One Issue Voter Amendment

It has been noted that as I am a human rights issue voter first and foremost, it is curious why am I not vociferating against human rights issues abroad first. After all, people die every day in places like these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_world_conflicts

And I agree. We cannot, for example, allow another:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Anfal_Campaign

As the social MO generated by decades of Hussein rule has proven rough and painful to unlearn, the bureaucracy - though officially dismantled - has continually proven moderately resilient, like a mythical hydra, but thankfully one with testicular cancer. As its constituents are read its eulogy, their zeal for the old system slowly dwindles. That is, when they aren't inflamed by our media or our voting cycle. Yet there are a few reasons why I firmly believe even the noblest remonstrances against foreign insurrections play second fiddle to stopping the human rights violations happening here:

1. Proximity. Charity begins at home.

Let's say I'm writing what I think to be a brilliant treatise on world peace. One that will ensure its operation for generations to come. Outside my window I hear a scuffle and cursing. It appears someone is being beaten to death (by the hollow tone I'd say it's Col. Mustard, with the lead pipe). Do I pause my pen mid-sentence? I may not easily regain my thought process once again. And yet, for all the numerical pros and cons weighing against it, my moral obligation is to my most tangible domain, the most proximal threat. For that reason, the preventable deaths of innocents right down the street demand action sooner than the preventable deaths of innocents in Darfur, Timbuktu, and Katamazoo. The deaths of innocents are atrocious in either case, and equally impermissible. But one of the more important inputs in the function of their preventability is their proximity.

2. Moral Authority.

I am sure Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan would have had a great deal to say about

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment

had they won WWII. Equally fitting an analogy, however, might be how Russian forces liberating the eastern Nazi Concentration camps paraded their finds and justified their counterinvasion. Of course, we photographed and documented and, in our own way, paraded our finds there as well. We had the moral authority to do so, and it leant, in retrospect, a powerful justification that was admittedly not in our pack of motivation cards at the outset. These Nazi camps, which were more atrocious by all accounts than our lightly simmering Anti-Japanese racism, eventually would pale in number of victims to Russia's own emulations (which were more aligned toward passive, willful, intermittent neglect amongst the bitterest elements than toward active mutilation and slaughterchutes). Now, while being a transgressor as of itself certainly should never disqualify any group or person from making a moral stand, it first risks the perception of hypocracy among third parties, and second, hinders effectiveness and certainty of moral compass. How can we see to remove the speck from our brother's eye with a sequoia projecting itself from our collective iris like the mast of a ship?

3. Pen or Sword?

The methodology is important. If you could save the life of an innocent with the flick of your pen, or a different innocent by intervention (which may mean harming or even killing someone or multiple someones who would kill them), which method would you attempt first? Ideally, you can perform both, but working within the constraints of time, as we perpetually are, we must prioritize. The pen, you see, can be mightier than the sword, also the pen (properly utilized) prevents profusion of the sword. A good law here can save as many or more lives as can an entourage of boots tromping foreign soil. Why draw first the sword when the pen can move as much and save as many (or more).

4. In intervention, which side should we be on?

It's not a given that we can be neutral in any given internal conflict occuring in another nation. At any given point, from the moment of our entry, either one may be the aggressor. Should we alway kill whichever is the aggressor? Sometimes counterattacks get mistaken for unprovoked attacks, because we haven't seen the whole story from the beginning. Given, it's not about fairness but simply stopping the effusion of blood, but sometimes generating a limbo simply solidifies the evils that have been occuring, and eases the final solutions of tomorrow. That is to say, it may simply freeze regional along side the population 'gains' made by the faction initiating genocide, so that once we leave they can perform their original intentions with wider success.

Concerning the hypothetical altercation in the alley, perhaps I should grab the Revolver and shoot Col. Mustard's aggressor (or him, or both, I don't know how this fight started, after all). That would end the violence outside my window so I could get back to writing. Should I attempt to reason with them first? Scold them like they're a couple of unruly neighbor cats? Perhaps I should reason with the Revolver in hand? Suppose I don't have the Revolver, but rather, the unwieldy Candlestick or the flopsy Rope? One of them might have the Revolver. Or both may resist the intervention and turn on me before going back at each other (kinda like the Bosnian debacle). These interventions get messy. Jurisdictions of overlapping entities come into play and demand their pound of flesh. "The U.N. wants it done this way." "Such and such faction has to have it this way." "Why aren't you honoring the borders of our nation?" "Such and such place was our faction's, has some of our people, and yet they get to rule it. Why?" There are army regulars and irregulars. Sometimes they're one and the same (darn camo nightshirts). ALso, usually it's not simply one side that is guilty and the other comprised entirely of saints. While it can be weighted one way, our intervention can even turn these oppressed into oppressors or wanton vigilantees.

It's so much cleaner to eradicate something virulently killing innocents like abortion with a smart law than to try to pin down and exact world peace at the tip of the sword. They say whirled peas is wily, and gelatinously evasive. Now, when a peculiar institution like slavery dies, it dies for good (as a state-blessed and now state-sponsored institution). Abortion, different in flavor and... timeline... is likewise a peculiar institution, worthy of equal venom, and likely to die a similar death, though ideally absent our internal, historical convolutions.

5. In intervention, should we wait for the U.N.?

Hold on. Wow. Give me a minute.

OK. Sorry. I crack myself up. As if we are incapable of forming a concensus on what constitutes evil worthy of combating as a sovereign nation. If we want the help of the other nations, we can always ask for it directly. We're not glory hogs, really. We share moral victory fairly well. What we don't share is the same propensity to drag feet and try the same thing over and over with the same ineffective results. Saddam Hussein basically tars, feathers and shaves the beards of all the U.N. non-proliferation inspectors and how did the U.N. respond? They said pretty please this time, with a cherry on top. And this time. And this time. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a very good thing that the U.N. is toothless. They are and should be an advising body, not a governing body. But still, they've got to be more inventive and resourceful than that or yes, cowboy types like the U.S. will and should step in and make things right. Unfortunately, our leaders are systematically handing more and more sovereignty over to them every election cycle. Sovereignty, by its definition and nature, cannot be shared. It can be invested in one entity of any affiliative conglomerate only. The day the United Nations declares world peace accomplished will mean the most powerful, slowest grown chains have shackled humanity than at any moment to date in history, I am fully convinced. To do so they must obtain final sovereignty. But I digress. If intervening means putting more U.S. troops (pledged to protect the U.S. constitution, the U.S. borders, and answer to U.S. sovereignty) under a U.N. flag, then I'm inclined to be less an advocate of intervention than I would otherwise be.

So those are five reasons why I place abortion a higher priority than human rights violations in Sudan, the Philippines, Central and South American Drug States, Burma, and Quebec (not really) etc...

Life is life. Self evident truths. Unless there is a sound argument which proves that the life of a foreign innocent is of greater (not equal) value than the life of an infant here in the U.S.A. or in Oregon, or in Salem, I think I'm sticking with my prioritization. Don't get me wrong, I would attempt to protect both with the same fervor, one after the other, but as I would never resort to violence here I am wary of and often eschew its application abroad, which is another reason why international intervention takes second place to me. We all know of the types that think they must utilize violence in our domestic sphere. They are very well publicized should they come out of the woodwork. They're the clinic bombers and doctor kidnappers and 'murderer' shouters. They see evil actions and convince themselves to see evil people. They make the same idiotic mistake John Brown made. I see these poor souls giving their blessing for, commiting and performing abortions as I see the 19th century slavers and planters. Foolishly convinced a lesser right of the loudest must take all precedent over a greater, essential right of the voiceless. They're well educated, exactly like the planters were, well read, and often more articulate than their counterparts. But truth resonates on its own, and when advanced through the weaker societal members, God is the one glorified, not man.

So in a messy and convoluted way, I fumble out a justification for my prioritization below. Sorry to pull the "God's on my side" trump card at the end there. For all folks wanting world peace first, God can be on the side of world peace too. That is, after He's done over here, I'll let you borrow Him to adventure way off in the boonies. Actually, He can multitask, so really, we can share. But He likes me better. So there.