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Genocide is barbaric even in a time of war. Killing enemy soldiers is normal in war but a crime in peace, while an agreement is in place. You wish to apply the rules of peace and tell me I shouldn’t target enemy soldiers because that would make me just as bad as them. And of course if there was an agreement in place it would be an atrocity. But this agreement having been shredded by the enemy, we are in a state of war.
Yes, I anticipate your objection that that is what both sides would accuse the other side of. The thing about being an adult is you have to weigh the evidence and make a choice. At the very least if you abstain from making it, you should take the Scott Alexander route and admit you are doing it for your own good (TheMotte statement, Kolgomorov) instead of dressing it up as superior morality above the petty squabbles between left and right.
Who ended federalism (violation 1) and then overrode the legislature of the national population (violation 2)? Who unleashed violent actors to terrorise it’s enemies and cleanse them from urban life?
These are not at all hard questions.
You're right. That is what the other side would accuse you of. I'm not buying it from them, and I don't buy it from you either. I don't care to listen to the warmongers on the left or on the right.
Would it be fair to say that your morality is downstream of a religious world view that in effect dismisses the entirety of the material world as mere testing grounds for «good character»? Taken together with your harm-OCD-like beliefs on account of sinful thoughts, that's the best case for you that I can make.
Because otherwise it makes no sense at all. You commit to losing wars and surrendering the world to people who do not share your compunctions, much less your positive vision. This is cowardly betrayal of good, justified by a pathetic veneer of false symmetry.
No.
If that's what you think, then you have failed to understand me. I am not of the belief that one should simply roll over and surrender to evil. I simply believe that victory is not the most important thing, and I'm not willing to compromise my morals to achieve it. That doesn't mean I give up forever, it means I try to achieve victory through means I find acceptable.
But you have not communicated even a slight interest in victory – in this thread, you jump at every chance to smugly equate people «on your side» and people who clearly deny everything you stand for, including the belief that victory is not paramount, just because it makes you feel better about your moral purity. It is not clear what, if anything, you are willing to sacrifice to make the world more in line with your values. Not even low-grade entertainment?
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