A generation ago Martin Luther King stated he had a dream: that people should be judged on the content of their character, not the colour of their skin. Fast-forward to the current day and thousands are celebrating the fulfilment of this dream in the election of Barack Obama as US President. There is an irony […]
Entries Tagged as 'International Politics'
More on Iraq and the Just War Theory
October 11th, 2007 11 Comments
A little while ago I posted up some thoughts I had about the war in Iraq. These thoughts did not come in a vacuum. At the time of the invasion I read several books on the morality of war. At the time of compiling this article had just read James Turner Johnson’s works on the […]
Tags: George Bush · Iraq · Saddam Hussein · US Politics · War Ethics
Dixie Chicks, Free Speech and the Flat Earth Society
February 13th, 2007 Comments Off on Dixie Chicks, Free Speech and the Flat Earth Society
One irritating feature of the contemporary media is the credence they give to the views of celebrities. There is often a kind of unwritten assumption that because a person is a good actor or singer, his or her views on politics, morality and ethics somehow carry more weight.Case in point is the enthusiastic reporting of […]
Tags: Bad Reasoning · Dixie Chicks · Freedom of Speech · George Bush · Historical Ignorance · Iraq
Saddam Dead
December 30th, 2006 Comments Off on Saddam Dead
At 4pm Saddam Hussein, the Butcher of Baghdad, was executed. Saddam deserved to die. I do not think anybody believes he was innocent of serious crimes. This dictator murdered and tortured thousands of innocent people including women and children. I have had the misfortune of reading some of the accounts of Saddam’s atrocities from firsthand […]
Tags: Capital Punishment · Saddam Hussein
Saddam to be Executed Soon
December 27th, 2006 Comments Off on Saddam to be Executed Soon
Saddam will be executed 25 Jan 2007. While I will not celebrate his execution I am pleased that it is happening.
Tags: Capital Punishment · Saddam Hussein
Sanctions and Siege Warfare
December 14th, 2006 6 Comments
I believe that a state has the right to wage war only to defend those living with in its boarders from attack. A state’s authority to use coercion to uphold justice is limited to its borders. Just as a state has no right to prosecute a person for committing a crime committed outside NZ or to make laws regulating peoples behaviour beyond its shores, it has no duty to defend people in other countries.
Tags: Fiji · Helen Clark · Role of the State · War Ethics
A common objection to belief in the God of the Bible is that a good, kind, and loving deity would never command the wholesale slaughter of nations. In the tradition of his popular Is God a Moral Monster?, Paul Copan teams up with Matthew Flannagan to tackle some of the most confusing and uncomfortable passages of Scripture. Together they help the Christian and nonbeliever alike understand the biblical, theological, philosophical, and ethical implications of Old Testament warfare passages.
