I don't want to get in to whether a state is justified in separating from a union, because much of that talk is too abstract for me. But, I will say that states that try to secede tend to get owned, and if any US state tried to secede it would probably suffer federal retaliation and also get owned.

Might makes right. Get used to it. It's not going to change.

If your state can over power the main country's military, you should secede.

>You're mixing up "should" and "could."

You should secede.

The only reason any state is a part of a larger country is for protection. There's strength in numbers. If the main country weaker than you, then you should secede. There is no advantage to staying.

And don't be pulling mad scientists and death rays out of your ass

I've often woundered this. There are countless examples, but I'll choose this one.

Georgia, ally of the US (and NATO and the EU?) broke free of Russia, but then attacked South Ostesia when they attempted to break free from them.

Trying to figure out who is "justified" or "right" in any given situation is in the eye of the beholder. Perhaps it's just based on the victor's opinion, since it's them who gets to decide most of the time.

Maybe you guys are misunderstanding what i meant in the originial post. I didn't ask whether revolution will work or not. I simply asked whether a revolution (violent) is ever JUSTIFIED. You can lose a revolutionary war but still be justified in what you attempted to do.

You see I always thought that a violent response to oppression of a large group of people is always justified. I believe that martin luther king would be justified in arming black people to the teeth in weaponry and having a violent revolution (although it probably wouldn't work). He was smart however that he tried a peaceful way because violence would not have worked against the US military.

I know you guys will all justify war under certain circumstances. War is just a way of the government to defend its people of a threat or sometimes to take territory/resources of another nation. If you look at revolution, it works the same way. Revolution is a way to defend the people from a threat (government oppression) and sometimes take territory/resources (separate state). If war is justified then revolution must also be justified. Ofcourse there are rules like the seceding populaton must be represented completely or nearly completely by the fighting force. So Washington must have represented the views of his countrymen for him to revolt against great britain.

In my mind, the south in the civil war was not justified in seceding because, even though they had popular support, they did not have right causes. They could not prove that black people were less than human and therefore okay to keep as slaves.

No, we're not misunderstanding it.  Probability of success is a factor in determining if a war is just.  Without judging the probability of success, you can never weigh the consequences of conducting a revolution against the consequences of not conducting a revolution.  As a result, your idea of "just" is hollow, because there is no calculation in it.

Let's take your example.  Pretend Martin Luther King Jr. armed African American protesters, and staged a revolution against the government.  Now, in this case, I honestly believe it would have been successful both because of the Vietnam War's stress on the US military and because Caucasians would have been better informed about the prejudice against African Americans.  But for the sake of my example, pretend it would be a failure.  A failed revolution would result in the massive slaughter of African Americans by Caucasians, both during the war and afterwards (the Klu Klux Klan could easily make the case that killing African Americans was an effort to prevent them from rising up again, and many more African Americans would be racially profiled as revolutionaries due to their skin color).

That means this: If you assume that there is a high probability of failure, a revolution must calculate the results of failure in determining whether a revolution is justified.  No matter how repressive the government in the status quo is, if the result of a revolution is inevitable failure, the repression against the involved individuals will probably be worse (with some exceptions, such as instances in which the revolution breeds domestic reform).  That means the revolution would actually be more harmful to its own cause, because the government would try to stamp out its cause.

In addition, without calculating probability of success, a call to arms for revolution would always be immediate.  There would never be an opportunity to say, "well, we may have a justified cause, but we would be more likely to succeed if we waited."  That creates hasty revolutions, with less planning or preparation, which are less likely to succeed.

Ok time to get back on track with this.

The injustice MLK fought was via a form of civil strife, indeed there was several groups advocating violence as he fought instead a political war.

His goal was not separation, but unification with just terms.

There can be many different ways to fix unjust circumstances, if the method of government is not so lost in tyranny you can resolve it, but if I say again, "If you find yourself needing to be free" then you should do so.

To elaborate upon this statement. The need to be free is one where you have found no other recourse for your objections, and you are not alone, so long as a significant portion feel this way, not necessarily a group that can win a war mind you, you have the burning need to do so, and will do so rightfully.

I do not use the Tamils as a good example, those bastards just were greedy and then when they got spanked for being greedy wanted to gain rulership over their own so they could be greedy with a smaller pond.

I use instead the example of Gandhi, and of Washington. These persons used different means to obtain their goals. Each was just in their cause. Each was entirely valid, and had the support of a significant portion of people, though by all means at first not enough to succeed.

Not many such successful "Separations of State" have happened in full, instead most of such history is the granting of the separation of the state before it got to be an issue.

Israel also remains one such example by the way. But the history of that is so washed with emotions by those who have not studied the history I would prefer to demur away from that example, even though it is a more recent one, and very valid for example.

Russia as USSR... an interesting discussion. Most of the 'puppet states' were not fully integrated into the USSR, and therefore discussion of them as separating is interesting to say the least.

> sKoE )= wrote:

> @ZARF
> Who would have a problem with this war?

People would. Who gets to decide who is wrong and who is right?
The US? Are you sure the US has the best interests of Iraqis at heart?

Not saying either way, it'd be pretty safe to assume the major backlash with
your plan would be who gets to push the button. No state, person or
organisation is completely impartial and fair.

But would you agree with this:

The people that didn't like the war based on a consequential analysis (it would cost too much, we wouldn't succeed, it would breed terrorism) would no longer oppose the war, since it had a 100% chance of success.

Anybody who goes terrorists ought to be repressed.

> sKoE )= wrote:

> No, they'd have other excuses. Please see my above post.

1: But these excuses would not be unique to the new situation, since they are deployed today.
2: The excuses you highlight are deontological justifications, whereas I'm only talking about those who are operating from a utilitarian framework.  It's kind of like if we asked if Justinian would not like democracy if we worked out the efficiency issues in it, and he replied that democracy had a moral faltering behind it.  The two are completely different mindsets which can be held individually.
It's a bad stereotype for you to say that every anti-war person says that the US had no right to judge what was better for the country.  There are plenty of people (especially INSIDE the United States) who would say that the US had the right to determine what was right and wrong, yet didn't have the capability to effectively orchestrate the Iraq war.

> Red_Rooster wrote:

> @Zarf
1. Those excuses would arise whether or not they are already deployed today.

Then those people would already be against the war, whether a war was utter perfection or the status quo, so we don't count them in the issue.  I'm only showing the relationship between relative support for war and the expected outcome of the war.

2. So why must we only look at things through a utilitarian framework? If the world was run purely through a utility framework then there would be rape and theft rampant. Utilitiarianism fails horribly... Say there are 10 people going to rape 1 person. Obviously 10 people are enjoying it and only

Never said we did have to look at pure utilitarianism.  I'm only saying that some people do analyze the Iraq war from a utilitarian perspective.  And even if you don't buy that, I'm saying that SOME of the people against the war look at the issue from the question of consequences.  Seriously, you're going to argue that the only Iraq war opposition is against it on deontological grounds?

1 person is not enjoying it so 10 people are justified in what they did. The greatest good for the greatest number...
Also, taking only what US citizens say is also morally wrong. Ofcourse you can just tell me there is no such thing as morals in a utility framework but that is fortunately not the case in the world. The US delivering democracy to Iraq is not a choice the US citizens need to make. Its a choice Iraqis need to make. All types of governments have their pros and cons... It is kind of like your neighbor (muslim) decided that he was going to make you (jew) convert to islam. It is not a choice of your neighbor. If you wanted to be a muslim bad enough you would have converted already. I know that analogy is kind of bad but u get the point lol

This is utterly non-responsive to either my point, or anything I said.