To: 
From: "Vern Humphrey" 
Reply-To: r_catholic-l{at}yahoogroups.com

To: seanmbrook{at}aol.com [mailto:seanmbrook{at}aol.com]
> >
>  Yes, I'm aware that to put it into economic terms, the
>  Black Death increased the cost of labor.  But, if I recall
>  correctly, weren't labor saving devices being invented in
>  the 1200's, before the Plague?

There had been labor-saving devices for thousands of years, but the
explosion of such devices, and the systematic use of them was after the
plague.
>
>  But an ACCIDENT like the Plague can't really be
>  analogous to deliberate acts of human wickedness
>  like riots and looting.

Oh, but it can.  If you look at it as a phenominon, and see the outcome
without looking through lenses clouded with preconceptions.  And it is only
by looking at things that way that we can fully understand them.

It isn't wrong to morally judge the participants in a riot or similar
action.  But to fully understand history and sociology, you must also be
able to look at the phenominon without judging, and see how its outcome
affects society.
>
> > VH> As a phenominon, it had both good and bad outcomes -- and
> the bad is long
> > since past, but the good (things like liberty and justice and
> and a whole
> > new outlook on technology) remain with us today.
> > >
>  Far better for the Plague never to have occurred, tho!
>  Was the agony, grief, and mayhem worthwhile?   Esp.
>  since inventiveness existed, and great men like St.
>  Thomas Aquinas and St. Louis IX of France certainly
>  believed in justice and freedom.

How can we say what would have happened without the plague?  Europe had
been stagnant for a thousand years.  We might today live in a world like
that of Red China, where the people are simply faceless masses.

> > VH> Just as many entrepreneurs don't care two pennies about the common
> > welfare -- but by starting businesses, they creat jobs and
> benefit us all.
> > > >
>  And rioters DESTROY jobs and businesses.  I would
>  not put rioters on the same level as Andrew Carnegie.

Some of the great "Robber Barons" did more evil than any rioter.
> >
> > VH> The British had no motivation to change things, until the Troubles
> > motivated
> > them.
> > >
>  Understood.  Too often we have to be FORCED to
>  do better.

That's correct -- and the motivation may often come in the form of plague,
riot, or rebellion.
> >
> > VH> In fact, it was cold-blooded, pre-meditated murder -- all the worse
> > because
> > done not by "criminals" but by the state itself.
> >
>  And I agree such things done by any state are bad.

They are worse than that -- It is like a parent murdering a child, the most
henious form of murder.
>
> > VH> The Troubles must be seen in that light -- terrorism is
> bad, but when the
> > state itself indulges in it, and aids terrorists in committing
> murders, what
> > justification does the state have to lable anyone else a terrorist?
> > > >
>  At the very least, no better than the other side. I can
>  see that.

And there is one other point to consider.  The state has tight command and
control.  What the state does is done by deliberate policy.

Rebels, on the other hand, do not have such tight command and control -- in
fact, the state tries to ensure that they don't -- by arresting leaders,
monitoring radio and telephone communications, and so on.  The rebels must
rely on a cellular operation, with each cell almost totally autonomous.
Therefore, what happens is often due, not to an official policy, but to the
initiative of individual cell leaders.
>
>
> > VH> Yet states, "legitimate" entities, bomb cities and kill
> civilians.  A
> > legitimate state, one with a long and proud tratition of law and order,
> > collaborated with terrorists to kill suspected IRA members.
> >
>  Not just the UK.  Wasn't it EQUALLY terroristic of
>  the US to have executed the Dresden and Tokyo fire
>  bombings of 1945?  Iow, nakedly attacking CIVILIANS.

It certainly did not meet the standards of warfare we follow today.
>
> > >
> > VH> And that's the key point -- it is ACTS that define war
> crimes, not the a
> > priori status of the perpetrator.  And combatants must be held
> responsible
> > first by their own chain of command, who are in turn responsible for the
> > policies they put into effect.
> > >
> >
>  Correct.  Here I can agree with you without reservation.
>
We must then define terrorism by having recourse to the ACTS of the
combatants, and how their chain of command reacts to illegal acts.
>


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