"The Quality of Mersey" Needs Closer Examination

The recent much-admired Mark Steyn article contains something worth pointing out that cuts straight to the heart of the Iraq Affair: The Quality of Mersey

If the FCO wants to issue advice in this area, that's the way to go: If you're kidnapped, accept you're unlikely to survive, say "I'll show you how an Englishman dies", and wreck the video. If they want you to confess you're a spy, make a little mischief: there are jihadi from Britain, Italy, France, Canada and other western nations all over Iraq - so say yes, you're an MI6 agent, and so are those Muslims from Tipton and Luton who recently joined the al-Qaeda cells in Samarra and Ramadi. As Churchill recommended in a less timorous Britain: You can always take one with you. If Mr Blair and other government officials were to make that plain, it would be, to use Mr Bigley's word, "enough". A war cannot be subordinate to the fate of any individual caught up in it.

My emphasis. Mr. Steyn is writing in the context of the brutal murder of British hostage Kenneth Bigley at the hands of Islamofascists in Iraq, addressing the complaints that a citizen's government should negotiate with terrorists in order to secure the release of a kidnapping victim.

I found the article in a number of blogs, but decided to comment on the Samizdata thread featuring it. Here's what I said:

A war cannot be subordinate to the fate of any individual caught up in it.

Now there's some ugly collectivist sentiment. Consider its implications, people.

That earned me a response by "snide":

Now there's some ugly collectivist sentiment. Consider its implications, people.

The implications? Sure, in a war, some innocent people will get killed and whilst that is regrettable, it is also inevitable. That is the reality of war. Get over it.

Also, like so many of the brain-dead variety of libertarians, you probably think you have a right to leave your lights on at night during an air raid... but you do not because what would be a right under normal conditions is trumpted by the right to life of others when there is a war on.

I replied:

snide,

You think it "brain-dead" to point out statements that implicitly advocate the government (that entity which wages war) being more important than the individual (the government subjects caught up in it)? I'm unsure of your political leanings, but I find support of suppressing my freedom at ANY time contemptible. Rights don't just go away when you want them to.

I'll leave my lights on when I damn well please to and if a neighbor wants to try and strop me, he'd better at least have the balls to force me in person to turn them off rather than have the state to it by proxy. My rights come into clear view at that moment when the aggressor in the situation becomes apparent.

Rightist war supporters use the very same logic as leftist economic interventionists when they say some event demands the setting aside of our rights in order to help/save/protect/defend/enrich a collective of people. When they say "9/11 changed everything," they echo the words of commies who say "this community's poverty demands your sacrifice."

They must be called on it.

Posted by Drizzten at October 13, 2004 10:25 AM