If you were motivated to take up arms

[Ignoramus]

If you lived in Israel or Lebanon, and you were so outraged by the situation based on your pro/anti perspective that you took up arms to defend your people, you would not be much different than you are now, except that you would be contributing to the violence.

I don't hate people for their perspective, yet I can imagine it being possible to be moved to arms out of fear or rage.

I think that normal people like you and me commit the violent acts, and it's the act that is the problem, not the people. Whether your perspective is right or wrong, you are still a good person, your act of violence is what is wrong.

In other words, it's not going to be possible to find the "bad guys" and make thems stop. The bad guys are all of us and our violent reactions.

[MadMaddie]

1. Good Guys will fight to protect themselves and their families

Technically you would be contributing to the violence....but you would be protecting your life and your famlies life....not much of a choice if you ask me?

[Minstrel Boy]

2. I can appreciate the sentiment, but

sometimes the alternative to taking up arms to defend one's people is to watch them die, and then die in turn.

Would you say the Polish cavalry who rode out to meet the Panzers, and the Polish Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto who sniped at German officers "contributed to violence"?

The psychological reductionism of the bad guys is us is an inadequate response to history.

[MadMaddie]

3. You said it better than I did...

you are right....

[Spider Jerusalem]

4. But what about taking up arms to defend home and family...

when you're fighting on what may be the wrong side? Case in point: my 3rd great-grandfather was a Confederate soldier. He was a farmer in Georgia, didn't own any slaves, seems to've been more or less apolitical, and he stayed out of the army until May of 1864 (at which time he was 46), when Sherman was burning and pillaging his way to the sea (and his home was right in the path of that march). So, was he an honourable man fighting for a dishonourable cause out of necessity?

And what about the German defence battalions of teenaged boys and old men who fought the Soviet advance in the spring of 1945? Where do they fall on the scale?

I agree that the question is too fraught with comlplexities and shadings and tinctures of grey to make an absolutist black-and-white statement of morality, but it's also even more complex than you've made it out to be.

[Minstrel Boy]

5. you're right of course

Perhaps complexity is the first casualty of war.

The more simplistic the morality, the more likely a great many people will die needless deaths.

[OwnedByFerrets]

7. This discussion and

the very good responses to it bring to mind one of the biggest differences between Democrats and Republicans. The Repugs see all things as black and white. We progressives understand that almost every issue has vast shades of grey and is rarely purely B/W.

[xchrom]

8. to a certain extent -- the world did hold both the people

of germany and japan culpable for the crimes of their governments.

we come close to this discussion in our own armed forces where it is illegal for a soldier to carry out an order that he/she knows to be wrong.

[Ignoramus]

6. I left out the notions of defense and justice

But, I don't think they conflict with my point.

If you fight the invaders or captors, you are defending yourself. The invaders or captors are not the bad guys, in the sense that they are bad people. They are good people that are in a position where they are committing acts you have to defend yourself against.

Again, it's the action that is the problem, not the people.

The significance of the distinction is that if the invaders or captors are from another country or another group, and people around you and in the other country/group say there is a war between the two countries/groups, it's wrong to think that that you are defending yourself if you kill people just because they are from that other country/group.

The issue of justice is significant in that, agreeing to be pacified does not amount to peace. There won't be peace, as much as there isn't justice in a situation. So, expecting or pressing for people to accept an unjust situation is impractical.

Another way to say that is there isn't usually an equal playing ground in conflicts. If there is a dynamic with respect to injustice, one party has the ability to give justice and the other does not. In a conflict between a government and a population, the population can't give justice to the government, only the government can give justice to the population as it is the system of justice.

I made another post about an analogy between I/P and the attica prison riots that describes that idea:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=1733968

[readmoreoften]

9. Most of the time that's the case. Sometimes its not.

In Nazi Germany, the people who ran the camps were the bad guys. We can put a period at the end of that sentence. Many people would say that those who fought in the army were not "bad guys", they were just duped etc. But there were many Germans who lost their lives fighting against the regime. Were these people not "good guys"? Were they neutral people who acted morally in the moment. I would argue that their own sacrifice and commitment made them transcendent. To a degree, you are what you do. Those "good Nazis" made a choice not to fight against the regime. And maybe that makes them bad people. Maybe most of us are bad people by that criteria. But it still might be true.

Still, I agree with much of your argument.

[Ignoramus]

10. Soldier vs. Commander and Guard vs. Warden

are just issues of power.

There are the two problems there: actions that can be good or bad, and conditions that can be just or unjust. A person running a concentration camp isn't a Villain to be glorified, they are some pathetic schmuck (a confused person) in a position to serve as a conduit for injustice.

It's not good to cherish perfect images of evil.

On the other extreme, the person making great sacrifices to fight the nazis is only transcendently good because we agree with his position. If he were fighting for the nazis somewhere where he had to make the same sacrifices, he wouldn't be transcendently good, because we don't agree with his position. It's the action that is good or bad, not the person.

The distinction between Soldier and Commander is a good one, in that it brings up the notion of justice as opposed to simple right and wrong.

[readmoreoften]

11. I'm not talking about soldiers. I'm talking about people who stood up...

to the regime. Who spoke out in the streets. Who killed no one. Moral strength does exist in the world. Sorry, postmodern relativism will only go so far with me. And I'm not glorifying evil. If anything, I know as well as anyone else that evil is banal, particularly banal in fact. In fact, more so when the actor is not a sociopath. I think ethics are situational, but not entirely relative in a postmodern sense. I have very little sympathy for pathetic shmucks who murder for state power, either, by the way. I think that persons can do things that are either good or bad. I also think that at some point the dancer and the dance become indistinguishable.