[Dean's World] Rudy Rummel: Vectors of Action Toward Peace Part I

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Posted by Rudy Rummel:
Vectors of Action Toward Peace Part I
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1149128911.shtml


     The end of man is an action and not a thought, though it were the
     noblest. ----Thomas Carlyle. Sartor Resartus (Book ii, Chapter 6) 

   To wage peace we should foster freedom. But how? Encourage democratic
   revolutions? Intervening in dictatorships to topple tyrants? Make war
   for democracy? No, nothing like this.

   Rather, the [1]Positive Peace Principle argues that people should be
   left alone to form their own communities or states, to live their own
   lives. If they prefer to live in authoritarian societies (as many
   Islamists do) or under totalitarian governments (as do communists and
   fascists), that is their choice (given one can emigrate, a point I
   will come back to later). Promoting freedom does not mean, then,
   forcibly converting others into accepting an exchange society and
   liberal democratic government; nor does it mean waging a crusade
   against other societies or governments or ideologies. Instead,
   fostering freedom means to facilitate procedurally and institutionally
   people making their own choices about how they want to live, whether
   with freedom or not, as long as they do not try to impose their choice
   on others. This is the socially just approach.

   (Continued [2]here)

References

   1. http://freedomism.blogspot.com/2006/05/chapter-30-positive-peace-principle.html
   2. http://freedomspeace.blogspot.com/2006/05/vectors-of-action-toward-peace-part-i.html