In the Summa Theologica, St. Thomas Aquinas argues:

I answer that, In order for a war to be just, three things are necessary. First, the authority of the sovereign by whose command the war is to be waged. For it is not the business of a private individual to declare war, because he can seek for redress of his rights from the tribunal of his superior. Moreover it is not the business of a private individual to summon together the people, which has to be done in wartime. And as the care of the common weal is committed to those who are in authority, it is their business to watch over the common weal of the city, kingdom or province subject to them. And just as it is lawful for them to have recourse to the sword in defending that common weal against internal disturbances, when they punish evil-doers, according to the words of the Apostle (Rm. 13:4): “He beareth not the sword in vain: for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil”; so too, it is their business to have recourse to the sword of war in defending the common weal against external enemies. Hence it is said to those who are in authority (Ps. 81:4): “Rescue the poor: and deliver the needy out of the hand of the sinner”; and for this reason Augustine says (Contra Faust. xxii, 75): “The natural order conducive to peace among mortals demands that the power to declare and counsel war should be in the hands of those who hold the supreme authority.”

Thirdly, it is necessary that the belligerents should have a rightful intention, so that they intend the advancement of good, or the avoidance of evil. Hence Augustine says (De Verb. Dom. [*The words quoted are to be found not in St. Augustine's works, but Can. Apud. Caus. xxiii, qu. 1]): “True religion looks upon as peaceful those wars that are waged not for motives of aggrandizement, or cruelty, but with the object of securing peace, of punishing evil-doers, and of uplifting the good.” For it may happen that the war is declared by the legitimate authority, and for a just cause, and yet be rendered unlawful through a wicked intention. Hence Augustine says (Contra Faust. xxii, 74): “The passion for inflicting harm, the cruel thirst for vengeance, an unpacific and relentless spirit, the fever of revolt, the lust of power, and such like things, all these are rightly condemned in war.”You seem hung-up on the lives of teenagers. Many of our own soldiers are teenagers. Historically, armies were full of young men who were merely 14. Childhood and the angst of being a teen is the invention of the post Victorian period. The world is chock-a-block full of families headed by 15 year olds who have been toiling for survival for years. They have no time for childhood.

St. Thomas is speaking of war, but you can read his words and understand the effects of piracy on the international system of peaceful trade.

Have you any concern over your blessed “teenagers” attempting to take a ship laden with a cargo of donated food for starving nations?

If you wish to be a total pacifist, so be it. But you make a curious argument for pacifism. Just today, another teenager shot an rpg at a ship which pierced its hull and resulted in a fire.

Please bring your spirited defense of these teenagers forth. It will make for fascinating reading and a chance to learn just how your mind works. Meanwhile, I suggest you go to Morocco, Peru, Laos, Indonesia, India, Mexico or a myriad other places and get a reality check on “teenagers.”

Thankfully, the Navy Seals recognized that wasn’t the time for mercy. We have an alive captain to thank for that.

Ashpenaz, perhaps they could have, if they didn’t have a hostage on board. It seems to me that the goal of the Navy Seals was to save the captain, the quickest and safest way possible. That was paramount in this case.

Valuing the life of the pirates as much as the captain would have greatly increased the chances of the captain losing his life. Not a fair exchange under the circumstances.

If the pirates had the same view of life as you had, they would still be alive today. And I still don’t get why “black” has anything to do with this. Are you suggesting if, everything else being equal, but the pirates were white, this would have been handled differently?

I think their lives are just as valuable as the hostage–again, please refer to Pope above.

If that’s what the Pope believes, I’ll have to disagree. Their lives were just as valuable as the hostage, until the point they took the hostage. At that point, the value of their lives, by necessity, dropped considerably.

Where did you hear that? On the broadcast through the fillings in your teeth?

Nope. That was the position of the liberal left during those elections.

Nope, don’t remember it. Are you having a flashback again?

Again, that was a demand of many liberals repeated incessantly.

Your patron saint and closet case Rush Limbaugh, the de facto head of your party, has been rooting for the president’s failure from the very start.

Yes, you are a tool. I know this, but that doesn’t exempt you from reading what I wrote. Despite popular belief, Chairman Obama is not America. The desire for Il Douche to fail is a desire for America to succeed. He doesn’t WANT America to succeed himself, based on what he’s done so far. What liberals don’t get is that we will succeed IN SPITE of Il Douche. If he would shut up and get the hell out of our way, we could do a hell of a lot better without him.

Where did you hear that? On the broadcast through the fillings in your teeth?

Remember when liberals demanded that Bush lead our soldiers on the battlefield?

Nope, don’t remember it. Are you having a flashback again?

Nobody’s placing any “bets” against our own country.

Your patron saint and closet case Rush Limbaugh, the de facto head of your party, has been rooting for the president’s failure from the very start.

It also means accepting the consequences for one’s actions. In this case, it was 3 rounds, after a bit of waiting.

Being conservative does not mean, as Glenn Beck says, putting a bullet in the center of some teenager’s head. Being conservative involves knowing when to show mercy.

I am quite sure you and I stand on opposite sides of that divide I referred to previously, and the fundamental difference between us is that I am willing to listen beyond hearing, see beyond looking, and LEARN rather than sitting in my own little corner of “reality” complaining about everyone and everything that does not fit my own perception of how things “should” be in this world. I feel no need to apologize for who and what I am, how I think, what I believe, and if someone does not like what they see, they are free to look the other way. You need to take responsibility for cleaning up your own manure-spreader mentality (that would be a farming reference, BTW), because I am tired of digging through the piles trying to find you.

I don’t know what you want me to tell you. Why don’t you take your own advice and look the other way? I don’t care about what you’re here to do, and I don’t care what you think about my tone or my personality disorders or my pathology or anything else — except your political arguments, which I haven’t seen you offer up at all. People that clutter up politics forums with stylistic critiques or over-the-internet psychological diagnoses are the most boring people in the world. Have a good one.

Ashpenaz, when you expressed this view in another thread, I thought, like Livewire, it was tongue in cheek.

After replying to him earlier, it occured to me that he could have been sarcastic. Now I’m disappointed that he’s serious.

And why the hang up on race, Ashpenaz?

Remember when liberals demanded that Bush lead our soldiers on the battlefield? Why won’t Il Douche? Or does that standard not apply?

Another bit of confusion is how we were told that the hostage situation was a “distraction” and that Il Douche was busy with other things. Then, of course, there was SoS Hillary laughing it off. Now we’re told that he was all over it, following it closely, letting it drag on for days.

The great thing about all this is that the public sees the wingers for what they are. You have no ideas, and you’ve been rooting for failure from the very start. It’s a bad idea, on a number of levels, to place your bets against your own country. Some gay “patriots” you are.

Nobody’s placing any “bets” against our own country. That’s why we hope Il Douche’s policies fail BECAUSE they will destroy the country. What good does it do our country to blindly follow a bumbling idiot who runs around, even to other countrys, proclaiming “America sucks!”? Supporting a President who takes over private companies, fires their CEO without consulting Congress or even their board doesn’t do America a whole hell of a lot of good either. Nor does adding $140 billion to our debt by contributing to the IMF, without consulting Congress.

Nationalizing healthcare with even more waste and fraud that Medicare/Medicaid isn’t going to do us much good. Inciting hatred and harrassment against individual citizens doesn’t do us much good either. I can go on and on, but the bottom line is that we’re far better gay patriots than you could ever pretend to be, TL.

Ashpenaz, when you expressed this view in another thread, I thought, like Livewire, it was tongue in cheek.

I look at this and similar situations this way. You have a bunch of thugs who hold someone innocent, and whose life and limb is clearly at risk. While that is going on, I hold the victim’s life in high regard, and zero value to the lives of the thugs.

In fact, let’s say there are two possible options. 1) Kill the thugs in a way that does not harm the victim. 2) Somehow, there is a way to free the victim while not having to kill the thugs, but it will require five more minutes of prep time.

I choose option 1. Because that 5 minutes of earlier freedom for the victim, to me, is worth 1,000,000 times the lives of those thugs.

Regards,
Peter H.

You claim I am trying to “derail a thread,” but I thought the topic here was the differences between reactions to the other side by left and right; then again, perhaps that is just my own asininity speaking, since I fall more in the middle with a rightward tilt and neither specifically left nor right. On the other hand, you believe yourself to be “on topic” by telling the author his writings are “crazy,” that you need to “set [him] straight,” and that “there isn’t anything in this that’s right.” I suppose that could be interpreted as “on topic,” as it demonstrates the glaringly obvious contempt the left holds for the right and the inherent inability of those on the left to attribute any merit to what those on the right (or in the middle) have to say.

Expressing opinions and sharing ideas, you are not. Your above-referenced statements are about as “sharing” as Shepherd Smith bringing Ralph Nader on air to “give him time” with the intent not to “share” but to attack and demand an apology for calling The O an Uncle Tom (even though he did not); or perhaps as “sharing” as Fortney Stark standing on the floor of the House deriding Dave Camp and Eric Cantor’s amendment as “wrong-headed” when they proposed an alternative to the infamous Porkulus spending spree, even though it could have created twice as many jobs at half the cost. Gaining another perspective different from your own (to me, anyhow) also includes considering the merits of that perspective and not simply ridiculing or dismissing it.

The fact that you claim to gain “pleasure” from this exercise lends credibility to my “diagnosis” of your personality disorder. If you have not already done so, might I suggest scheduling an appointment with a mental health professional? You seem to be in need of some Haldol – stat.

People like you are the reason I refrain from linking my own site with my name in comments or asking for reciprocation on blog rolling – I need the aggravation of visits from you about as much as I need a hemorrhoid. I have confidence that if site administrators are interested in what I have to say beyond the comments I leave, they will find me. You, on the other hand, leave me wondering why it is *you* fail to leave a link.

I am quite sure you and I stand on opposite sides of that divide I referred to previously, and the fundamental difference between us is that I am willing to listen beyond hearing, see beyond looking, and LEARN rather than sitting in my own little corner of “reality” complaining about everyone and everything that does not fit my own perception of how things “should” be in this world. I feel no need to apologize for who and what I am, how I think, what I believe, and if someone does not like what they see, they are free to look the other way. You need to take responsibility for cleaning up your own manure-spreader mentality (that would be a farming reference, BTW), because I am tired of digging through the piles trying to find you.

Speaking for myself, I would say that it would behoove any fair-minded conservative to give Obama the same kind of respect and behavior that your side exhibited when GWB was in the White House.

Regards,
Peter H.

Your websites, including this one, have been chock full of sentiments like those from Ignatius, who tells us that his praise is “relucant and grudging,” and takes a wait-and-see stance on giving Obama credit. Only if Obama was on the scene, pulling the trigger, would Ignatius think of giving any credit. Except we all know what he’d say then: “Micromanager.”

The great thing about all this is that the public sees the wingers for what they are. You have no ideas, and you’ve been rooting for failure from the very start. It’s a bad idea, on a number of levels, to place your bets against your own country. Some gay “patriots” you are.

Lefties, I don’t hate Obama. Merely because you hate Republicans/conservatives/righties doesn’t mean we hate your politicians. We don’t hold politics and politicians as centrally important in our lives — in fact, quite the opposite — and so we don’t need to worship and hate those in the public sector because our futures (and related aspects such as our self-esteems) do not depend upon them.

What is wrong with our lefties? …this weekend Obama did his job and we are thankful. We have said so… So out come the lefties and scream at us that we actually don’t mean what we said – projection anyone?

Heh. Well Leah, as we’ve seen for years on this blog, too many lefties (by no means all, but, too many) are in fact unpatriotic; some despise all forms of patriotism, and a few even despise the United States as such.

So yeah, projection and displacement. And perhaps a desire to be “on the offensive”, eradicating the memory of all those years when some of them called for the impeachment and/or murder of the President of the United States when he kept us safe, etc. Perhaps like the cheating spouse who diverts attention with bizarre accusations of others cheating. Too bad our local lefties don’t realize how funny they are

They just don’t get it, when they hate – they hate everything about a president. So of course they simply can’t handle the fact that there are times we are so grateful that our president didn’t fail, we actually thank him and praise him when he does what is right.