# Good Guy VS Bad Guy Wars where the good guy wins **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 12, 2022, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-guy-vs-bad-guy-wars-where-the-good-guy-wins/976356 "2022-12-12T01:47:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2022, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-guy-vs-bad-guy-wars-where-the-good-guy-wins/976356/61 "2022-12-20T09:47:59Z")
> [@outlierrn](#): > > I asked what’s the standard of revenge they can extract _after_ they’ve won which safeguards their status as good guys? Good Guy-ness inheres not in the moral character of the individual combatants, but in the cause for which they are fighting. The slaves of Haiti aren’t “Good Guys” because they held themselves to certain standards, or fought with any particular nobility, or displayed an unstrained quality of mercy. They’re the Good Guys because they were enslaved, rose against their enslavers and won their freedom. The horrific attempted ethnic cleansing through massacre of the remaining white population in the immediate aftermath of victory is morally abominable - nevertheless, the war where the slaves freed themselves by force of arms is a war where the Good Guys beat the Bad Guys. That’s how I’m calling it, anyhow. If you want to say that Good Guy-ness requires something equivalent to widespread adherence to a moral code at or about the level of the Geneva Conventions or some such, then I think that’s perfectly defensible. But given the nature of war and humans and trauma, it will massively reduce the solution space for this question. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2022, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-guy-vs-bad-guy-wars-where-the-good-guy-wins/976356/62 "2022-12-20T19:38:52Z")
> [@Stanislaus](#): > > They’re the Good Guys because they were enslaved, rose against their enslavers and won their freedom. They are not the “Good Guys” but I will concede their foes were clearly bad guys. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2022, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-guy-vs-bad-guy-wars-where-the-good-guy-wins/976356/63 "2022-12-20T23:39:07Z")
Fair to say, and I don’t disagree with any of that. I mentioned the aftermath because I’d happened to be reading about the Haitian genocide recently, and I would have left it at that, but others tried to say it was reasonable, or chaotic violence still, sorta, part of the war, which I think is wrong. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2022, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-guy-vs-bad-guy-wars-where-the-good-guy-wins/976356/64 "2022-12-21T00:01:35Z")
Not reasonable, but inevitable. I can’t blame Nazi death camp inmates for committing violence against guards in the immediate aftermath of their liberation. Similarly, I can’t blame chattel slaves (which means habitual rape and torture survivors) from committing violence against their rapists, torturers, and enablers of rape and torture. Human beings can only endure so much before they lash out. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2022, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-guy-vs-bad-guy-wars-where-the-good-guy-wins/976356/65 "2022-12-21T00:48:46Z")
Yes, but your death camp analogy falls down when you have to go from town to town to enforce your orders for mass killings because _nobody’s doing it_ without being forced. ETA nor is it inevitable ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2022, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-guy-vs-bad-guy-wars-where-the-good-guy-wins/976356/66 "2022-12-21T12:17:01Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Not reasonable, but inevitable. I can’t blame Nazi death camp inmates for committing violence against guards in the immediate aftermath of their liberation. Similarly, I can’t blame chattel slaves (which means habitual rape and torture survivors) from committing violence against their rapists, torturers, and enablers of rape and torture. Human beings can only endure so much before they lash out. I’m the one who introduced the term “immediate aftermath” into this conversation, and I shouldn’t have done, because it’s a subjective term and sloppy writing. The French were finally defeated in December 1803. Independence was declared on 1st Jan 1804. Dessalines gave the order that all remaining whites be killed. This order was largely not followed. In February and March 1804 Dessalines went from town to town, ordering massacres to be carried out. Only when he turned up to both exhort and threaten did people start the ethnic cleansing. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2022, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-guy-vs-bad-guy-wars-where-the-good-guy-wins/976356/67 "2022-12-21T12:22:10Z")
Prior to abolition, slave powers had functionally declared a permanent genocidal war (i.e. endless rape and torture) against every single Black person in the Americas. In such a circumstance, there is no morality, and no possibility of decency. That’s a hell, and in hell people behave like devils, and there’s nothing that can be done about it aside from ending those circumstances (i.e. abolishing slavery). I think it’s impossible to judge people in such circumstances. ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2022, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-guy-vs-bad-guy-wars-where-the-good-guy-wins/976356/68 "2022-12-21T12:35:17Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > In such a circumstance, there is no morality, and no possibility of decency. If that’s true, why weren’t the orders to massacre carried out immediately? Why did Dessalines have to go from town to town to force people to do it? These were not spontaneous events. I don’t disagree with you at all about the hell of slavery. And I agree that it makes this hellish retaliation very likely. But I think that people retain more agency than you are allowing them - as witness their initial decision to ignore the order to massacre. There are entirely plausible paths by which these massacres would not have happened. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2022, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-guy-vs-bad-guy-wars-where-the-good-guy-wins/976356/69 "2022-12-21T12:52:21Z")
Yes, some people don’t do it (and great for them!). Maybe they didn’t suffer as much as those who did, or maybe they were just exceptionally and almost super-humanly decent. I’m saying that at a certain level of suffering and trauma, humans tend to do extreme things, and I don’t think they can be judged for it, and thus this doesn’t take away from the Haitians being the “good guys” in their fight for independence. ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2022, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-guy-vs-bad-guy-wars-where-the-good-guy-wins/976356/70 "2022-12-21T13:50:55Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > thus this doesn’t take away from the Haitians being the “good guys” in their fight for independence. Of course it doesn’t! History isn’t a balance sheet and neither is morality. ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2022, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-guy-vs-bad-guy-wars-where-the-good-guy-wins/976356/71 "2022-12-21T14:59:34Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Yes, some people don’t do it (and great for them!). Maybe they didn’t suffer as much as those who did, or maybe they were just exceptionally and almost super-humanly decent And also- we’re not talking about a few people here. The orders were ignored everywhere! Massacres literally only happened when Dessalines turned up and made it clear that people had to choose which end of the machete they wanted to be on. The common, widespread first reaction was not to commit ethnic cleansing and I think you are underplaying this. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2022, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-guy-vs-bad-guy-wars-where-the-good-guy-wins/976356/72 "2022-12-21T18:53:10Z")
He also declared an amnesty to lure out survivors in hiding so he could murder them as well, refused to let people flee the country so he could murder them, rolled into a town where he was welcomed as a hero and murdered them. Look, I’m sorry I brought it up because of the way it’s hijacked the thread, and I agree with **Stanislaus** that the excesses of some individuals doesn’t necessarily compromise a movement, but the converse is equally true, the righteousness of a movement doesn’t necessarily excuse the excesses of individuals in it. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Librarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_librarian/32/402_2.png) [@The\_Librarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Librarian)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2022, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-guy-vs-bad-guy-wars-where-the-good-guy-wins/976356/73 "2022-12-22T20:51:57Z")
Re: “genocide” of slavers. They got of lightly, payback would be to keep them and 3 or 4 generations of their children as slaves. To complain about how the freed slaves treated anybody involved in their lifelong torture, humiliation, rape, murder of their loved ones is the most evil manifestation of white privilege imaginable. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2022, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-guy-vs-bad-guy-wars-where-the-good-guy-wins/976356/74 "2022-12-23T14:38:12Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > From the perspective of a Native American, it was pretty clear that the French were the good guys, the British and Americans both bad. Hence the French and Indian War Indians fought on both sides of the French and Indian War. The Iroquois Confederacy was allied with Britain then and stayed allied with Britain during the Revolution. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2022, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-guy-vs-bad-guy-wars-where-the-good-guy-wins/976356/75 "2022-12-23T17:22:39Z")
Thank you, Strassia, that whole series is brilliant! ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2022, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-guy-vs-bad-guy-wars-where-the-good-guy-wins/976356/76 "2022-12-24T05:32:24Z")
Well then, you and I have a different opinion. I think if you’ve been free for 10 years and you’re still beheading children by the score that reasonable people can suggest you’ve crossed over. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2022, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-guy-vs-bad-guy-wars-where-the-good-guy-wins/976356/77 "2022-12-24T13:05:28Z")
Yeah, there’s a thin line between “legitimate payback” and “ villain origin story.” ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2022, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-guy-vs-bad-guy-wars-where-the-good-guy-wins/976356/78 "2022-12-24T21:44:09Z")
> [@The\_Librarian](#): > > They got of lightly, payback would be to keep them and 3 or 4 generations of their children as slaves. Literally one of the justifications for the American chattel slavery system. ---
**Author:** ![Bootb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19b73/32.png) [@Bootb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bootb)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2022, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-guy-vs-bad-guy-wars-where-the-good-guy-wins/976356/79 "2022-12-25T06:24:43Z")
> [@Strassia](#): > > Not quite. The black codes pretty quickly brought slavery back under a slightly modified system, the 13th amendment left a [pretty big loop hole](https://blogs.loc.gov/inside_adams/2021/06/convict-leasing-system/) for the legal slavery that is still going on today, and while non-convict slavery was no longer state sanctioned, Congress did not pass much in the way of “appropriate legislation” to prevent private and state actors from [just taking black people as slaves](https://www.npr.org/2008/03/25/89051115/the-untold-history-of-post-civil-war-neoslavery). I cannot understand why some people these days are so het up over the idea that convicted criminals are forced to do certain things as part of their punishment for their crimes. Simply being in prison is a form of slavery. And it’s a **good** thing. It helps protect society. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2022, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-guy-vs-bad-guy-wars-where-the-good-guy-wins/976356/80 "2022-12-25T06:49:28Z")
> [@Bootb](#): > > I cannot understand why some people these days are so het up over the idea that convicted criminals are forced to do certain things as part of their punishment for their crimes. Did you read the cites linked to in that post? The complaint is about a hell of a lot more than just, “Convicts having to do work.” Which, incidentally, is a poor idea under the best of circumstances, because it provides the state with a perverse incentive to lock up their own citizens, and it undercuts the labor market by giving otherwise paying jobs to unpaid convicts. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-guy-vs-bad-guy-wars-where-the-good-guy-wins/976356.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-guy-vs-bad-guy-wars-where-the-good-guy-wins/976356.md?page=5)