Challenge Response

On the response to Challenge 327

by Bill Bowler

Gabriel Timar’s Challenge Response is a clearly laid out and provocative line of argument. Having high-quality people in decision-making positions (like, say, honest judges) is certainly to be desired. But what about corrupt systems? What’s the model for the able administration of the Spanish Inquisition?

Where I really part company with the author is his out of hand dismissal of “peace mongers,” a term that betrays the bias of his argument. Once you adopt the position that “the war had to be won. Period,” and that carpet bombing or nuclear bombing (or drone aircraft missile attacks or suicide bombing) of civilian populations is necessary to that end, then there is really nothing left to talk about.

Attacks on New York City skyscrapers are fully justified using just such arguments. This is where the Wise Leader and the Evil Terrorist intersect and occupy precisely the same position.