Thanks! u/Graphenium:
The worldview expressed in the Law of One/“Ra Material” and the Hidden Hand interview
https://www.wanttoknow.info/secret_societies/hidden_hand_081018
The way I see things, these two sources explain existence, the state of our world, and the meaning of life far more accurately than any other. One is a “channeled” work, and the other is a long series of Questions and Answers between a conspiracy forum (RiP ATS) and a self-proclaimed world-controller. I see them as complimentary, showing a deeper reality by showing two sides of the same coin. One side being that of Service-to-Others, and the other being Service-to-Self
https://communities.win/c/Conspiracies/p/1ASG9Vy4Tl/round-table-suggestion-thread/c
Thread will stay open for 3-4 weeks thanks to a very helpful suggestion.
Let me start by thanking you for the excellent comment (x42 even)
Your argument regarding “just war”, however, remains unresolved. In my opinion, this is because you have built your argument atop a mountain of apriori notions you’ve never justified. Chief among them: the notion of a Christian State. You would agree that in order to engage in a “Christian Just War”, one would need to be in a ”Christian State”, yes? Can you show me where Jesus lays out his command for us to form religious states that then may enter into “Just Wars”? Cuz as far as I remember, Jesus doesn’t encourage his faithful to form nation states. In fact, many, many Christians have understood this. It just so happens that you guys tend to slaughter them (or, specific to you, ban them, like DMKUltra, or drive them away like CA)
You're welcome. But it's funny how you read: no, I never said Christian State. "War" means conflict between two parties. The party that declares just war must also declare its reasons via some authoritative channel. (An individual can declare war but that's not usually wise. Groups (which do include states) are formed by voluntary compacts or by birth into a group such as a family, so there are established procedures for determining group consensus.) The principle for this regulation is called "offering terms of peace", Deut. 20:10, but that's the barebones version for people who can read between the lines. Jesus's affirmation of all Torah principles, and their just promulgation, appears in words like: "The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat: all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do" (Matt. 23:2-3a). Since Jesus speaks about God's kingdom more than anyone else, I suspect his body has a form of government capable of declaring war. For his view on war, a quick search includes Luke 14:31 ff., Rev. 12:7, 17:14, and 19:11 (particularly).
If you could answer the question it might help, so I'll restate it: If you were in an army fighting a foe (e.g. modern Israel) that your army has told you might use human shields around your targets, and your commander tells you that the war has been justly declared and children have been ruled to be fair game in a particular engagement you're in, and so you are instructed that you may kill them if necessary in that engagement, would your conscience be satisfied or would you have opted out at some point saying that God could never authorize killing of innocent human shields and therefore all armies should capitulate when human shields are used? Those are the only two options: collateral damage is either moral or immoral. Would love you to commit to an answer.
It's not easy for me to search for whether we ever banned u/DMKultra or u/ColloidalAlumina for a day or two, or not. I have a goal not to repel people (as shown in my fora that are legal-speech) but where I'm representing an extant community I want to follow their desires. I'm happy to see that you never ban people, but would you use the option if someone kept trolling you? Because if people realize you're a pacifist they test that, just as belligerents test other nations' war policies. We've had much discussion about moderation and I sought to answer all your concerns when you raised them, but you are free to raise more. I don't see that your pivot to that topic means something contradictory: at worst, if I've erred in relation to another user that can be addressed; but my policy of carrying out enforcement as approved by a freewill community doesn't mean I slaughter people metaphorically. If anything I've sought to be more merciful if possible even when my gut impulse would be to slam down a tool. If you'd like me to research reasons anyone was banned, I can take time for that, but if just war is moral then right to ban is moral and the question is not morality but abuse.
So let me know what you'd do in these cases because then you're actually coming down on a firm position rather than sniping at someone else's.
I think you need to be a state to declare war. Im sure you could write a book on the subject, but I’d rather just avoid the whole tangent. What’s the minimum criteria for a group to declare a just war, both minimums, describing the group declaring the war and also describing the scale of the war?
Ignoring the confusing framing you present (as if a random soldier in the army decides whether or not the operation proceeds, as opposed to a chain of command reaching back to the commander in chief). If I was the guy in charge, no, I would not kill innocent civilians in the pursuit of military targets. First of all, that’s a war crime. Second of all, how can you, an ostensibly intelligent American adult who has seen 25 fucking years of middle eastern quagmire, still not comprehend that the “blowback” from drone striking a wedding/funeral/daycare attached to an IRGC center does the exact fucking opposite of ending the war? Every time you kill a toddler or his mother in pursuit of the man of the house just ensures that every single remaining male family member will join up with the terrorists and the women with nothing left to lose will be talked into “martyring” themselves? You do realize these are people right? Human beings? What would you do if someone murdered your wife and kids in pursuit of a “bad guy”? Somehow I don’t think all your lofty talk of “just war doctrines” would be on your mind.
So, bottom line to your question, no. Killing innocents can’t be part of anything called a “Just” “War”. If God wants to vaporize modern day israel, more power to His elbow, but that’s a decision no man can ever justify. Regarding bans: that was obviously bants m8. The key point was that you guys (mainstream Christianity; the branders of heretics) have just done a very good job of (mostly) wiping out the dissenting, pacifist Christian voices. I merely tossed that in to drive the point home: it even happens here in this little backwater of Christiandom.
Plenty of wars in the Bible without "states". You basically declare war anytime you decide another people is unworthy of being treated as human. The minimum group is that it be done by some defined entity with representative human agents, say you, or your bridge club, against some other similarly defined group(s). There are many regulations, but we're focusing on notifying the representative agents of your enemy about your intent and of their unaccepted aggressive behavior; allowing reasonable time to negotiate prior to declaration; and then not engaging in war crimes, as well as honoring attempts to negotiate during the war (parleys). Obviously you're also subject to the judgment of the rest of humanity that's not participating, because if you ignore their judgment you're at war with them too, so there must be common standards ("law of nations") by which details are understood and worked out among sovereign groups. Nowadays most non-states don't call it "war" because a modern state is basically a monopoly upon lethal force, but declaring war in principle isn't limited to states.
Yes, individual soldiers decide whether they obey or disobey orders based on conscience; but the same conscience dilemma applies to the whole chain. Now your comprehension will be tested again as we proceed. I'm told "intentionally killing civilians" is a war crime, but so is "forcing protected persons to serve as human shields". I tried to state the question unequivocally but it appears it still isn't sufficiently long. If the warrior's morality is that "it's always wrong to attack if a person forces human shields to constantly surround him", then any people could be as abusive as they wanted, without fear of retribution by these "moral" warriors, as long as they kept the forced shielding in motion. I would presume the just warrior's morality is more like "we will seek to deceive targets into attackable situations and therefore if there is collateral damage due to our miscalculation then it's unintentional and thereby moral". That is, unintentional civilian death, which is what my scenario intended to cover. Would you refuse to join such an operation, even presuming you agreed with the elimination of the enemy, because any risk of unintentional collateral death is morally forbidden to you?
This is not drone-striking a wedding, which would be ruled intentional (and which you tie to the IRGC even though that's not the scenario here; plus, Trump seems to be surviving the blowback from the girls' school story, so even if he did do that your argument against it based on optics fails). The illustration of killing an occupant in pursuit of a homeowner does happen sometimes in war and is more on point. If the warrior judges that the enemy is using human shields, he must engage a plan designed to minimize collateral deaths while still admitting responsibility for their possibility. The plan cannot call for intentional killing in such pursuit. We have a number of cop stories where cops claim they believed their lives were in danger but the dead nonbelligerent victim (sometimes the cops even go to the wrong address) doesn't appear to have contributed to that belief at all compared to the cops' daily off-duty FPS gaming glut. Those are supposed to be decided by competent courts as to whether the death "could" have been theoretically avoided so they are on a case basis. If the soldier misacts, or has mistrained himself, he too should be disciplined in the event of war-crime circumstances, while recognizing that circumstances exist where an unintended civilian death is not a war crime. (The plan does also take into account the blowback from going wrong, but in war the general does not set a moral line against unintended deaths at all costs, only against a generally agreed standard of preventing (or punishing) war crimes at all costs.)
Now, I treat these as AMA so I attempt to answer even the crazy hypotheticals. If I were in a war (which I work hard to avoid), and I morally agreed with its justness (rather than defecting), and I were ordered irreversibly to an operation that had known risk of unintended civilian death, I would trust God for the wisdom for the moment. Ultimately there is no moral conflict that cannot be navigated, and I would seek the navigation in the moment and continue to seek what I should have done after the fact if I were to judge that I failed. I would probably have allowed a backup plan, possibly even risking my own life, if a human shield were encountered; but I might also be able to judge for my conscience's sake that the apparent human shield is not enslaved or accidental but independently belligerent, which would resolve the question. The worst scenario, often described, is killing after judging one's life to be at risk and then realizing one judged wrong; one can only state one's case and plead one's lack of intent to kill an innocent and submit to God and man for mercy. I cannot say such a scenario would never come to me, but I can say it's easy to vow never to kill an innocent human intentionally and that vow should be easy enough to keep given a clear conscience otherwise. You seem to speak of cases of intent, but my case is only about where there's risk that is avoided by every reasonable means, not about intent.
Your next scenario typically blurs the word "murder" with "in pursuit of a 'bad guy'", which are contrary in intent. I'll presume by murder you mean just kill, and by pursuit you mean authorized pursuit, instead of presuming toward the opposite possible reading. That eliminates the case where the "someone" is not engaging a just war, or failing to give legal notification of the war (in which case the scenario wouldn't apply at all). Of course since war was declared, I'm making every effort to protect my family as a nonbelligerent civilian, but let's also assume I fail in this scenario. So I suppose I should mentally prepare for the scenario if someone who had declared war on me (e.g. on my nation) killed three or more of my family members pursuant to that war despite my best efforts. I think the first answer would not be about the war but about the castle doctrine, namely that I have a right to self-defense regardless of war, and three deaths is a pretty good signal that my life is at risk if the killer remains present, justifying my use of lethal force. (However, even here Moses regulates the case, saying that if it's theft rather than murder and it happen during the day then deadly force is not permitted, Ex. 22:2-3. This implies that the greater case of murder is not so regulated and can be met by lethal force at any time.) If the decision is not in my hands, then I would have a legal injury of loss of life, and I would have the decision of what remedy I would seek from any legal system available. As to the war itself, whether I agree or disagree with my country's stance, whether I enlisted or not, I don't think my stance would change.
You seem to imply, of course, if the killer is "following orders" then my right to kill him proves his error. Well, assuming you mean he is killing violently and without negotiation, he's not following just orders that (as above) are designed to minimize collateral death. If he is following just orders it's hard to imagine a scenario where my family would die due to the warrior's and my own preparations. But let's presume he killed them in error, I caught him and he pled with me for his own life, and evidence supports his plea so that I don't have the right to claim my life is in danger. (If evidence indicated he might be lying, I suppose I could still use the argument of self-defense.) Well, that would be the kind of case I'd pray for wisdom in advance for, as I do generically for whatever tough cases I may face in future. I don't have the makeup where I'd be likely to justify killing someone I've captured without believing it's justified self-defense because the person has not engaged a just war. It'd be more likely I'd either plead self-defense (including avengement) myself and execute the killer, or I'd turn him over to my authorities (not his own people). But there's not a place where just war and self-defense are at moral odds with each other.
Based on your view (thanks for being direct), if all activities that might possibly involve any unintentional civilian death, or even injury, were forbidden, I don't know how any general could prosecute any modern, or even ancient, war. The argument from "possibility" has too much contingency; my stepping outside my door might lead conceivably to an innocent death, but so might my staying indoors, so unless I allow that my behavior might be blamed for innocent death in ordinary living then I'd be unable to do anything. But perhaps we might set an acceptable risk level, say one in a hundred thousand, as to whether our plans for any day might involve unintentional innocent death. Then we could argue that the army should use the same risk level in its plans. If we did, my question remains unanswered as to whether you let the "bad guy" win with his enslaved human shields, or whether you increase the risk when the bad guy has by his actions exempted himself from all humane treatment, and exempted any innocent lives that he has recklessly endangered from being another person's fault who is seeking not to kill them. So if you regard this as an advance in the conversation I'm still looking for your thoughts as to the dividing line.
Thanks for thinking of me as "mainstream Christianity". Obviously the ability to brand heretics is closely related to just war, and so if you want reparations done for any heretic that was branded unjustly then Christ will see that his body ensures the reparations are done. As for us, no mod took any steps to wipe out pacifism or any dissent except incivil disagreement with the creeds. There was no content-based exclusion whatsoever; it seemed to me that those who had difficulty with a community where the creeds were upheld simply migrated to their own preferred locations instead. The only forum member currently banned is the probable alt "Kill_Yourself". I'm open to any criticism at any level of the policy of drawing a line beyond which enforcement is moral; I just don't see how someone could utterly fail to draw such a line, or to place it so far out that one cannot be responsible for protecting one's own life (unless one is an anarchist forsworn to forsake self-defense and who has no responsibility for any innocents who have not made the same vow). Your ball.
Well, as Jesus says, “let he who is without sin cast the first” accusation of sub-humanity.
That sounds insane dude. In fact, “render unto Caesar” may even include the “right” to war. Just as you give up your “right” to (personal-)Justice by living in a society with a Justice system, you likewise give up your right to “War” by living in a country with an army. Even the so-called “Islamic state”, or the “confederate states of America”. Basically by definition when someone “declares war”, they likewise “declare self-governorship”.
Of course individuals have the right to self defense, and of course that right extends to the innocents around them.
It’s hard to make out if you actually got my “hypothetical” - (it wasn’t really, it was more of an “empathetical”, I was trying to get you to empathize with the guy who’s wife and kids were blown up because they happened to be on the same street as “a terrorist”.
But just to make it super clear: imagine your wife and kids got blown up because they were in the vicinity of some “bad guy”. They got blown up by the “good guys” who were “fighting a Just War” against a target “deemed subhuman by the highest court in the land”. And you know what, maybe you are of such upstanding moral integrity that you wouldn’t let it get to you. But I think the vast majority of people would react violently to such a scenario. I thus don’t see murdering innocent civilians to pursue “legitimate targets” as justifiable.
Now does that mean a madman can “take a hostage” and then do anything he wants? Uhh no, are you retarded? All the individuals involved still have their individual right to self defense, including the right of people nearby to defend the hostage (by, potentially, killing the hostage-taker). But what no one has the right to do, is say “alright, you, flood the room with lethal gas. We can’t let this madman escape! He could go on to take more hostages!”
I wonder if you see the difference, or if im going to get a novella of cope about how “someone’s gotta make the hard calls!”. Nope. No one has the right to tell someone else to murder an innocent. Sorry, end of story. Does it happen? Well by golly it happens a whole helluva lot! Probably the majority in recent times coming right from israel itself!