In many articles, I found many writers comparing China's decisiveness with India's wavering stance and laying the blame on India's democracy. Democracy was, according to them, based on consensus and hence necessary dilly-dallying. However, history shows the reverse to be correct. A democratic leader knows the opinions of the people- he knows roughly how many people support a venture and how many oppose it. An authoritarian government does not know the opinion of the people. As no one dares to defy it openly, they do not know what the people actually think. So while a democratic leader can be decisive,an autocrat will dilly-dally.
History proves this conjecture. Stalin had ample proof that Hitler was massing troops for an assault but he took no action as he was not sure of the loyalty of his soldiers and people. While US and UK started preparations for total war in 1942, Nazi Germany did not adopt the stance as Hitler was unsure of the support of German citizens.Only when defeat was staring at Germany in 1944, did Hitler call for "total war". Germany did manage to double its aircraft and tank production in 1944 but by then it was too late. Nearer to our time, are the governments of US and Israel not decisive? Are they not democratic? The dilly-dallying of Indian Government is not due to democracy but due to the absence of a national culture and national objectives.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Abortion
I think abortion is the same as murder. I believe the mother has the right to murder her child as she is the creator of the child. Pro-abortion right people (who curiously do not support the right of mothers to murder their children)give two objections:
1- The mother has full rights over her body
2- The child is a trespasser
The mother has full rights over her body and her creations not only when they are in the process of creation but even after they are created. Hence, she has full rights over the child.
The foetus develops when an woman's egg is impregnated by a man's sperm. So, unless the woman was raped, she is responsible for the foetus developing inside her. Every person is responsible for his/her actions until and unless:
1- The consequences of the actions could not be foretold by a reasonable person. If a person cannot foretell that sex may lead to childbirth, I believe he/she needs to be in an asylum
2- The probability of the consequence is so small that an ordinary person would ignore it. I don't think this argument is valid even if contraceptives are used, as there is a 3% probability that the contraceptive will fail even when properly used and 3% is too big a probability to ignore.
One can say that a fetus is non-living.In that case, double-murder charges against killers of pregnant woman are wrong. But, I have never seen pro-abortionists oppose the charge of double-murder on the killers. And these pro-abortion people, most of whom claim to be feminists, have no right to oppose "sex-selective abortion of fetuses" as only living beings have gender and fetuses by their definition are non-living. And lastly, who defines the time when an entity becomes living.
1- The mother has full rights over her body
2- The child is a trespasser
The mother has full rights over her body and her creations not only when they are in the process of creation but even after they are created. Hence, she has full rights over the child.
The foetus develops when an woman's egg is impregnated by a man's sperm. So, unless the woman was raped, she is responsible for the foetus developing inside her. Every person is responsible for his/her actions until and unless:
1- The consequences of the actions could not be foretold by a reasonable person. If a person cannot foretell that sex may lead to childbirth, I believe he/she needs to be in an asylum
2- The probability of the consequence is so small that an ordinary person would ignore it. I don't think this argument is valid even if contraceptives are used, as there is a 3% probability that the contraceptive will fail even when properly used and 3% is too big a probability to ignore.
One can say that a fetus is non-living.In that case, double-murder charges against killers of pregnant woman are wrong. But, I have never seen pro-abortionists oppose the charge of double-murder on the killers. And these pro-abortion people, most of whom claim to be feminists, have no right to oppose "sex-selective abortion of fetuses" as only living beings have gender and fetuses by their definition are non-living. And lastly, who defines the time when an entity becomes living.
Logic and belief
In a previous post, I had mentioned why I believe that belief is optional. If I believe about X, than I agree that every one need not believe in X and not X has a non-zero probability of being true. If I insist on X being true and expect everyone to affirm X's correctness than I expect X to be a self-evident truth. Insisting that X is necessarily correct will make X a correct statement (for me) and not a belief.
This brings me back to logic. The axioms of logic are self-evident, so they are not beliefs. And either axioms of logic do not constitute knowledge or the definition of knowledge as justified belief is wrong. Axioms of logic are neither justified nor belief.
This brings me back to logic. The axioms of logic are self-evident, so they are not beliefs. And either axioms of logic do not constitute knowledge or the definition of knowledge as justified belief is wrong. Axioms of logic are neither justified nor belief.
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