This is not a relevant point. It doesn’t matter what the other side does. It doesn’t change the moral culpability of our own side. It’s wrong to kill innocent people, period. It’s no justification to say that somebody else has done it too. Just because Ted Bundy was a serial killer doesn’t mean it’s ok for everybody else to be a serial killer. What kind of logic is that?
Then all sides were wrong, all sides were evil, and that leaves us where, exactly?
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With an honest admission, hopefully.
Oh, Christ, don’t pull out THIS bullshit, please.
The question in the OP was about what WE did, and nothing anyone else did has any relevance to the answer to that question. If somebody starts a thread asking about the rape of Nanking, I’ll condemn that too.
A tragedy. If it were avoidable, it should have been avoided. But it wasn’t. And the ultimate responsibilities for those deaths lies with the governments that initiated the wars, and the people who supported those governments.
Truly, you have a dizzying intellect. Leaving aside your silly attempt at analogy with Ted Bundy (let’s just forget you mentioned that, since it really is off the edge), the fact that every major nation involved in a given conflict engaged in the same conduct is a pretty firm indication that they viewed things differently than you do.
You seem to be assuming that there is some sort of moral yardstick by which every human society in history can be measured against. It’s funny that this yardstick just happens to be your own, however.
That all sides didn’t conform to your (future) moral yardstick? That they should apologize because they couldn’t break out of their own times and thought processes, and realize that 60 years in the future folks would look down on them (collectively, as not just a country or society, but an entire world of wrong headed evil)?
My thoughts exactly, reading through your posts in this thread. Gods…not again! I thought we just cleaned the stable…
You can’t answer the question without putting it into it’s historical context, or looking at the thinking and strategy/tactics being employed at the time. You can’t look back in hindsight with the information and moral yardstick we have TODAY, and judge the people by that yardstick. Not and have any sort of meaningful discussion on the subject.
We were in the Pacific, and our home was not under any threat anymore.
I already addressed this above. It’s a disingenuous and inaccurate way to frame the comparison. We killed babies. Babies don’t work in factories and don’t support regimes.
I think the sadistic medical experiments and systematic mass rape that the Japanese did were worse than bombing civilians. That’s just my opinion, though.
Chinese babies bayoneted, bombed, blown apart, shot or burned alive had culpability? How about English babies? German? Russian? French? Italian? Polish? Fin? Belgian? Pacific Islander?
The only reason US babies aren’t added to the list is simply because none of the major combatants could get to us (though Germany planned bombing raids on New York and several other East Coast cities, if they could have worked out the technical problems).
Babies died. The intent was not to kill babies. It was a foreseeable and acceptable though undesirable consequence of the action whose intent was to reduce the ability of the Japanese Empire to wage a war of aggression.
I presume for consistency sake you equally think the naval blockade of Japan was cowardly and not fighting like men? Presumably ships should have been boarded, the cargo that could be absolutely proven was only going to the military thrown overboard, and the ship allowed to proceed peacefully with its cargo of fuel, drugs, food or whatever? Presumably also ground operations into an area where civilians are located becomes cowardly and not fighting like a man.
It was avoidable by not bombing Japan. Similarly deaths of children from malnutrition were avoidable by not blockading Japan. And deaths of children on Okinawa were avoidable by not invading Okinawa. Just as deaths of Japanese conscripts were avoidable by not fighting back.
I don’t give a shit how they viewed things. It couldn’t be less relevant how they viewed things. Iwas asked how I viewed things. The Nazis viewed themselves as justified too. That’s an asinine way to try to justify anything.
The Bundy analogy was completely valid, by the way. One innocent victim is the same as any other innocent victim. You can’t justify setting toddlers on fire because somebody else did to another group of toddlers.
That is correct. I am a moral absolutist.
EVERYBODY uses their own moral yardstick. What other yardstick is there, and why would I abandon my own to use somebody else’s?
I don’t care if they apologize, I’m just syaing what they did was morally wrong. I don’t care how they FELT about it. I’m talking about how I feel about it.
I also don’t buy that they didn’t know it was immoral to set toddlers on fire. That’s a complete load.
Yes I can, and yes I do. I don’t cotton to moral relativism.