12-08-2018, 04:10 AM
(12-07-2018, 06:10 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: I just can't understand how anyone can excuse a murderous tyrant like Assad except "he may be a brute, but he is our brute". Even that excuse usually implodes at some time.
It is just tribal thinking. Assad would only be brutal towards people who he does not consider to be part of his tribe. He would not consider people who oppose him to count, that morality does not apply to them.
The Enlightenment virtues of equality and human rights do not apply to an autocratic leader. He might be perfectly a nice guy to members of his tribe, and a brutal autocrat at the same time.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.