This Is Fine

Memor-X

00:35

@forest not sure if you're getting a different meaning but the Shrine is to honour soldiers who lost their lives in war, a bunch of who chose to fight because they lied about their age to get recruited

forest

I don't like soldiers.

Memor-X

war is a terrible thing but we generally agree that those who lost their lives fighting the Nazis deserved to be honoured and remembered, in hopes that the past isn't repeated and such sacrifices need not be made again

forest

There were no good guys in that war (or any war, really), on any side. Two wrongs don't make a right.

Only three lefts can do that.

Memor-X

@forest lol, that's a good one

makes more sense that the Fairy Odd Parents one

forest

Which one is that?

Memor-X

00:43

can't find a video but it's when Wanda says "Two Wrongs don't make a Right" and then Cosmo goes "but two rights make a left, and now it's time for the show!" before poofing in maracas and start dancing

forest

heh

murgatroid99

01:24

World War 2 is probably the closest thing to a just war in recent history. Germany and the Axis powers were clearly the aggressors and were fighting a war of expansion and conquest, and would have clearly continued to invade other sovereign nations unless stopped by force. Add to that that they committed well documented atrocities against their own people and people in the countries they conquered, and it is clear that the military opposition to them was necessary to prevent much worse outcomes.

forest

A just war does not mean that the actions taken are automatically justified.

user4539917

Those are all valid points, sir.

forest

The intentional firebombing of children is wrong, even if they're in a country whose government is evil and genocidal.

Do I think the Allies should have just given up and let the Axis step all over them? No, of course not.

But that doesn't mean that any actions against them, including actions against innocent civilians, is acceptable.

I feel the same way about the US' involvement in Japan in WW2.

user4539917

But, we must always remember that history books are written by the winners of wars.

forest

That too.

user4539917

01:28

Had "they" won we would be singing a different song.

murgatroid99

I don't claim that all actions taken by the Allies were justified. I don't believe that. But to claim all soldiers are bad because some did those bad things would be just as unreasonable as claiming that everything they did was just because the Nazis were bad.

"History is written by the winners" also doesn't matter that much in the face of the mountains of clear evidence for many of the things we know about what happened in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. What the Nazis did was evil and stopping them was morally necessary.

user4539917

War. What is it good for?

Absolutely nothing.

Would You Fight Alongside the Proud Boys To Save America From Putin?

►

If Putin attacks America.

murgatroid99

01:45

@user4539917 Top comment: "The proud boys would be on putins side". Trump was clearly allied with Putin, and far right personalities have expressed positive sentiment about Putin, even since the Russian invasion of Ukraine

forest

@murgatroid99 No one here claimed that fighting them was not morally right.

user4539917

Personally, I believe he is nutty enough to launch an all out nuclear attack.

forest

I kind of doubt it. At least, I hope he's not.

Even Kim Jung Un isn't that crazy.

user4539917

This guy is on steroids.

murgatroid99

@forest You said "There were no good guys in that war" That is how I interpreted that statement. I guess that's not how you intended it.

forest

01:49

Ah. I intended it to mean that there were no good actions in that war, not that lack of action was the best choice.

murgatroid99

@forest That is a very strong statement. If fighting the Nazis was broadly good, then surely individual actions of fighting the Nazis that did not hurt any non-combatants were also good.

user4539917

World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones; after say, a billion years of nuclear radiation.

forest

02:05

@murgatroid99 Individual actions of fighting the Nazis without hurting civilians are good, yes.

murgatroid99

So, the conclusion here is that many of the soldiers involved in that fight were broadly good, and their involvement required courage and sacrifice, and we should honor that.

user4539917

But civilians are ALWAYS hurt.

This is not a war room game board.

murgatroid99

Civilians are always hurt in a war in general, but I think it's unlikely that even most soldiers hurt civilians while deployed in wars, especially if we're looking specifically at Allied soldiers in WWII

I think it's important here to consider enlisted people and high-level decision makers separately. When a military firebombs civilians for example, some higher-ups decided to do that, and they should be held accountable for that. And so should the individual people implementing that plan, because they have a duty to refuse immoral or unlawful orders. But other enlisted people not directly involved don't really have any responsibility for that.

user4539917

02:21

Yes, they are just following orders.

murgatroid99

The whole "just following orders" thing is a defense used by Nazi soldiers stationed at concentration camps at the Nuremburg Trials. And that defense was rejected for the reasons I stated: soldiers have a duty to refuse immoral orders. I'm not saying any different here.

user4539917

Morality is a deep rabbit hole to judge a person on.

chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/64176/2022/7/30/4-24#61692575

Case^ in point

murgatroid99

I don't know what point you're making

user4539917

Did you read the tweet?

18 hours ago, by user4539917

in English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room, 26 mins ago, by CowperKettle

murgatroid99

I read the tweet. I don't know what point you are using it to make in this conversation

user4539917

02:31

The deserve a humiliating death because we were ordered to tweet this.

murgatroid99

That does not make it clearer

user4539917

Tweeter believes this should be left on the internet

Again, because they were ordered to do so.

murgatroid99

What are you talking about? Who was ordered to do what?

user4539917

Tweeter was ordered to leave that tweet on the internet.

They clearly say it violates their rules.

murgatroid99

What do you mean they were "ordered"? Twitter is perfectly capable of making shitty decisions on their own without external interference. And how does this relate to the rest of the conversation?

user4539917

02:47

We should have The Tweeter Trials in Nuremberg

As a reminder of the path we're heading down again.

What matters is history has a way of repeating itself.

forest

03:08

wot

@murgatroid99 I don't believe they should be, no. But that's just my opinion.

@user4539917 They weren't "ordered" to do anything. They thought it was important enough (i.e. "in the public's interest") to not remove it. They aren't endorsing it, just preserving it.

(As a class, I don't wish to honor murderers, even if some of said murderer's victims were murderers themselves)

user4539917

ok, that's an interesting way of looking at it...

forest

It's a pretty typical anti-military stance.

user4539917

antimilifia?

forest

heh

user4539917

:-)

Nzall

14:42

@user4539917 Most radioactive fallout would be gone after a month or so. The dangerous stuff is cesium-137 and strontium-90, which have a half-life measured in decades and tends to accumulate inside the body

@user4539917 Twitter's stance is that in certain situations, taking down tweets that violate their rules would harm public discourse and legal proceedings. They only do this for tweets sent out by political figures with significant public standing. help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/public-interest

user4539917

19:15

@Nzall thanks, that explains a lot.

Tim Stone

Nichelle Nichols has died, aged 89

6

Wipqozn

19:59

@TimStone Exactly what I came here to post :(

user4539917

RIP

Nzall

A revolutionary actress. She was the first African-American actress to do an interracial kiss on national television

user4539917

20:18

Indeed. Even today any kiss is banned in some countries.

user4539917

20:44

Qatar, being a case in point.

user4539917

21:02

Kirk and Uhura's kiss

In the "Plato's Stepchildren" season 3 episode 10 of Star Trek: The Original Series, first broadcast November 22, 1968, Uhura (played by black actress Nichelle Nichols) and Captain Kirk (played by white actor William Shatner) kiss. The episode is often erroneously cited as the first example of an interracial kiss on television. == Background == The first interracial kiss on television is a subject of discussion and debate, with several examples identified as early as the 1950s. William Shatner himself was involved with an interracial kiss more than 10 years earlier on a 1958 episode of Th...

Myth Busters :-)

Jolenealaska

21:21

@Wipqozn Me too

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