24454: Durban (reply): to Kondrat (24447) and Morse (24438 ) (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Lance Durban <lpdurban@yahoo.com>

I've just been re-reading Graham Greene's "The Comedians" and I
hear more than a little bit of Mr. Smith in Peter Kondrat's
response (#24448) to Richard Morse on the importance of
following constitutionally-approved methods when removing of a
president.

In Greene's 1965 classic (set in a hotel inspired by Richard
Morse' Oloffson, no less), Mr. Smith, the pacifist, vegetarian,
Presidential Candidate, has great difficulty grasping the fact
that in Duvalier's Haiti, laws are made and broken on a whim by
brutal people in power.   OK, call me a comedian, but "the
Enlightenment thinkers, Rousseau, Jefferson and those guys" as
Kondrat puts it never made it to Haiti.

President Aristide was hardly a model of constitutional probity,
using "The Law" when needed and ignoring it when it proved
inconvenient.  Seems a bit churlish to be complaining when
others decided to do the same.

Lance Durban