Nuclear Electricity is Not the Problem
Iran is only one of many countries that are considering nuclear power. It makes little sense to deny Iran an opportunity to build nuclear power plants and generate clean energy.
Iran, like other Middle East countries faces a shortage of electricity and water. New nuclear power plants can help with these problems.
If Iran were to comply fully with the Non-Proliferation Treaty and focus its nuclear power progam on peaceful production of electricity, then nuclear power plants in Iran would be acceptable.
However, nuclear power is (or can be) linked to nuclear weapons programs. A nation that has a nuclear power program can, using its signficant resources, develop a nuclear weapons capability that uses the fissile material produced in nuclear power plants.
Iran is developing a uranium enrichment capability, explained by a desire to be able to produce its own enriched uranium fuel for nuclear power plants, There is currently a signficant world capacity for uranium enrichment, with new facilities under construction.
Iran should be able to obtain nuclear fuel assemblies on the world market at a lower cost than developing its own indigenous uranium enrichment and nuclear fuel fabrication facilities.
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The Iranian people are pro-America - the Shi'a regime is not.
Bilateral technology agreements will strengthen the ties between the Iranian secular moderate bureaucracy and the US, and weaken the anti-US clerical factions. Trust builds trust.
[Russia by the way would be the first not to permit destabilzing nuclear forces near their borders.]
Let me pu the moral issue plainly. The elected leadership of Iran is openly racist. The elected Iranian President's hatred-in-action, as expressed in open words, threatens death and destruction for Israel. Why? Because they are Jews. This is racism, anti-Jew, pure and simple. If his regine of hatred and dedication to mass murder has the intelligence to invent atomic or nuclear technology on its own, so be it. But, to benefit from the product of the thinking of free minds in a civilization of reason and tolerance is unthinkable. There is no reason compatible with survival which requires the West to share its life-saving technologies with such barbarians. There is a moral reason to not so share: we don't want any part of responsibility in his acts of mass murder.
I've emphasized the word "elected" in referring to the leadership and President of Iran. That means that his opinions are shared by his countrymen. Let those who disagree with him leave that country or work for change...as if that is possible in Islam.
If you were born in a country like Brazil, which still has a certain kind of racism, but is generally open to all cultures, I would say you made a strong case. however, you as an American, must admit, we have a history of some pretty brutal racism. Possibly, you don't know the range of racism that has existed over our country's existence. Possibly you do. But we have had racist immigration policies against Asians much longer than than we had against blacks or mexicans.
We didn't throw a hydrogen bomb on any part of germany during WWII because? Yet we dropped 2 on Japan. Why? Were the Japanese worse than the Germans? If so in what way? I mean, German Nazis used genocide against Jews; the Japanese bombed a military target of an enemy. Who was morally better between the two?
And I encourage you to look up information about what I have suggested. Think about how you would feel, as a normal person, in any of these countries about another country raising cain over your decisions as a patriot. Does it cause you to rethink your position?
I hope so.
No. It does not cause me to rethink my position. The fact that many Americans inherited attitudes of racism from the Old World, instead of instantly adopting a universal outlook favorable to individual rights, inspite of the fact that its Founders established the government of America on the principle of individual rights and hoped it would become universal, does not excuse racism elsewhere, today.
And, it is not mere government-level immigration policy we see in Iran. It is racial hatred against Jews. Its elected leaders openly breathe mass murder against the Jewish inhabitants of Israel.
If you accept that racist attitudes and accompanying actions, both private and governmental, were and are evil, do you really expect me to see racism in Iran as OK? Makes one question your attitudes about race.
Asians have made an enormous, if quiet, contribution to America's well-being. Racism against them or anyone, as Ayn Rand proved in her essay "Racism" in the tiny paperback book, The Virtue of Selfishness, is a form of collectivism and, thus, a shame on Americans for not living up to their best principles.
I am opposed to racism, my first column said so. What thinking are you inviting me to re-think?
One evil does not excuse another but by the same token the Israeli government also spews its own venom against the other arab countries. Besides your off topic. I never argued in defense of any one's racism I just pointed out some things in our own history that would seem to say that we are not always the best judge of other people's morality, especially since we often make devastating mistakes.
As far as I'm concerned any country that possesses nuclear weapons is a barbarian country, get rid of the nuclear bombs. And as for our country, since we were the first to actually use this type of destructive weapon against another nation, we should step up to the moral plate and be the first to get rid of ours.
Glad to hear your statement that one evil does not excuse another. Glad to hear your open statement that you never argued in defense of racism.
But, here's a ststement by you that makes me wonder. "we are not always the best judge of other people's morality..." Who is "we"? All thinking and moral judgment are done by individuals, using their own minds. To say that the US government or State governments have acted on racist laws does not, in any way, cripple your ability or mine to see racism as irrational, as attributing moral characteristics an individual because of his skin color, of that kind of biological collectivism and concluding that it is wrong. So, who is this "we" that is not in the best position to judge the morality of others? The fact that you would use the collective "we" in such a context (moral judgment) presents you as someone who still thinks in collectivist fashion.
As for atomic weapons (we have never used a nuclear weapon against anyone...facts do count, sir), if you lack the historical facts needed to concur that the use of the atam bomb on Japan was necessary to save human lives, American and Japanese, please do your homework. I apologize for not having at hand the title of the book that best brings evidence to bear on that point. But, I do point you to back issues (of the last 2 years) of The Objective Standard, objectivestandard.com, to see the morality of our dealings with Japan and Germany during and after WWII. Then, think very carefully about the similar threat of Islam to the civilized world, to mankind itself, before you ask America, the most moral nation in the history of mankind, to become suicidal by discarding this vital weapon of deterrence.
You proclaim a few moral principles that are valid, but your style of reasoning leaves one wondering about where you would stand when it comes to self-defense.
Talk about not avoiding the discussion. Yes I used "we" in the collective sense of a nation who votes for our representatives. It's never implied, by my person, that individuals can disagree and shape that thought. So you still haven't worked out the logical conclusions or presented any proof against the idea that our government is not always the best judge of moral decisions. Come on, the US used to have the ANC on it's terrorist list. So yeah I do question the authority the US "presumes" it has when dealing and judging with others and we, that is people like yourself and I, should expect from one another a clear, clean and objective (as much as we can) discussion.
As for the case in Japan and our use of the two atomic bombs, I'm sure there are lots of books that justify the use.
"As for atomic weapons (we have never used a nuclear weapon against anyone...facts do count, sir),"
I purposely worded my self "we were the first to actually use this type of destructive weapon against another nation," and so you have not refuted my statement or even demonstrated it to be wrong or illogical. I will add though, that the atom bombs you refer to are factually just that; a type of nuclear device.
About self defense, we can examine it all you want. For example,
"In 1951 Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh was elected prime minister. As prime minister, Mossadegh became enormously popular in Iran after he nationalized Iran's oil reserves. In response, Britain embargoed Iranian oil and, amidst Cold War fears, invited the United States to join in a plot to depose Mossadegh, and in 1953 President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorized Operation Ajax. The operation was successful, and Mossadegh was arrested on 19 August 1953. After Operation Ajax, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's rule became increasingly autocratic. With American support, the Shah was able to rapidly modernize Iranian infrastructure, but he simultaneously crushed all forms of political opposition with his intelligence agency, SAVAK.
That is from Wikipedia, I know it's not always the most reliable source but in this case it's statement about US involvement with Iranian national affairs is clear and documented from other sources. My conclusion, if I were to look at it from a national perspective, meaning if my country had a history of of another country involving itself in internal affairs I, and I would suspect many of my fellow country men (and women) would see that foreign involvement as a national threat.
This is my argument for Iran being allowed to have nuclear weapons, unfortunately our country is the reason for their desire to national defense still, this does not change the logic. However, my overall view on WMDs is that all countries should get rid of them and I make no exceptions. Our country should, as one of the world leaders take the first step towards dismantling. Then we can work towards helping change public opinion around the world to our point of view and make it a safer world.
It would be a better world in which no one had the need for defensive use of any weapons, nuclear or conventional.
To dream about end results and specify NO means for achieving the conditions under which no NEEDS them, even for defensive use, is to leave oneself open to the suspicion that either you are blind to reality or that you don't care whether or not the US gets destroyed by its self-declared enemies.
It would be nice if no one ever got sick. But, to never discuss dietary means to uphold maximum health, leaves one open to the suspicion that dreams are as far as your wishes go.
It would be nice if everyone could afford to pay for his own health care. But, that ignores the fact that there was a time in America when that condition did exist and ignores any questions about why medical costs rose sharply in the years after Looney Bin Johnson introduced Medicare and Medicaid, giving rise to the need for medical insurance and the question about how that increases both medical costs AND insurance costs, leading to the fear that only Big Brother is large enough to cover us all, leading to the sharp declines in the quality of medical care and the disappearance of medical innovations one finds in all of today's European socialized medicine countries.
The pattern in all these examples is that, IF one ignores factual context and the question of what methods are needed to achieve a desirable end result, why, anything can be wished for.
America has self-proclaimed enemies who say we are the devil and who have mass murdered thousands of our citizens (even well before 9-eleven) and lust to have the scimtar at our throats in order to force conversion to their pagan religion of hatred or to eliminate us as repersentatives of alternate points of view. So, we dare not drop the weapons that keep them at bay. Those are the facts, that is the context in which it makes living sense to keep the most powerful weapons we have invented. And, until you come up with a solution to eliminate their religion or hatred of us, your emotinal dislike of nuclear weapons compormises my life and the lives of my children. So, you and I do not have anything in common on that point.
To fault America, which cannot be done accurately most of the time, but when it can be done legitimately, that hss nothing to do with you and I condemning the evil of racism wherever we find it. Oh, and you are incorrect again: atomic weapons are NOT a type of nuclear device.
What you and I both seem to be against is the violation of any person's life and right to life by means of physical force. But, that is a conclusion which requires a full philosophical base in order to be clear and not lead to faulty courses of action.
The American philosopher, Ayn Rand, is the only voice in world culture which speaks clearly on the subject of ethics, which lead to individual rights, which leads to the banishment of physical force, while including the right of self-defense. Her view of a free society includes a specific role for a proper government, unlike the ones mankind has now. I invite you to read her. I suggest starting with her little paperback, The Virtue of Selfishness. As you read her, we will have a vocabulary in common that will serve as the basis for a meaningful discussion of the points we have both raised. If not, we will continue batting the ball across the net with no points ever being gained.