To me the critical issue is how much food we have.
If we have enough food to outlast the siege, then I’m not going to throw anyone out just because I disagree with their political and/or religious views. Just because we’re in the middle of a war doesn’t mean we have to judge everything in military terms. Presumably, Immanuel and his followers were contributing something of non-military value to the city’s well-being in the past so I expect they would do so again in the future.
On the other hand, if we’re short of food and somebody has to be sent outside so the city as a whole will survive, than Immanuel and his followers are going to be high on the list.
I am fairly solidly disabled and I would figure out a role I could fill, even if it is being stuck up in a tower with a crossbow and box of bolts and field glasses to spot incoming people. I could run a warehouse, accounting developed as logistics. I know how to work a machine shop, I could make weapons and tools. I know how to make gunpowder, and use sulphuric acid with pink fibreglass insulation to make antipersonnel batting. I can cook for large numbers of people if I had someone to schlep the pots and pans of food around for me [wheelchairs suck for hauling crap around.]
I voted for exile, but considering they could be taken captive and tortured for information, I’m no longer sure.
Maybe enslave them. If they won’t help protect the society, they no longer get a say in that society. We’ll put them to work in whatever unpleasant jobs there are. They don’t get to marry or have kids. They get the last of whatever is made.
If not enslavement, then the only workable answer is execution. We’re probably not at the point of direct cannibalism yet, so feed them to the pigs. If that’s still to icky, compost them.
Agreed…a bad citizen is still a good 100+ pounds of meat.
And in this situation, actively refusing to help defend the town is as bad as deliberately sabotaging the defenses. They’re essentially putting their desire to die over the desire of others to live.
Although on that note; the town’s under siege, right? What happens to someone if they get tossed out over the walls? Would the invaders immediately kill them, or seize and torture them to death (which might demoralize the defenders and/or dishearten the pacifists)?
If I sent Immanuel out, would they just capture him and use him to make propaganda announcements, inciting the townsfolk to surrender?
And I don’t suppose the City has any useful diseases we could infect the pacifists with, before sending them out? (Which is a horrible idea…the invaders might have catapults.) And lobotomizing them is too unreliable to make them into compliant slaves.
This: do a realistic cost/benefits analysis. Can civilization support dissent? If it can, it should. Those are the highest values we know of. Compulsory military service, if there is any option at all, is as bad as compulsory religious service or compulsory political party membership. If you want to empower a one-party system, getting rid of civil disobedience is a damn fine way to start.
If, however, the margin is so damn narrow that the society cannot afford to tolerate dissent – if every able-bodied soul is on the barbed-wire barricades on 18 hour shifts, food is scarce, everybody has at least a few injuries, there’s no let-up in sight, and winter’s coming – then resort to compulsory service.
In that scenario, nearly any sane individual will be willing to compromise his beliefs. Even the most ardent pacifist, faced with zombies swarming over the palisade, is probably going to be willing to load guns for the guys on the front line, at very least.
To me, the stringency of the hypothetical makes it untenable.
You don’t ask a vegetarian, “If you were hungry enough, would you eat meat?” The answer is yes. The only question is, “How hungry is hungry enough?” By the time you’ve constructed your scenario, Immanuel’s “pacifism” is not sane.
Does your society expend food on insane people? The very elderly? The crippled? People with diseases or injuries? People who are shell-shocked and unable to function? All of these are more of a burden on this besieged society than pacifists are: pacifists, at least, can still dig latrine trenches, do laundry, bake bread, and babysit.
Allowing dissent isn’t just morally good. It also provides benefits to a society. A lot of times what one group might call dissent is just an answer to a different problem. If you try to only have one answer for every problem, it’s often going to be the wrong answer.
Imagine the city drives out Immanuel’s people and survives the siege. A few years later, they learn about another surviving city a few days ride away. If the pacifists were still around they’d suggest peaceful trade. But with only warriors left in the city, the only plan that will be discussed is conquest.
Someone in England, during WWI, asked a chap why he wasn’t at the front, fighting the Germans. He said, “I am the civilization which they are fighting to protect.”
City is under siege by a sizable group of fighters with far superior weaponry, and the city council is arguing about what to do with 20 (a “score”) people out of a population of 2000 who don’t want to get their hands dirty? You’ve got bigger fish to fry, and shouldn’t be wasting your time on this stuff. Better to be figuring out how to steal some of the other side’s guns and ammo, or working on assassinating their leader(s).
I came to basically say this, except that I doubt that either you are going to successfully assassinate their leaders or that if you do it will make much of a difference. I presume stealing their weapons isn’t going to be trivial, either.
I think you’re SOL and it really doesn’t matter what you do with the pacifists.
Put Immanuel’s head on a spike. Horsewhip the more prominent followers. Convert or disappear the less zealous ones. Become the ruthless enemy that you fear. Civilization is a facade; barbarism is the natural state of mankind.
Which has been borne out by everything that has ever happened except for all of it. Civilization is power, and in the long term those willing to be openly ruthless usually fall to those smart enough to keep their ruthlessness hidden.
Apart from the excellence of the hypothetical, I cannot fathom why you are distributing that farce of a “recipe.” Strawberry cake? I’ve got your strawberry cake right here.
Strawberry cake is a summer cake. You don’t serve hot cocoa with it, you serve lemonade. The tartness of the lemonade balances the sweetness of the cake.
Which is why two hundred million people today are descended from Genghis Khan, and I’m typing this message out in the Roman alphabet, right? All sunshine 'n daisies?
A follow up post. This is not going to be a long term problem. While the attackers don’t have the classically desired 3:1 ratio ever the defenders, they enjoy such an overwhelming military advantage that there isn’t anything the 400 less 20 people can do to resist more than a couple of days. This is bows and arrows against assault rifles.
The outer fortifications aren’t going to even be worth defending. That’s simply throwing away lives.
The inner stone walls will not be that much of an impediment to a dedicated group of raiders. You have no effective way of preventing them from closing in and bringing improvised ladders and simple earthworks to go over.
Spears are completely ineffective at any sort of distance. Bow and arrows will not work without exposing the archer to sniper fire.
It’s going to be over really soon.
If the scenario were different, with prospects of longer-term survival if the Citizens fought, then I think it’s fair to coerce people into either helping or leaving. Civil liberties and the right to follow one’s conscious are wonderful for people not on
verge of imminent destruction.
