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Notes -
"If." An interesting choice of word. I have to wonder: are they so bad, or am I being told that the right thing to do is always to be the bigger man, to take the high road, and choose "cooperate" no matter what, by parties who intend to defect against me? After all, superweapons are indeed terrible things, but they are also effective ones, so unilateral disarmament often leaves one staring down the business end of "the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must" eventually, even if one is confidently strong right now.
I mean, I'd really like to keep believing that victimization politics are so bad; that mutual cooperation really is an end that's still possible and still worth striving for; that the values I hold actually weren't instilled in me just to breed a mark, a chump, a sucker. But seeing them defended in ways like this risk cracking my faith.
Edit: to summarize what I would stand for: if something is bad, it's bad, and let us not excuse badness on account of its perpetrators or the act's magnitude being too weak or harmless or unimportant, primarily because that is injustice and corruption in itself, but also because this renders the appearance of weakness or harmlessness or unimportance the currency of power, which is itself corruption.
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