because so many of his neoconservative admirers today insist that Dubya’s wars, or even Obama’s insanity in Afghanistan, somehow reflect a “what would Reagan do?” philosophy. Yet, the opposite is more true and given his record, it is hard to imagine Reagan launching, or enduring, wars as foolish and long as what the U.S. currently finds itself bogged down in. Reagan had an aversion to prolonged military conflict, something either forgotten or intentionally ignored by his pro-war champions today. Writes Beinart:
“As early as 1982, after Reagan skirmished with Israel (and) declined to send U.S. troops to Central America… Commentary’s Norman Podhoretz declared that neoconservatives were ‘sinking into a state of near political despair.’ New York Times columnist William Safire announced that ‘if Ronald Reagan fails to awake to the hard-liners’ anger at his betrayal, he will discover that he has lost his bedrock constituency.’ By 1984, after Reagan withdrew troops from their peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, Podhoretz moaned that ‘in the use of military power, Mr. Reagan was much more restrained’ than his right-wing supporters had hoped.”
But how about Reagan’s supposed crown achievement, in helping to win the Cold War? According to the neocons in his day, who apparently have short memories these days, Reagan got that wrong too. Writes Beinart:
“(N)othing compared with the howls of outrage that accompanied Reagan’s dovish turn toward the Soviet Union. In 1986, when Reagan would not cancel his second summit with Gorbachev over Moscow’s imprisonment of an American journalist, Podhoretz accused him of having ‘shamed himself and the country’ in his ‘craven eagerness’ to give away the nuclear store… When Reagan signed the INF Treaty, most Republicans vying to succeed him came out in opposition. Grassroots conservative leaders established the Anti-Appeasement Alliance to oppose ratification and ran newspaper advertisements comparing Gorbachev to Hitler and Reagan to Neville Chamberlain.”
In December of last year, a Public Policy Poll ranked Ronald Reagan as the most popular modern president and he certainly remains popular in the GOP, where everyone from John McCain to Sarah Palin claims to be a “Reagan Republican.” Considering this continuing popularity, it is well worth pointing out that Reagan as the “ultimate hawk” is largely a myth—at least compared to how most of the Republicans today who speak in his name view American foreign policy. Columnist George Will asks us to consider the American Conservative Union’s David Keene’s take on Reagan’s relatively tame foreign policy:
“He resorted to military force far less often than many of those who came before him or who have since occupied the Oval Office. . . . After the [1983] assault on the Marine barracks in Lebanon, it was questioning the wisdom of U.S. involvement that led Reagan to withdraw our troops rather than dig in. He found no good strategic reason to give our regional enemies inviting U.S. targets. Can one imagine one of today’s neoconservative absolutists backing away from any fight anywhere?”
The answer? No. Neoconservatives will almost always commit troops anytime, anywhere and for any reason, whereas Reagan was hesitant most of the time, wary of where he might commit and liked having a good reason. If Reagan’s actual foreign policy record could become mainstream again, it would be a trend toward something far saner than what both parties subscribe to today. And if mainstream conservatives still suckered by the prevailing pro-war, any-war rhetoric on the Right are the least bit serious about honoring the memory of Ronald Reagan—they could start by no longer pretending that he was something he was not.
In a recent issue of Foreign Policy magazine, journalist Peter Beinart reassesses the legacy of Ronald Reagan by first restating the most common assumption about our 40th president, that “Ronald Reagan was the Ultimate Hawk.” Is this true? “Not so much,” writes Beinart:
“Today’s conservatives have conjured a mythic Reagan who never compromised with America’s enemies and never shrank from a fight. But the real Reagan did both those things, often. In fact, they were a big part of his success… Sure, Reagan spent boatloads — some $2.8 trillion all told — on the military. And yes, he funneled money and guns to anti-communist rebels like the Nicaraguan Contras and Afghan mujahideen, while lecturing Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down that wall. But on the ultimate test of hawkdom — the willingness to send U.S. troops into harm’s way — Reagan was no bird of prey. He launched exactly one land war, against Grenada, whose army totaled 600 men. It lasted two days. And his only air war — the 1986 bombing of Libya — was even briefer. Compare that with George H.W. Bush, who launched two midsized ground operations, in Panama (1989) and Somalia (1992), and one large war in the Persian Gulf (1991). Or with Bill Clinton, who launched three air campaigns — in Bosnia (1995), Iraq (1998), and Kosovo (1999) — each of which dwarfed Reagan’s Libya bombing in duration and intensity. Do I even need to mention George W. Bush?”
Reagan’s comparably humble foreign policy is worth noting, precisely because so many of his neoconservative admirers today insist that Dubya’s wars, or even Obama’s insanity in Afghanistan, somehow reflect a “what would Reagan do?” philosophy. Yet, the opposite is more true and given his record, it is hard to imagine Reagan launching, or enduring, wars as foolish and long as what the U.S. currently finds itself bogged down in. Reagan had an aversion to prolonged military conflict, something either forgotten or intentionally ignored by his pro-war champions today. Writes Beinart:
“As early as 1982, after Reagan skirmished with Israel (and) declined to send U.S. troops to Central America… Commentary’s Norman Podhoretz declared that neoconservatives were ‘sinking into a state of near political despair.’ New York Times columnist William Safire announced that ‘if Ronald Reagan fails to awake to the hard-liners’ anger at his betrayal, he will discover that he has lost his bedrock constituency.’ By 1984, after Reagan withdrew troops from their peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, Podhoretz moaned that ‘in the use of military power, Mr. Reagan was much more restrained’ than his right-wing supporters had hoped.”
But how about Reagan’s supposed crown achievement, in helping to win the Cold War? According to the neocons in his day, who apparently have short memories these days, Reagan got that wrong too. Writes Beinart:
“(N)othing compared with the howls of outrage that accompanied Reagan’s dovish turn toward the Soviet Union. In 1986, when Reagan would not cancel his second summit with Gorbachev over Moscow’s imprisonment of an American journalist, Podhoretz accused him of having ‘shamed himself and the country’ in his ‘craven eagerness’ to give away the nuclear store… When Reagan signed the INF Treaty, most Republicans vying to succeed him came out in opposition. Grassroots conservative leaders established the Anti-Appeasement Alliance to oppose ratification and ran newspaper advertisements comparing Gorbachev to Hitler and Reagan to Neville Chamberlain.”
In December of last year, a Public Policy Poll ranked Ronald Reagan as the most popular modern president and he certainly remains popular in the GOP, where everyone from John McCain to Sarah Palin claims to be a “Reagan Republican.” Considering this continuing popularity, it is well worth pointing out that Reagan as the “ultimate hawk” is largely a myth—at least compared to how most of the Republicans today who speak in his name view American foreign policy. Columnist George Will asks us to consider the American Conservative Union’s David Keene’s take on Reagan’s relatively tame foreign policy:
“He resorted to military force far less often than many of those who came before him or who have since occupied the Oval Office. . . . After the [1983] assault on the Marine barracks in Lebanon, it was questioning the wisdom of U.S. involvement that led Reagan to withdraw our troops rather than dig in. He found no good strategic reason to give our regional enemies inviting U.S. targets. Can one imagine one of today’s neoconservative absolutists backing away from any fight anywhere?”
The answer? No. Neoconservatives will almost always commit troops anytime, anywhere and for any reason, whereas Reagan was hesitant most of the time, wary of where he might commit and liked having a good reason. If Reagan’s actual foreign policy record could become mainstream again, it would be a trend toward something far saner than what both parties subscribe to today. And if mainstream conservatives still suckered by the prevailing pro-war, any-war rhetoric on the Right are the least bit serious about honoring the memory of Ronald Reagan—they could start by no longer pretending that he was something he was not.
Thursday, 1 July 2010
Old Friends and Older
Britain's involvements with Russia, with China and in Latin America go back a lot further than most people realise, although they are fully aware of both their good and their bad aspects in Russia, in China and in Latin America. In many cases, William Hague is pushing at open doors there, often a lot more open than those either to the Continent or to the United States.
Within the general, if rather unspecific, emphasis on the Commonwealth, the reiteration of the relationship with India is most welcome. India has been looking to America of late, but not to very much effect. It is Britain that, for example, supports India's pursuit of a UN Security Council seat.
Britain's longstanding ties to the Arab world are for some reason less well-known in the population at large than used to be the case, whereas a word has been abroad that we have particularly close links to a country set up by anti-British Marxist terrorists and with which we have only the most limited economic or cultural dealings. But the Arab ties are still there, and it was interesting to hear the Foreign Secretary name the United Arab Emirates specifically.
No teenage British conscript was photographed being hanged with barbed wire by those seeking the independence of the Trucial States, and relations ever since have reflected that. With Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, the UAE was a Clinton campaign backer on whose instruction she therefore promised to nuke Iran. But the Emiratis' bonds to Britain are older and stronger. And the Emirates would make for a much less difficult or demanding outpost of British influence than Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are outposts of American influence.
As for Japan, we used to have a very close alliance with Japan. It was naval, and it was destroyed by the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty, under which, having just fought a World War more than anything because we refused to concede naval parity to any foreign state, we conceded naval parity to a foreign state. The rest really is history. It would be wrong to sit and wait for everyone with an outstanding grievance against Japan to die, but it looks as if that is what is happening. At any rate, it is more than welcome that we are taking up where we were bullied into leaving off in and after 1922. Perhaps swallowing something unsavoury will just have to be endured to that end.
After all, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were as much anti-British as anti-Japanese acts, intended in no small measure to prevent any British re-conquest of the Empire in Asia and the Pacific, quite probably accompanied by an annexation of the Dutch East Indies that the Dutch were not then in any position to take back, so soon after the British Pacific Fleet had been cheered into the Sydney Harbour that was to have been its base for the prosecution of the War against Japan by precisely those means.
All this, plus withdrawal from Afghanistan, restoration of the link between pensions and earnings, abandonment of identity cards, the prospect of electoral reform, an inquiry into the last lot's complicity in torture, and a renewed emphasis on a manufacturing-based economy diffused throughout the country. This Government is and will be ghastly in many, many, many ways. But it is not uniformly or exclusively so. It certainly has its good points.
Within the general, if rather unspecific, emphasis on the Commonwealth, the reiteration of the relationship with India is most welcome. India has been looking to America of late, but not to very much effect. It is Britain that, for example, supports India's pursuit of a UN Security Council seat.
Britain's longstanding ties to the Arab world are for some reason less well-known in the population at large than used to be the case, whereas a word has been abroad that we have particularly close links to a country set up by anti-British Marxist terrorists and with which we have only the most limited economic or cultural dealings. But the Arab ties are still there, and it was interesting to hear the Foreign Secretary name the United Arab Emirates specifically.
No teenage British conscript was photographed being hanged with barbed wire by those seeking the independence of the Trucial States, and relations ever since have reflected that. With Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, the UAE was a Clinton campaign backer on whose instruction she therefore promised to nuke Iran. But the Emiratis' bonds to Britain are older and stronger. And the Emirates would make for a much less difficult or demanding outpost of British influence than Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are outposts of American influence.
As for Japan, we used to have a very close alliance with Japan. It was naval, and it was destroyed by the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty, under which, having just fought a World War more than anything because we refused to concede naval parity to any foreign state, we conceded naval parity to a foreign state. The rest really is history. It would be wrong to sit and wait for everyone with an outstanding grievance against Japan to die, but it looks as if that is what is happening. At any rate, it is more than welcome that we are taking up where we were bullied into leaving off in and after 1922. Perhaps swallowing something unsavoury will just have to be endured to that end.
After all, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were as much anti-British as anti-Japanese acts, intended in no small measure to prevent any British re-conquest of the Empire in Asia and the Pacific, quite probably accompanied by an annexation of the Dutch East Indies that the Dutch were not then in any position to take back, so soon after the British Pacific Fleet had been cheered into the Sydney Harbour that was to have been its base for the prosecution of the War against Japan by precisely those means.
All this, plus withdrawal from Afghanistan, restoration of the link between pensions and earnings, abandonment of identity cards, the prospect of electoral reform, an inquiry into the last lot's complicity in torture, and a renewed emphasis on a manufacturing-based economy diffused throughout the country. This Government is and will be ghastly in many, many, many ways. But it is not uniformly or exclusively so. It certainly has its good points.
The Forces of Conservatism
In The First Post, Neil Clark writes:
This has been a year of surprises. Leeds knocking Manchester United out of the FA Cup. Tomas Berdych beating Roger Federer at Wimbledon. But now perhaps we have the biggest turn-up of them all: Labour attacking a Conservative-led government for being soft on crime.
Justice Minister Kenneth Clarke's dramatic reversal of the Tories 17-year-old 'Prison Works' policy has not only left grassroot Tories fuming: it's upset Labour too.
Writing in the Daily Mail, former Home Secretary Jack Straw accused Clarke of returning to the flawed liberal "hand-wringing approach to crime", which marked a succession of post-war Home Secretaries before Michael Howard.
Straw praises Howard, a one-time bogeyman of the liberal left, for ushering in a new get-tough era where an increased number of offenders were sent to prison and, according to Straw, crime rates consequently declined. Now it seems those days are gone.
While David Cameron tries to persuade Tory voters that not much has changed, there's no denying that Kenneth Clarke's anti-prison pronouncements amount to a massive U-turn.
As yesterday Daily Mail editorial reminded us, during the election campaign, the Tories repeatedly spoke of the need to put more offenders behind bars and pledged to create 5,000 more prison places.
And on one of the head-to-head television debates David Cameron expressly criticised the Liberal Democrats' opposition to short prison sentence terms.
For Jack Straw, the Tory U-turn on prisons is another example of the 'crazy world of coalition government', coming not long after the Liberal Democrats' U-turn on VAT rises.
But it could also be argued that the anti-prison stance is consistent with the socially and economically liberal ethos of the new government.
For what unites both David Cameron's Conservatives and Nick Clegg's Orange Book Liberal Democrats is their anti-statism. Both men are using the need to cut the deficit to roll back the frontiers of the state, much further than even Margaret Thatcher would have dared.
Leftists who find themselves nodding in agreement with Kenneth Clarke’s anti-prison statements are well advised to read the small print.
The Justice Minister’s proposed reforms, in which the private sector will be paid to rehabilitate prisoners, are only the latest in a series of measures announced by the coalition designed to weaken state agencies and allow the private companies to do jobs traditionally done by government. The Royal Mail, in state hands since its inception in 1516, is being lined up for sale. The Government's new Work Programme, announced earlier this week, will be run by private firms. While the police, the most visible arm of the state, face major cutbacks in numbers.
Traditional conservatives who want to see more bobbies on the beat, more criminals sent to jail and who have no great desire to see the Royal Mail - or indeed their public libraries - go the way of Britain’s railways and public utilities, are likely to be enormously disappointed by what a Conservative-led government, tied to social and economic liberalism, has in store for them.
But for Labour, the coalition's assault on state provision presents a great opportunity.
To capitalise, the party needs to ditch Blairism and oppose any further privatisation of the public sector. And it needs to appreciate that the truly progressive stance in British politics today, is paradoxically a 'conservative' one. It's progressive - and conservative - to defend the NHS, the Royal Mail and public libraries.
It's progressive - and conservative - to say that British troops should be used to defend the Realm and not take part in pre-emptive strikes on countries that have done us no harm. It's progressive - and conservative - for the state to continue to provide services for the public and protect its citizens from violent crime.
A Labour Party that opposed Kenneth Clarke's prison plans, the potentially disastrous cutbacks in police numbers and the sell-off of the Royal Mail would find itself in tune with vast swathes of 'conservative' Britain.
The prospect of the Daily Mail endorsing Labour at the next election might seem far fetched. But then who'd have thought that less than two months on from the last election, the same newspaper would be praising a former Labour Home Secretary in its editorial and slamming a Conservative one? If Labour play their cards right, and work alongside the 'forces of conservatism' in opposing the extreme economic and social liberalism of the coalition, the rewards could be huge.
But they won't.
This has been a year of surprises. Leeds knocking Manchester United out of the FA Cup. Tomas Berdych beating Roger Federer at Wimbledon. But now perhaps we have the biggest turn-up of them all: Labour attacking a Conservative-led government for being soft on crime.
Justice Minister Kenneth Clarke's dramatic reversal of the Tories 17-year-old 'Prison Works' policy has not only left grassroot Tories fuming: it's upset Labour too.
Writing in the Daily Mail, former Home Secretary Jack Straw accused Clarke of returning to the flawed liberal "hand-wringing approach to crime", which marked a succession of post-war Home Secretaries before Michael Howard.
Straw praises Howard, a one-time bogeyman of the liberal left, for ushering in a new get-tough era where an increased number of offenders were sent to prison and, according to Straw, crime rates consequently declined. Now it seems those days are gone.
While David Cameron tries to persuade Tory voters that not much has changed, there's no denying that Kenneth Clarke's anti-prison pronouncements amount to a massive U-turn.
As yesterday Daily Mail editorial reminded us, during the election campaign, the Tories repeatedly spoke of the need to put more offenders behind bars and pledged to create 5,000 more prison places.
And on one of the head-to-head television debates David Cameron expressly criticised the Liberal Democrats' opposition to short prison sentence terms.
For Jack Straw, the Tory U-turn on prisons is another example of the 'crazy world of coalition government', coming not long after the Liberal Democrats' U-turn on VAT rises.
But it could also be argued that the anti-prison stance is consistent with the socially and economically liberal ethos of the new government.
For what unites both David Cameron's Conservatives and Nick Clegg's Orange Book Liberal Democrats is their anti-statism. Both men are using the need to cut the deficit to roll back the frontiers of the state, much further than even Margaret Thatcher would have dared.
Leftists who find themselves nodding in agreement with Kenneth Clarke’s anti-prison statements are well advised to read the small print.
The Justice Minister’s proposed reforms, in which the private sector will be paid to rehabilitate prisoners, are only the latest in a series of measures announced by the coalition designed to weaken state agencies and allow the private companies to do jobs traditionally done by government. The Royal Mail, in state hands since its inception in 1516, is being lined up for sale. The Government's new Work Programme, announced earlier this week, will be run by private firms. While the police, the most visible arm of the state, face major cutbacks in numbers.
Traditional conservatives who want to see more bobbies on the beat, more criminals sent to jail and who have no great desire to see the Royal Mail - or indeed their public libraries - go the way of Britain’s railways and public utilities, are likely to be enormously disappointed by what a Conservative-led government, tied to social and economic liberalism, has in store for them.
But for Labour, the coalition's assault on state provision presents a great opportunity.
To capitalise, the party needs to ditch Blairism and oppose any further privatisation of the public sector. And it needs to appreciate that the truly progressive stance in British politics today, is paradoxically a 'conservative' one. It's progressive - and conservative - to defend the NHS, the Royal Mail and public libraries.
It's progressive - and conservative - to say that British troops should be used to defend the Realm and not take part in pre-emptive strikes on countries that have done us no harm. It's progressive - and conservative - for the state to continue to provide services for the public and protect its citizens from violent crime.
A Labour Party that opposed Kenneth Clarke's prison plans, the potentially disastrous cutbacks in police numbers and the sell-off of the Royal Mail would find itself in tune with vast swathes of 'conservative' Britain.
The prospect of the Daily Mail endorsing Labour at the next election might seem far fetched. But then who'd have thought that less than two months on from the last election, the same newspaper would be praising a former Labour Home Secretary in its editorial and slamming a Conservative one? If Labour play their cards right, and work alongside the 'forces of conservatism' in opposing the extreme economic and social liberalism of the coalition, the rewards could be huge.
But they won't.
Written and Engraved in The Soul of Each and Every Man
The Western Confucian is struck by the Confucian theme in E. Christian Brugger:
All people have duties arising from their morally significant relationships: spouses to each other; parents to children; children to parents; employees to employers; employers to employees. Generally speaking, the closer the relationship, the more serious the duty. The fulfillment of these duties is the domain of justice. So, for example, a man who neglects his family in favor of unreasonable participation in a leisure sport such as golf or fishing commits an injustice toward his family....
Now husbands/fathers and wives/mothers have very serious obligations in justice to the members of their families, chiefly to their dependent children, especially those who are most vulnerable to harm (e.g., infants, small children, and infirmed and disabled children). Perhaps it need not be said, but parents' duties to their existing children are prior to children they have not yet procreated. When discerning another child, couples therefore should ask: Can I fulfill well my existing duties while bringing another child into the world and fulfilling well my duties to that child?
And:
If one has reason to believe that a relationship for which one has some duty will unfairly (and hence wrongly) suffer if another child is brought into the world, then, as an issue of justice, one ought to abstain from bringing another child into the world. ... My purpose here is not to criticize generous couples for welcoming many new children into their families, but to suggest that couples who for good reasons refrain from having more children (which for them can be painful) should not be considered less generous.
All people have duties arising from their morally significant relationships: spouses to each other; parents to children; children to parents; employees to employers; employers to employees. Generally speaking, the closer the relationship, the more serious the duty. The fulfillment of these duties is the domain of justice. So, for example, a man who neglects his family in favor of unreasonable participation in a leisure sport such as golf or fishing commits an injustice toward his family....
Now husbands/fathers and wives/mothers have very serious obligations in justice to the members of their families, chiefly to their dependent children, especially those who are most vulnerable to harm (e.g., infants, small children, and infirmed and disabled children). Perhaps it need not be said, but parents' duties to their existing children are prior to children they have not yet procreated. When discerning another child, couples therefore should ask: Can I fulfill well my existing duties while bringing another child into the world and fulfilling well my duties to that child?
And:
If one has reason to believe that a relationship for which one has some duty will unfairly (and hence wrongly) suffer if another child is brought into the world, then, as an issue of justice, one ought to abstain from bringing another child into the world. ... My purpose here is not to criticize generous couples for welcoming many new children into their families, but to suggest that couples who for good reasons refrain from having more children (which for them can be painful) should not be considered less generous.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
