The philosophy of "Kill the terrorists and their families" is still fucked up even when leftists do it people.

  • Bread_In_Baltimore [he/him]
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    4 years ago

    Who is deciding who is "necessary" to kill? Who is deciding what is a necessary scenario? Do you think the current order is not objectively predicated on mass slaughter and exploitation? I mean I know you don't experience it but it does exist, and allowing the current system to continue is tacitly condoning said mass slaughter. Would you kill a hostage if it stopped the genocide in Yemen? How about two? How many is too many?

    Instead of downvoting, answer my question or refute my point cowards.

    • krothotkin [he/him]
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      4 years ago

      Sure, I'll take you up on that. Your notion that revolution has nothing to do with morality is completely false, and I think you recognize that yourself. You mention a number of justifications for violence in your other posts, including:

      • Stopping genocide
      • Destroying systems of mass violence and oppression
      • Avoiding postwar repression

      These are all essentially moral goals. You view them as desirable because you (like most people I would hope) possess a set of morals that objects to things like genocide and exploitation. Your argument is that these things are so horrible that they warrant otherwise reprehensible actions to destroy them. Unless, of course, you think that killing and violence is just based, and fuck things like improving the lives of human beings. Then you're just a monster, and there's no point in try to deal with you at all.

      Pretending that class struggle exists only for its own sake is both wrong and deceitful. Revolution IS a "moral decision." If you want to argue about what our values entail in terms of action, fine. But don't pretend that our values have no role to play at all. Marx was wrong as shit when he said that we will make no excuses for the terror. If we CANNOT find justification for terror, then we are lost.

      edit: typo

          • Bread_In_Baltimore [he/him]
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            4 years ago

            My answer is that there is no answer to these questions, and to try an predetermine one is honestly pretty macabre. In a revolution, which is by definition an act of extreme violence and domination, morality becomes secondary to winning. Deciding in the moment whether or not something is necessary is messy and ugly but sometimes that's what had to be done.

            Hypothetically, let's say the fascists are genociding Latinos. Like straight up turn ICE camps into death camps. And let's say we take all of the fascist leaders children hostage but they won't negotiate because they don't believe we will kill children. What do you do? Do you kill one? I'd say yes. What if they still refuse to negotiate, or only meet some of the demands? It's a fucked up situation but it's necessary.

            Killing children to instill a sense of general terror, is a worthless act as well as an immoral acts. Immoral acts must only be taken when the ends justify the means, but that's always going to be a gray area and not everyone is going to agree on what constitutes as "necessary".

              • Bread_In_Baltimore [he/him]
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                4 years ago

                All the libs in here are saying "killing children is wrong and I'd rather a revolution fail than participate in immoral acts for the greater good"

                  • Bread_In_Baltimore [he/him]
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                    4 years ago

                    Definitely not what I'm saying. I'm saying that there are circumstances surrounding any hypothetical acts of violence. Holding a firm moral stance against a particular type of violence and ruling it out completely, to the point that you'd literally desert the revolution because of it, means that you don't really see revolution for what it is and don't regard the current order as one that's built on mass slaughter in the first place.

                    It's pretty easy to say you wouldn't kill children. I mean, if anyone asked me with no context of obviously say no, because I have no desire to kill anyone let alone an innocent child. But in a hypothetical war with reactionaries, I don't know the context. I don't know if they will be trying to genocide my friends and family or whatever because it's hypothetical. People underestimate the insane brutality which the forces of reaction are willing to use to hold onto their power, and also the brutality that is necessary to defeat them.