“A Freedom House rating of ‘7’ should therefore be a decisive indication that no regime can legitimately sell resources from that country.” (p.25) His examples of countries that score a 7 are: Burma, North Korea, Somalia, and Sudan (on the civil liberties list) and Burma, Equatorial Guinea, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, and Zimbabwe (on the political rights list).”

What’s the statute of limitations for simple theft, as in the case of Empire. Does the law cover the expropriation of land from the native americans? The Balkans? Ireland? Does it cover Palestine?
What the authors of these absurdities fail or refuse to understand is that there is no one definition of justice, there is only the possibility of acceptable shared definitions. Justice systems, like tax systems, only function within systems of representation. Without representation, they’re perceived as tyrannical.

In the discussion of Cambodia and the Vietnamese invasion, the argument against invasion, as bad precedent, is superior in legal terms. The fact that a neighbor went in and overthrew the government is probably for the best. The fact that a country halfway around the world did not see as their obligation, or that others reminded them that it wasn’t, is also for the best.

Laws do not make communities, communities make laws. Liberals and Libertarians replace communities with laws, both fail.

“Justice, like taxation, without representation is tyranny”
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
Liberal and libertarian legal theory claims to be the search for non-foolish consistency, often claiming to be based on it.
That’s both foolish and often criminally self-serving,
This is empirically obvious, but rationalist rationalize.
Nothing stops them. Ever.