Dr. Arroway wrote:JeffEngel wrote:I don't think I've ever met this person "Haven" you're referring to. There's a planet by the name and a nation, but you're attributing quite a bit of intention and responsibility to a planet or a nation that it's not much able to bear.
If this is how you put things then at most Pritchart should have challenged
High Ridge to a duel or something, instead of resuming operations knowingly condemning scores of innocents to death.
Not an option, accomplishes nothing, moving on....
JeffEngel wrote:You could talk about a government creating the situation, having these problems, having some intention to "pillage, enslave, and abuse", just because a government is this bunch of people. You get a question then about how far back you go.
As far back as needed.
Rome is still waiting on reparations from Germany for Alaric sacking it. And strangely, there's no uproar.
If you want peace - if you want people to stop dying - and you should - you need to have a moral framework that can look forward instead of all backward, all the time. Especially when you find yourself demanding that living people fix the problems created by dead people, dead people who were their
enemies, dead people who aren't around to keep causing problems only because of the work and risks of the very same living people you want to hang for the dead leaders' crimes. If you don't, then no one's going to bother with that work or risk - or few enough to get it done, anyway.
Nations have been required to give "reparations" for their acts even after decades and changes in leadership, when at all possible, as it should be.
Which will in all too many cases lead to revanchism and another round of wars. Yay. What wonderful work for peace your reparations do. And when the reparations are going from the losers to the winners, when war guilt is fixed by who's got the bigger guns, you can just cut the crap and call it "tribute" or "loot" instead and quit dropping a sanctimonious cover over the devastation of war.
If and when it's actually a matter, for all to see and recognize, of paying back what's due, by a party in the wrong who can afford it to a wronged party who needs it, then you've got an exchange that may help settle things. If it's even close enough to that, you'll have something that's not going to cause more problems than it is worth.
In this case, you don't even have it as a real option, when Haven
cannot get Manticore to the peace table. The High Ridge government wouldn't do it for four years, without the felt threat of renewed hostilities, and Elizabeth let that roll. The Grantville government wouldn't keep an appointment for direct talks, offered when Haven had the military advantage, in large part because Elizabeth wouldn't tolerate that. So, Haven's got what left? Offering an unconditional surrender? That's not something Pritchart could sell to her Senate. That's the extra mile you want her to go?
She can't.The war between Haven and Manticore is still an open issue so it's perfectly logical to keep front and center the reasons why it started.
Reasons both Pritchart and Theisman know perfectly well.
Curiously though, the reasons it continues are out of bounds for you, and the actual people responsible for them are also irrelevant. You do get jolly good propaganda being that selective - Rule Manticore, ra ra - but as a moral argument, it's not impressive.
So, you've got living politicians responsible for doing their best for their living constituents, and for the nation in which those constituents live. And you'd need to make the argument that the right thing for them to do for those people and that nation is to grievously endanger that nation, and with it those people, to tell some crazy story that no one will believe (quite rightly, for all the plausibility of it, even though it's true)...
This is the sad reality of the situation Pritchart finds herself in, true enough... which doesn't change the fact that it's a mess
created by Haven in the first place, as a result of the series of policies enacted by the leaders the
Havenites themselves put in charge (or
let remain in charge) over the years.
Cost of removing the High Ridge Government from power: one constitutional crisis (or cutting some deals with enough Liberal Party figures in the House of Lords)
Cost of removing the Committee of Public Safety: two coup attempts and three years of civil war
Blame assigned to Elizabeth Winton for not paying the first charge: zero.
Credit assigned to Eloise Pritchart, Thomas Theisman, and millions of Havenites for paying the second charge: zero.
If you argue that the Havenite layman cannot be held responsible for all that, then I'd argue that the Manticoran layman is certainly even less responsible for that same mess.
I'm not going to blame either of them. I'm going to blame
people for putting them (
any of them) into the mess in the first place, keeping them in it,
and/or not getting them out of it in the least bad shape they can.
It
is a mess. Twenty years of war preceded by two centuries of war, oppression and abuse by the Legislaturalists has delivered that to Elizabeth and Pritchart, the RMN and RHN, and hundreds of billions of people on both sides. I'm going to judge people based on what they
can do about that, on the bases both of what they owe anyone and what they owe particularly to people based on their positions.
Pritchart can't get talks with Elizabeth after Solon. Elizabeth feels she's got the whip hand again and boy does that woman loooove whipping Haven. Mmm mmm good.
Pritchart can't just surrender unconditionally. The elected members of her Senate won't abide that, and she'll be impeached, the Republic thrown into chaos, and a government that's finally working for its hundreds of billions of people, a government that's finally
capable of getting along with neighbors who are willing to get along with it (yes, I'm looking at you Elizabeth Winton) gets thrown out again.
So she's got the options of inviting that - which is likely to lead to Beatrice anyway after she's replaced, or something less likely to end the war - or seizing a chance to fight a battle (a huge, horrible one) that will quite possibly let her
demand a totally generous, livable peace out of Elizabeth - so Manticorans and Havenites can finally quit killing one another - or if it fails, let Haven surrender and get Haven to accept that.
And you want to condemn her for taking that chance.
Pritchart agrees to try and solve the situation in her own backyard by killing Manticorans by the thousands yet again. And she does it two times.
It might fit her role and "responsibility" to Haven, but she remains guilty, imho, in the grand scale of things.
All right. I'm afraid I can't quite see the same grand scheme you can.
The only problem here is that at the time the Beatrice is launched, Manticore wasn't being reasonable. They in fact were not even listening, and were totally unwilling to listen. When one side won't talk, it is hard to have a conversation of any sort.
As I said before, by that time Manticore has very valid reasons to show that attitude. Reasons understood, acknowledged and explained by Pritchart
herself.
If anyone should be expected to go the extra mile, as I said, it's Haven, not Manticore.
She knows Haven is in the wrong on a score of levels, and the new Manty missiles give her even a real reason (even for public consumption) to consider the surrender as a serious option.
But she prefers to go for the brutal victory, whatever the costs.
They've got some 400 SD(P)'s they can afford to throw at Manticore right now. If they do that, and win, it's all over. Given that, they
don't have a reason for public consumption that will pass muster in the Senate. So she "prefers" to go for the decisive victory - or, heck, decisive defeat - that'd make for a peace possibility too - things are only even much worse if she gets neither.
You may remember who'd died recently at Solon before suggesting she's discounting the costs. Really.
I'm not seeing the compelling moral case that can be made there, unless it's a blanket one for pacifism. You're welcome to make that one, if you like, but that doesn't sound like the one you mean to make.
It's not "pacifism" per se. I've never been pacifist in that sense. Unlike Houseman, I think Manticore has every right and reason to pursue a full military victory.
Haven never had that right, and Pritchart knows it perfectly well.
They're at war. It's a war that Haven's current government has been trying to
end, one that the last two Manticoran ones have been content to continue. Pritchart is trying to end the war on just, generous terms - she's just trying to get the Manticorans to stop it and listen. But yes, go on, ignore that, ignore it all. Ignore what's supposed to happen going forward. Ignore all the worthless Havenite lives lost - millions of them have it coming, because they didn't assassinate Harris or St. Just - or if they did, well, they didn't simply surrender unconditionally right then either. Someone, somewhere did something bad with Haven to get "this" started, so everyone identified with Haven is subject to summary death until they surrender unconditionally, and every effort to resist the fullness of that judgment is just more weight on your scales against them.
Gracious, if anyone suspected even Elizabeth Winton had that attitude, it'd be insane for them to surrender.
Of course, I appreciate that Pritchart redeems herself and Theisman when she finally comes to Manticore's help. That's what finally sets them fully, splendidly apart from the previous Havenite leaders - the fact that in the end they do something very substantial in support of the Star Nation they kept hurting for decades (and when they actually could very well do the opposite and finish them off).
It is frankly terrifying that they are not set off in your mind by anything prior to that. To mine, they're already well ahead of Elizabeth Winton and that just leaves Good Queen Bess waving in their dust.
and, Mangy Fur the Smart Alick Spacecat.