4 ms·

> your obtuse fixation Uh huh. You're the one trying to go down a rathole. The point is soldiers have it better than the civilians because they have more choi

> your obtuse fixation Uh huh. You're the one trying to go down a rathole. The point is soldiers have it better than the civilians because they have more choice, more is always better even if it isn't great. > conscripts are obliged to murder the people conscripting them in order to avoid You see, this is you moving the goalposts. This is merely one of the choices, the extreme one. And it's not as much an obligation as a right. Slavers are morally abhorrent and conscripts are slaves. Slaves always have a right to escape and no number of slaver deaths is ever a bad thing. The obligation comes in when they're actually given the illegal orders as nothing forgives the crimes they commit. Ultimately all responsibility for their actions is theirs. > hypothetical future scenario in which they might be ordered to kill civilians In the Vietnam example that wasn't hypothetical - it was evening news. And the war was started on false information from our own government so it wasn't legitimate even if the targets were military. > Sorry, but taking out the word "easily" You aren't sorry, the whole "easily" was your invention in the first place. > doesn't make the argument that prospective conscripts have more agency Actually, it does. In the American wars where we've drafted people the draftees have always had considerable rights (travel, etc) before actually being inducted. And certainly more than the Vietnamese - even taking wealth into account. > can buy a civilian firearm (unlike civilians [in the victim country]?!) Had Americans taken up arms to stop the war it would have stopped without going to Vietnam, or would have come home quickly. If Vietnamese had taken up arms ... we'd have burned their entire village to the ground anyways. Our conscripts have more agency. > any less silly. Or any less right. > And no, soldiers generally ordered to follow a particular course of action on pain of death At worst they're holding a gun. They can take their officer out - the one ordering the illegal actions, rather than performing the illegal actions. And they usually have a lot of advance warning before being inducted, let alone shot at. Time to flee, or shoot themselves in the foot, or just protest and go to jail, or - yes - to fight back at home rather than abroad. But if you force the discussion to the ridiculous point where they're already on the battlefield, being ordered to fire into a village, before they consider any of this, then yes they're morally required to go to ridiculously painful lengths to avoid killing. If someone kidnaps you and orders you to kill someone else, or he'll kill you, you're still morally and legally culpable if you pull the trigger. Why do you think soldiers shouldn't be held to the same standard?

notahacker 11y ago
That's an awfully longwinded way of continuing to assert the obvious falsehood that civilians generally have less opportunity to flee war zones or imminent death on the front line than conscripted soldiers. If your argument relies on the edge case of a country doing the conscripting being a liberal democracy thousands of miles from the actual fighting and the countries where the civilians are based not to have any natural refugee escape routes to even start to make sense, it probably isn't a good one. And yes, I'm pretty sure that even then the average American soldier's experience of combat was more unpleasant than the average Vietnamese civilian's wartime experience, and I'm pretty sure I've listened to and read more Vietnamese accounts of the war than you. It's nice of you to reiterate the largely irrelevant point that soldiers shouldn't shoot civilians in the unlikely event of them receiving an order to (unless the civilians are slavers?) so for the avoidance of doubt I agree that shooting civilians is bad. I'm afraid I can't go down your ratholes any further than that because I'm still none the wiser as to whether your argument that soldiers have greater agency to avoid bloodbaths because "at worst they're holding a gun" and possess the option to "fight back at home" before they even join up is actually intended to be taken seriously...
- EdHominem 11y ago
  > That's an awfully longwinded way Of you dodging such a obvious truth, I agree. > If your argument relies on the edge case of a country doing the conscripting being a liberal democracy thousands of miles from the actual fighting Yeah, only the wars my liberal democracy has participated in, all of which have been thousands of miles from home. What an edge case! > countries where the civilians are based not to have any natural refugee escape routes By your reckoning there were escape routes from Vietnam so nobody was actually killed! > I'm pretty sure that even then the average American soldier's experience of combat was more unpleasant than the average Vietnamese civilian's wartime experience Even if you were right the point is the soldier's agency in choosing a better future. Peasants have very little, the soldiers have much more at every stage especially the beginning. An american soldier could choose to go home at any time "simply" by refusing to fight and being sentenced to, at most, twenty years in prison. Their family wouldn't be face retribution or anything. Ask someone about to be burnt to death with their family which they'd prefer. > I'm pretty sure I've listened to and read more Vietnamese accounts of the war than you. You can't read the memoirs of the dead. > because I'm still none the wiser That would require not trying to dodge the point. > as to whether your argument that soldiers have greater agency Draftees, particularly before they become soldiers. And it's a fact, not an argument, in all modern cases in my country. > actually intended to be taken seriously Oh gosh, of course not. It troubles you so of course it was meant for you to dismissively chuckle at in passing. No more.

notahacker 11y ago

That's an awfully longwinded way of continuing to assert the obvious falsehood that civilians generally have less opportunity to flee war zones or imminent death on the front line than conscripted soldiers. If your argument relies on the edge case of a country doing the conscripting being a liberal democracy thousands of miles from the actual fighting and the countries where the civilians are based not to have any natural refugee escape routes to even start to make sense, it probably isn't a good one. And yes, I'm pretty sure that even then the average American soldier's experience of combat was more unpleasant than the average Vietnamese civilian's wartime experience, and I'm pretty sure I've listened to and read more Vietnamese accounts of the war than you. It's nice of you to reiterate the largely irrelevant point that soldiers shouldn't shoot civilians in the unlikely event of them receiving an order to (unless the civilians are slavers?) so for the avoidance of doubt I agree that shooting civilians is bad. I'm afraid I can't go down your ratholes any further than that because I'm still none the wiser as to whether your argument that soldiers have greater agency to avoid bloodbaths because "at worst they're holding a gun" and possess the option to "fight back at home" before they even join up is actually intended to be taken seriously...

EdHominem 11y ago
> That's an awfully longwinded way Of you dodging such a obvious truth, I agree. > If your argument relies on the edge case of a country doing the conscripting being a liberal democracy thousands of miles from the actual fighting Yeah, only the wars my liberal democracy has participated in, all of which have been thousands of miles from home. What an edge case! > countries where the civilians are based not to have any natural refugee escape routes By your reckoning there were escape routes from Vietnam so nobody was actually killed! > I'm pretty sure that even then the average American soldier's experience of combat was more unpleasant than the average Vietnamese civilian's wartime experience Even if you were right the point is the soldier's agency in choosing a better future. Peasants have very little, the soldiers have much more at every stage especially the beginning. An american soldier could choose to go home at any time "simply" by refusing to fight and being sentenced to, at most, twenty years in prison. Their family wouldn't be face retribution or anything. Ask someone about to be burnt to death with their family which they'd prefer. > I'm pretty sure I've listened to and read more Vietnamese accounts of the war than you. You can't read the memoirs of the dead. > because I'm still none the wiser That would require not trying to dodge the point. > as to whether your argument that soldiers have greater agency Draftees, particularly before they become soldiers. And it's a fact, not an argument, in all modern cases in my country. > actually intended to be taken seriously Oh gosh, of course not. It troubles you so of course it was meant for you to dismissively chuckle at in passing. No more.