I am genuinely curious why do you think that you have a right to kill someone in war but not outside of it. Like what are the main differences there (unless you are using law as a basis for this)
No worries. War is unavoidable at times - dictators exist, people get desperate, and so on. There are legalities involved, and they are a concern but aren’t my main concern. Morally, there’s a difference to me between killing someone because I hate them and killing someone because I’m a combatant and so are they. There are strict rules to war that help are supposed to keep things largely ethical - I understand war is never going to be “clean”. Policies like rules of engagement, being able to surrender, treatment of POWs, genuinely avoiding targetting civilians (the world could use more of that right now) and stopping when your country tells you to all matter to me.
Soldiers are not asked to make decisions about who they’ll kill (I mean which armies, not rules of engagement), so the individuals are not being relied upon to determine justice. That is a big difference from vigilantism, where a person or mob of people decides who lives and dies. Ideally the leaders of the military and country are making sure war is a necessary last resort and conducted according to rules, and if that isn’t happening then other nations should be condemning and opposing them. It’s like how I think nations need prisons, but I don’t think I should be allowed to take someone hostage because I’m pretty sure they deserve it.
But haven’t you seen countless cases of examples where those strict rules for war have been completely ignored? Russia is just ignoring them completely in Ukraine, Israel is just straight-up conducting a genocide and no western country gives a shit apparently, for the US there are countless cases of shit like the My Lai massacre or the US sponsorships of terrorist organisations in South America…
States are just big systems that exist to give people a monopoly on violence.
Edit: I misunderstood the person’s position. I think others might have as well, so I’m leaving up my response to an idea that unjust wars make vigilantism necessary/moral. However, as near as I can tell that their actual position isn’t “people should be able to kill outside a war”, it’s “why should people ever think killing is moral”.
Russia IS being opposed by to the tune of billions of dollars of support and widespread condemnation for their war of aggression including meaningful economic sanctions and asset seizures. It’s facilitated the killing of just under 700,000 Russian soldiers and tons of equipment according to the Ukrainian government. The only reason NATO won’t deploy troops is because no one wants WW3. Nations are even now considering escalating their support following the deployment of North Koreans.
Israel IS being opposed by huge swathes of the world. If the US (and to a lesser extent other Western countries) weren’t providing diplomatic and military cover for them, they’d have been censured in the UN for decades now and potentially stopped. Long story short, the US is just as at fault for the genocide as Israel due to providing the diplomatic/military means via decades of “blank check” support. US policy doesn’t mean that civilians should start killing Zionists in America and abroad.
I’m not a warmonger, quite the opposite. I won’t take the stance that civilians should believe they have the moral obligation to murder other civilians because wars are sometimes unjust. There are unjust trials. Doesn’t mean people shouldn’t have the right to a trial before they’re killed. There are bad politicians, doesn’t mean all politics should be banned. There are bad marriages. There are bad police. There are bad doctors.
Don’t get me wrong here, I’m totally with you, I’m opposed to violence just as you are. I just extend my opposition to violence a bit further, including violence inflicted by states. I don’t want you to change your opposition to violence, I think that’s great. I’m just asking you to consider whether your exemptions given to states engaging in military conflicts is actually justified
I sincerely apologize then - even if I didn’t resort to insults etc., please forgive my undeniably hostile tone. I’ll edit the response. I’ve been under a lot of fire in this thread for opposing vigilantes, and I mistook your position for one of theirs. I may be mistaken again, but you sound like a pacifist. That is a stance I can empathize with and respect, if not honestly espouse myself. I think sometimes violence is a necessary final resort. I believe in trying to reduce harm in those instances by constraining the violence as described above.
I am genuinely curious why do you think that you have a right to kill someone in war but not outside of it. Like what are the main differences there (unless you are using law as a basis for this)
No worries. War is unavoidable at times - dictators exist, people get desperate, and so on. There are legalities involved, and they are a concern but aren’t my main concern. Morally, there’s a difference to me between killing someone because I hate them and killing someone because I’m a combatant and so are they. There are strict rules to war that help are supposed to keep things largely ethical - I understand war is never going to be “clean”. Policies like rules of engagement, being able to surrender, treatment of POWs, genuinely avoiding targetting civilians (the world could use more of that right now) and stopping when your country tells you to all matter to me.
Soldiers are not asked to make decisions about who they’ll kill (I mean which armies, not rules of engagement), so the individuals are not being relied upon to determine justice. That is a big difference from vigilantism, where a person or mob of people decides who lives and dies. Ideally the leaders of the military and country are making sure war is a necessary last resort and conducted according to rules, and if that isn’t happening then other nations should be condemning and opposing them. It’s like how I think nations need prisons, but I don’t think I should be allowed to take someone hostage because I’m pretty sure they deserve it.
But haven’t you seen countless cases of examples where those strict rules for war have been completely ignored? Russia is just ignoring them completely in Ukraine, Israel is just straight-up conducting a genocide and no western country gives a shit apparently, for the US there are countless cases of shit like the My Lai massacre or the US sponsorships of terrorist organisations in South America…
States are just big systems that exist to give people a monopoly on violence.
Edit: I misunderstood the person’s position. I think others might have as well, so I’m leaving up my response to an idea that unjust wars make vigilantism necessary/moral. However, as near as I can tell that their actual position isn’t “people should be able to kill outside a war”, it’s “why should people ever think killing is moral”.
Russia IS being opposed by to the tune of billions of dollars of support and widespread condemnation for their war of aggression including meaningful economic sanctions and asset seizures. It’s facilitated the killing of just under 700,000 Russian soldiers and tons of equipment according to the Ukrainian government. The only reason NATO won’t deploy troops is because no one wants WW3. Nations are even now considering escalating their support following the deployment of North Koreans.
Israel IS being opposed by huge swathes of the world. If the US (and to a lesser extent other Western countries) weren’t providing diplomatic and military cover for them, they’d have been censured in the UN for decades now and potentially stopped. Long story short, the US is just as at fault for the genocide as Israel due to providing the diplomatic/military means via decades of “blank check” support. US policy doesn’t mean that civilians should start killing Zionists in America and abroad.
I’m not a warmonger, quite the opposite. I won’t take the stance that civilians should believe they have the moral obligation to murder other civilians because wars are sometimes unjust. There are unjust trials. Doesn’t mean people shouldn’t have the right to a trial before they’re killed. There are bad politicians, doesn’t mean all politics should be banned. There are bad marriages. There are bad police. There are bad doctors.
Don’t get me wrong here, I’m totally with you, I’m opposed to violence just as you are. I just extend my opposition to violence a bit further, including violence inflicted by states. I don’t want you to change your opposition to violence, I think that’s great. I’m just asking you to consider whether your exemptions given to states engaging in military conflicts is actually justified
I sincerely apologize then - even if I didn’t resort to insults etc., please forgive my undeniably hostile tone. I’ll edit the response. I’ve been under a lot of fire in this thread for opposing vigilantes, and I mistook your position for one of theirs. I may be mistaken again, but you sound like a pacifist. That is a stance I can empathize with and respect, if not honestly espouse myself. I think sometimes violence is a necessary final resort. I believe in trying to reduce harm in those instances by constraining the violence as described above.