ABSTRACT: By virtue of what I call the Counterfeit White Flag Problem, a state of civil society and a state of war are shown to be both phenomenologically and epistemically indistinguishable. From this – or so I argue – it… Read More ›
war
HOW TO BE A MORE EFFECTIVE TERRORIST – LESSON FIVE
THE DIRECT APPROACH In Lesson One we asked under what conditions terrorism might be justified, and we concluded that there are no conditions under which it’s not. This is because justification in a state of war is what, were he… Read More ›
HOW TO BE A MORE EFFECTIVE TERRORIST – LESSONS ONE THRU THREE
LESSON ONE: THE DEFENCE OF TERRORISM The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn’t exist. I’m just as clever. I titled this paper so that whatever censors might be out there would think it’s obviously… Read More ›
THE FIFTH PLANE
The plan was to take the flight out of Boston to Chicago, breach the cockpit when it reached cruising altitude, divert it south to Washington, and hit either the White House or the Capitol. And if both were still standing… Read More ›
ACCOMMODATION
Right and wrong are moral terms. Just and unjust are political. But whether we want to know what’s right or what’s just, in either case form follows function. And so the first question to ask is what do we want… Read More ›
ONLY BAD PEOPLE ASK BAD QUESTIONS
I guess this is a case of in for a penny, in for a pound. How so? Because once one’s asked – as I have in an earlier post – how many lives have actually been saved once we include… Read More ›
STATUTORY RAPE AND CHILD SOLDIERS
For most of human history young men were expected to go to war at about the same age that young women were expected to become mothers, probably within about a year of their first period. Were our ancestors just mistaken?… Read More ›
THE B SIDE OF BANALITY
I’ve been where there has been war, and where there currently is. People who haven’t look at the footage and get a very skewed impression of what war is like. What they don’t see is that, just outside the mise… Read More ›