Thread: Ordered murder
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Old 07-02-2012, 06:05 PM   #16
Benjamin Green
Join Date: Jul 2010
Posts: 43
Scotland
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Re: Ordered murder

If it's a lawful order, then I'll shoot them; if it's them or me, then I'll shoot them; if it's them or my mate, then I'll shoot them; if I think they're going to become a threat, then I'll shoot them; if they're in the way, and they're not civilians, then I'll shoot them.

If it's an unlawful order, then you can shoot them yourself if you want them dead so bad.

You might debate over the morality of joining the military - but, by the time you're actually out there, you'd better have made up your mind that you're going to be fine with killing anyone who you think's a threat, or stands a reasonable chance of becoming one. Wars aren't a great place for soul searching and moral revelations

Never let it become personal. If you find yourself in some god-forsaken place, and the killing starts, just do your job and never feel sorry for it. They were going to do it to you too.

Personally, I've never drawn much of a distinction between the economic / political system and its military consequences. It makes no difference to me whether people are ending up dead because of something I do with a credit card or a gun. Whether it's poverty or war that does them in, they're just as dead. Even in just impoverishing a man, or refusing to help him, there's the same underlying reckless intent: My interests before yours.

People can't comfortably live any other way.

That's how I've thought about it for as long as I can remember. Growing up, having reasoned along those lines, a generalised and extreme reluctance to kill has always seemed a matter of taste, rather than anything of moral consequence. How greedy are you? How selfish? Those are the underlying questions and they're not confined to warfare. Just because someone has no taste for killing face to face doesn't make it any more than a taste for a different style of selfishness.
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