coldasblues

So the finish line is death right? Is the joke they are both racing towards it?

Can we just skip to the AI overlords stuff? Human leadership is getting kind of stale and repetitive lately.

No no, you don't get it. You have to suicide the slow American way with cancer and heart disease. Pick your favorite form of socially acceptable self mutilation today!

All I see are moneybags. Is that normal?

Let’s take a different tack, because it seems like you’re not fully comprehending how much your arguments have not only shifted drastically since the beginning of this exchange, but are crumbling under their own contradictions.

Let’s hold your words side by side, while maintaining context:

You initially claimed: “Acknowledging how systems limit choice isn’t denying moral agency—it’s recognizing its realistic boundaries.” Yet later, you dismissed whistleblowers as exceptions: “Manning and Snowden don’t simply represent ‘rare courage’—they had specific access… that made their actions possible.”

So which is it? If systemic constraints merely ‘bound’ agency, why frame resistance as requiring “extraordinary circumstances”? You can’t simultaneously argue that choice exists within constraints and that dissent is so exceptional it proves nothing.

You insisted: “Responsibility must scale realistically with power, knowledge, and genuine choice.” But when pressed, you narrowed this to: “Nuremberg focused primarily on leadership… distinguishing between architects and participants.”

Except Nuremberg did prosecute mid-tier actors—a fact you ignore to protect your hierarchy of guilt. You demand “proportionality” but define it to absolve all but elites.

You accused me of “mistaking moral absolutism for moral clarity” while arguing: “Effective movements… focus on policies, not individuals.” Yet earlier, you praised the civil rights movement for “strategic targeting”—which included boycotts that shamed individual businesses and exposed specific perpetrators.

You vacillate between “systems matter, not people” and “sometimes people matter” to dodge scrutiny.

You framed enlistment as survival: “The teenager… isn’t making the same ‘choice’ as your philosophical thought experiment assumes.” But when I noted enlistment often involves cultural factors (glory, legacy), you pivoted: “The working class deserves… recognition as moral actors.”

So which is it? Are enlistees helpless victims of circumstance or moral agents capable of questioning systems? You toggle between these to avoid conceding that poverty limits—but doesn’t obliterate—choice.

You cited Nuremberg to argue “accountability requires focus”—yet ignored that the trials explicitly rejected “just following orders” even for low-ranking SS. You cherry-pick history to sanitize complicity.

You claimed: “Real change comes through political organization… not moral gatekeeping.” But later admitted: “The anti-war movement… normalized draft-card burning.” So suddenly, cultural stigma is part of “pragmatism”? Your definition of “practical” shifts to exclude critique when inconvenient.

Conclusion: Your argument isn’t a coherent stance—it’s a series of tactical retreats. When pressed on agency, you cite constraints. When shown resistance, you dismiss it as exceptional. When confronted with history, you cherry-pick. This isn’t systemic analysis—it’s intellectual arbitrage, exploiting ambiguity to evade hard truths. It seems that consistency is the first casualty of your philosophy.

Your argument has shifted dramatically throughout this exchange, revealing inconsistencies that suggest this isn't about philosophical clarity but about justifying judgment from a safe distance.

You've alternately portrayed soldiers as both helpless victims of circumstance and fully accountable moral agents whenever it suits your argument. You dismiss resistance as "exceptional" when it contradicts your determinism, yet cite those same exceptions as proof that everyone should be held to that standard. You cherry-pick historical examples while ignoring their full context.

But let's set aside the logical contradictions for a moment and address what's really happening here.

The extreme language about soldiers "enjoying murdering civilians" and "joining up to shoot people" reveals this isn't about ethical philosophy - it's about dehumanizing people you've never met. Posting these views in spaces where actual veterans are unlikely to respond doesn't demonstrate philosophical courage - it suggests you're more interested in judgment than understanding.

Real moral courage would involve speaking directly with veterans about their experiences rather than constructing elaborate theories about their motivations from a distance. It would mean acknowledging the complexity of human choice without surrendering to absolutism or total relativism.

The working-class teenager who enlists because their town offers no economic opportunities deserves neither complete absolution nor blanket condemnation. They deserve the dignity of being seen as a full human navigating impossible choices within systems designed to limit those choices.

Your position offers nothing constructive - no path forward, no vision for change, just judgment without understanding. It creates no space for redemption, growth, or transformation. It simply categorizes people as either morally pure or irredeemably complicit.

True justice requires holding power accountable while creating pathways for healing and change. It demands we recognize both individual responsibility and structural constraints without using either to negate the other.

Instead of crafting elaborate philosophical frameworks to justify hate from a distance, perhaps consider engaging directly with those whose experiences differ from yours. Veterans' organizations, peace activists who served in combat, community organizers in military towns - these voices might complicate your narrative in ways that lead to greater understanding rather than simplistic judgment.

The path beyond hate isn't found in philosophical abstraction or moral absolutism. It's found in the difficult, messy work of seeing others' humanity, even when their choices differ from what you would make in their position.

Bro! Anyone from Omaha? I remember hearing that ice cream truck in the LATE hours of the night when I lived in the Benson area.

OKay, but did they have to use such a good photo, and now I want A1.

Your argument constructs a philosophical framework that appears coherent in theory but fails to translate into practical reality. Let me address several key misconceptions:

First, you consistently mischaracterize my position as complete moral absolution rather than proportional accountability. I've never claimed that systemic analysis requires exempting participants from moral consideration—only that responsibility must scale realistically with power, knowledge, and genuine choice. The difference between us isn't whether individuals bear responsibility, but how we calibrate that responsibility within systems deliberately designed to constrain choice.

Your invocation of historical resistors proves my point rather than refutes it. Yes, exceptions disprove inevitability—but they also demonstrate the extraordinary circumstances and consequences involved in resistance. Underground Railroad conductors risked execution to smuggle people to freedom. Draft resisters faced imprisonment. Manning served seven years in confinement. These examples don't show that moral heroism is a reasonable expectation; they illustrate its profound cost within oppressive systems.

The Nuremberg comparison actually strengthens my argument. While the trials rejected the "just following orders" defense, they primarily focused on those who created and implemented policies, not every participant in the German war machine. This demonstrates precisely the kind of proportional accountability I advocate. The trials recognized that systems of oppression require complicity at multiple levels while still distinguishing between architects and participants.

Your claims about whistleblowers continue to conflate theoretical and practical agency. Yes, Manning and Snowden were "low-level" in organizational hierarchies but had extraordinary access to information and technical capabilities most service members lack. Their actions required specific circumstances that aren't universally available. Most importantly, both paid severe prices for their choices—consequences that make such dissent practically impossible for many.

The civil rights movement example actually demonstrates strategic targeting rather than blanket condemnation. Boycotts and direct actions focused on specific businesses and visible perpetrators, not every participant in segregation. The movement understood that changing systems required pressure at strategic points, not diffuse moral judgment of everyone involved.

Your reduction of my position to "politely petitioning Congress" is a strawman. Effective movements have always balanced institutional pressure with cultural change while recognizing that meaningful transformation requires more than moral condemnation. The anti-war movement didn't end the draft through individual stigma alone but through coordinated political pressure that made the policy untenable.

Your framework ultimately mistakes moral absolutism for moral clarity. True solidarity doesn't require lowering the bar; it demands recognizing both the reality of constraints and the possibility of resistance within them. It focuses energy on dismantling systems that limit choice rather than expecting heroic moral purity from those with the fewest options. This isn't "despair"—it's strategic focus on where change actually happens.

Your argument presents an elegant theoretical framework that fails to engage with actual lived reality. You've constructed an elaborate philosophical position that works perfectly in the abstract but crumbles when confronted with how power and choice actually function in people's lives.

When you accuse me of "conflating material constraint with moral exemption," you're setting up a false dichotomy. Acknowledging how systems limit choice isn't denying moral agency—it's recognizing its realistic boundaries. The working class isn't a monolith, and resistance movements throughout history represent exceptional circumstances, not the norm. For every GI coffeehouse organizer or draft counselor you mention, thousands more faced no meaningful alternative to service. Their existence doesn't invalidate systemic analysis; it highlights how rare successful resistance is within oppressive structures.

Your fractal accountability concept remains problematic not because it acknowledges varying degrees of complicity, but because it offers no practical framework for determining where responsibility meaningfully begins and ends. The Nuremberg comparison actually undermines your position—those trials focused primarily on leadership and those who enacted atrocities, not on every person who participated in the German war machine. They recognized that meaningful accountability requires proportionality and focus.

The whistleblower examples continue to miss the point. Manning and Snowden don't simply represent "rare courage"—they had specific access, technical knowledge, and supportive networks that made their actions possible. Their existence doesn't prove universal moral agency; it demonstrates how exceptional circumstances sometimes create openings for resistance. Most service members lack comparable opportunities for meaningful dissent.

Your rejection of the distinction between stigmatizing institutions and individuals reveals the fundamental flaw in your approach. Effective movements for military reform have always distinguished between systems and those caught within them. Veterans who become anti-war activists don't typically start by condemning their former comrades—they focus on the policies and leadership that created unjust wars. This isn't about "valorizing participation"; it's about strategic effectiveness in creating change.

What you frame as "fatalism" is actually pragmatism. Recognizing the severe constraints on working-class choices doesn't mean accepting those constraints—it means understanding what we're actually fighting against. Rather than demanding individual moral perfection from those with the fewest options, we should focus on dismantling the systems that limit those options in the first place.

Your position ultimately demands moral heroism from those with the least power while offering little concrete vision for how to create the alternatives you claim to want. The question isn't whether people retain some theoretical sliver of moral agency despite overwhelming constraints—it's how we build movements that actually create more just systems rather than merely condemning those trapped within existing ones.

Your argument builds an elaborate philosophical castle on foundations of privileged abstraction. You speak with such certainty about moral obligations while showing profound disconnection from the material realities that shape actual human choices.

This preoccupation with individual moral purity—as if people exist outside systems—betrays an essentially privileged worldview. You characterize military recruitment as a simple moral choice rather than acknowledging it as the end result of deliberate policy decisions that create economic deserts in rural and low-income communities. When the military represents the only viable path to healthcare, education, and stable housing in countless American towns, framing enlistment as a purely moral decision rather than economic survival reveals remarkable detachment from reality.

Your accusation that I "infantilize" the working class is particularly telling. I recognize their agency within constraints; you demand they shoulder moral burdens without acknowledging those constraints. Which perspective truly respects their humanity? The teenager from a town with 40% unemployment and no community college isn't making the same "choice" as your philosophical thought experiment assumes. True respect isn't demanding moral purity from those with fewest options—it's acknowledging the systems designed to limit their choices while fighting to expand them.

The fractal responsibility concept you champion sounds sophisticated but proves practically unhelpful. If everyone bears some guilt, then guilt becomes meaningless as an organizing principle. The mechanic servicing aircraft isn't making policy decisions about their deployment. Recognizing this distinction isn't "quarantining guilt"—it's acknowledging reality. True accountability must be proportional to both knowledge and power; otherwise, we're simply reassigning blame downward to protect those truly responsible for policy decisions.

Most revealing is your romanticization of resistance. You cite whistleblowers as evidence that "even the desperate retain shards of choice" while ignoring the exceptional circumstances that made their actions possible. Manning and Snowden had rare access to information, technical knowledge, and positions that enabled their resistance. To suggest their examples prove all service members could make similar choices is to fundamentally misunderstand how structural power operates.

Your insistence that "stigma is a catalyst" ignores the distinction between stigmatizing institutions and demonizing individuals. Effective movements for military reform have always embraced veterans as crucial allies precisely because they understand the system from within. By demanding moral purity from all participants, you alienate the very people whose experience and credibility could most effectively challenge military institutions.

The irony is that your approach, which claims moral superiority, ultimately serves the status quo. By focusing moral scrutiny downward rather than upward, you divert attention from those with genuine power to create change—policymakers, defense contractors, and the voting public that enables them—and instead target those with the least decision-making authority. True solidarity means addressing the conditions that make military service one of the only viable paths for so many Americans, not condemning those trapped within systems they didn't create.

Your argument displays a remarkable detachment from the material conditions that shape human choice. It's easy to preach moral absolutism from a position where those choices remain theoretical rather than survival imperatives.

This fixation on individual moral purity—as if people exist in vacuums untethered from systems—reveals a fundamentally privileged perspective. You speak of drone operators and technicians with such certainty about their moral obligations while conveniently ignoring how economic conscription functions as the military's primary recruitment strategy. The working-class teenager from a town with 40% unemployment and no prospects isn't making the same "choice" as your philosophical thought experiment suggests.

Your "spectrum of survival" acknowledges different levels of choice but then immediately dismisses them as irrelevant to moral judgment. This reveals the contradiction at your argument's core: you recognize systemic constraints only to discard them when they complicate your narrative. The career soldier who reenlists after experiencing combat makes a different choice than the contractor seeking deployment bonuses, who makes a different choice than the recruit fleeing poverty. These distinctions matter precisely because moral responsibility cannot be divorced from genuine agency.

The most revealing aspect of your argument is the historical amnesia it requires. You invoke Vietnam's anti-war movement as evidence that stigma works, yet ignore that much of that movement's power came from conscripted soldiers themselves—working-class youth who returned to organize against the war. Their credibility came from having been inside the system, not from being morally pure outsiders casting judgment. By demonizing all participation, you alienate the very people whose rebellion could most effectively challenge military institutions.

Your fractal responsibility concept sounds sophisticated but proves practically useless. If everyone bears some guilt, then guilt becomes meaningless as an organizing principle. The janitor who swept the death camp floor isn't morally equivalent to the guard who pushed people into gas chambers, and pretending otherwise trivializes true atrocity. Moral judgment requires proportionality and context, not absolutism that treats all complicity as essentially the same.

Most tellingly, you repeatedly use examples of privileged resistance—Manning, Snowden—as evidence that all service members could make similar choices. Yet you conveniently ignore that these individuals had exceptional access to information, technical skills, and in some cases, supportive networks that made their resistance possible. They are exceptions that prove the rule: meaningful resistance requires resources and opportunities that most service members simply don't possess.

Your critique ultimately serves no one—not the civilians harmed by military action, not the working-class people trapped in systems of violence, not even the cause of peace. It satisfies only the speaker's need for moral superiority while offering no viable path toward structural change.