By the way: while cruising other blogs for comment, I ran across this, by far the best and most pithy answer to the post-9-11 breast-beating that we were the authors of our own fate (not saying it was written with that in mind).

If by our acts we brought this tragedy upon ourselves, then had we acted differently we would not have. Which means that we have a paternalistic obligation to control how everyone else in the world behaves, through our acts towards them. They will merely react to us; all responsibility is here. We are the only moral thinking people on earth and thus the only ones who can sin. If we can only bring ourselves to be sufficiently kind and generous to them, then they will live good lives. They are innocent, they cannot know sin, for they are not sufficiently sophisticated to do so. They are less than we are.

Acknowledgement: Steven Den Beste at denbeste.nu.
- posted by Dactyl @ 9:06 AM