Because being a victim requires a wrong committed against them, this wrong means the victim has the moral authority to seek redress. That is a principled, consistent and rational position based on freedom.
Sure, a victim has a moral claim to seek redress, but should they be granted special powers? After the Dunblane shootings in Scotland the families' victims were granted near supra-executive powers to re-write the laws on gun ownership. Not through any democratic or constitutional mechanism, but because of emotional media campaigns putting the victims effectively in change of legislation.
That's my general point about the limits of moral authority & power. With regard to Mrs Sheehan, if she is claiming victimhood simply because the WMD prospectus for war was faked, then she has a limited grasp on the historical reality of false 'causus belli' regularly deployed by governments to justify launching wars.
If you sign up for the army, you might have to fight and die. You might not agree with the war, or the causes of the war might even be hoaxed, but that's exactly what you have to expect when you sign up.
Why do liars negate the moral authority of victims who dont lie?
They do this by getting away with it. Two huge contemporary lies spring to mind - the Big Lie of the 'Genocide' of Kosovo Albanians, and the Big Lie of the 'Genocide' of the Palestinians. These huge fibs, used to justify the gradual destruction of Serbia and Israel (Goebbels would be delighted at how things are panning out for his enemies these days), simultaneously diminish the real, historically-documented genocides against Jews and Serbs in WW2.
Nazi lies about Germans being 'victims' of a Jewish conspiracy to control the world through proxy great powers is what won them power in the first place. Islamists and their fascist Left allies like George Galloway have reinvigorated this deadly lie, which is why we are at such a perilous stage in history.
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