If a suicide bomber gets shot before he is able to blow himself up in a crowd should I not be happy? Should I feel bad for the suicide bomber because he was a merely product of his environment?
Should I feel bad for the fighter pilot blown out of the sky, the tank getting hit by an ATGM or the soldiers under artillery fire? If they don‘t get killed the alternative will be much worse. They will bomb, massacre and rape countless innocent people before they finally subjugate the survivors. Fuck yeah, I am happy they don‘t get to do that.
People are people my man. You think there’s any difference between a German soldier in 1940, a slave-owning American in 1855, or Ron Desantis human trafficking dozens of refugees last week? It’s all the same shit. The wars fought and beliefs that were held for 95% of human history back this up.
I don’t know that there is a ton of value in comparing the relative degrees of evil of a Nazi, a slaveowner, and Ron Desantis. I do know that there is value in condemning Nazi soldiers. Sure, all human beings are capable of great evil. But they actually committed and supported great evil. They should be condemned. They should not be apologized for, “Because they’re only human.”
This was the original post that I took (and still take) strong issue with:
Yes, we could absolutely have a fascinating discussion about how human beings are capable of great evil, in the right circumstances. There have been all sorts of experiments that have proved that, like the Stanford Prison experiment, etc. I would agree with you on this point!
But that’s not what Micro said. He said we shouldn’t “blame” the Nazi soldiers. That is just fucking wrong. Everyone is capable of great evil, it’s often human nature, but when people commit great evil you absolutely should blame them for it.. What you definitely should not do, is apologize for it, minimize it, or hand-wave it away because anyone could have done it.
The conversation then proceeded into a straw man argument about whether or not it was feasible to lock up all the German soldiers, something that I never said we should have done.
Many or most of the reasons you have for not blaming US veterans of the Vietnam invasion, apply just as well to today’s Russian soldiers. Volunteers and conscripts alike.
This isn’t whataboutism, because I’m saying you’re mostly CORRECT to not blame the US veterans. There’s something preventing you from extending the same logic to people who were born outside the West.
i take it you are not exposed to the russian side in the conflict, which dehumanized ukrainians prior and during the invasion (here’s a short list of the terms they use at every opportunity: ukrop, nazik, fashist, navoz, khokhol, svinopas, svin’i, narkoman). or the cultural inequities that russian culture perpetuates about its minorities, and foments an acceptance of ethnic hate that enabled these crimes against humanity.
and yes, it is important to disclaimer that NOT ALL RUSSIANS support the war, even if they were afraid to protest vocally. teh vocal part supporting putin’s regime is a minority, and the rest are resisting from both inside russia and abroad.
oh really, capt even keel? is it over the top to feel overwhelming outrage over commanders who ordered their units to kill civilians in Bucha and Izyum, which the units then executed, and were given commendations for? and even knowing all that has happened, it is over the top for expect decent people to refuse to serve in any way possible?
it would be understandable if you were addressing the modern Stefan Zweig, but you are not. your address is to those who support defending ukraine, and especially those who are bringing death to an invader, even as they still face greater military might. 7 months in, it’s no longer a case of poor conscripts who simply weren’t told they are entering ukraine. if you get foolled, you can’t get fooled again. or something.
this is projection. maybe you can’t allow yourself to feel dark humor because then you’d feel like a sadist. but i don’t feel excited about any of the videos, benny hill music or not. it’s a daily struggle to find focus time away from images of dead bodies, or guilt for being spared from witnessing it first hand. a part of me wants to believe i remember the ww2 generation in then-ussr working hard to not impart the horrors of war onto the boomers and their children. lessons that a good brainwashing and rewriting of history simply erased in the 2010s for many.
it is humans who started this war, sometimes cynically calling their victims to accept their fate as “brothers”, while dehumanizing them in a different forum. they all had agency, even when they didn’t believe there was any other choice. but here they are talking like orcs, fighting like orcs, etc. it is complete dogshit what propaganda and repressions did to supposedly the legacy of tolstoy and tchaikovsky. that legacy existed ofc, but it was a minute fraction of what made the nation.
like i said before, russians participating in the invasion dehumanized themselves. does that “blame the masses”? the masses that folllowed a demented old crank? ok, i’ll have to live with that. frankly, no russian dissident that i have listened to believes that russia as a country can redeem itself without going through “collective guilt” like germany went through.
It is actually INCORRECT to not blame US soldiers for things like the Iraq and Vietnam war. The reason we don’t blame them in reality as fellow citizens is because we are in complicit in their actions.
Would be insane to say it is wrong for US soldiers that carpet bombed Cambodia to stand trial, what logical moral theory would deny that result? Him not standing trial is simply a case of might makes right, no more, no less. Us US citizens have no moral ground to prosecute him because we collectively sent him there and instructed him to do it, and no other citizens of the world have the practical means to prosecute him.
And on top of this outrageous injustice, we want to tone police the Vietnamese, Iraqis and their allies when 1 in 100 of our pilots receive their comeuppance and get shot down? GMAFB!
I got reprimanded in 7th grade for saying bad things about God-President David Cop-a-feel and Iraq I in an argument with a trust fund kid who was later disowned by her family for not voting GOP. Tough scene out there.
Maybe I’m biased but the Ukranian War somehow seems even stupider and crueler than the Iraq war but yes, either way, they are both deserving of criticism.
So why don’t we personally abuse skydiver? Because “we” supported sending her there so how the f am I going to single her out. US society as a whole deserves the blame for it just as Russian society as whole deserves blame for the Ukranian war.
As much as Russian soldiers deserve blame for their actions, for the vast majority of them their parents and grandparents deserve even more blame for the society they have created to get to this result.
Talking about Ukraine in the Ukraine thread while things are happening in Ukraine is not making a statement that it cannot or has not happened to the US, and to castigate one’s forum enemies for their inferior moral standing and ideological inconsistency simply because they’re talking about something else at the time isn’t insightful. It’s just being a nuisance.
You can use whatever weasel words you want, like how “we” are susceptible to thinking the US isn’t capable of atrocity (except obviously you’re not, because you’re the one reminding us not to do it). If you don’t think anyone here actually thinks it couldn’t happen here, then there is no reason for you to have chimed in with your take at all.
Welcome to the forum not at all suspiciously timed new account! I was referring specifically to failing to blame Nazi Soldiers. Not Russians, not the US in Vietnam, fucking Nazis. This isn’t hard.
ETA: What is your opinion on whether Putin is going to attack Ukraine? On an unrelated topic, do you think Trump was trying to seize power?
