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.
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!
That would be an idealist reading. If you want to take that extreme, you can try starting an anarchist community that is totally pacifist, like others have. But then you also would presumably be peaceful enough that you'd accept other Christians who tell you that their consciences affirm just war (instead of your calling them dehumanizing names ...). If nobody can do capital punishment but Jesus, it's a consistent position, but it doesn't allow the group to get up in arms about the views of others who also affirm Jesus's other words (such as I've listed). If one is seeking the whole teaching it'll all reconcile the same basic way for any truth seeker.
If you are so enamored of modern states that you accept their claims on a monopoly as to warmaking, that's quite a different view than pacifism, I call it statism. I'm a sovereign citizen who has, first by birth and then by volition, deigned to delegate certain warmaking rights to my servant representatives, who don't always serve me that well. I don't give up my right to justice either, I delegate it, but I reserve the right to disagree with any court and govern myself accordingly; and there are procedures by which people take laws into their own hands (not so much anymore). This covers most cases of life and death, but you're asking about the special exceptions so I work from your hypotheticals. The fact is, though, if I or my club decides another race is subhuman, we have put ourselves in a state of war with them (conflict), and we have responsibility for that decision.
Well, yes.
C'mon, Graph, get specific if you have particulars, without inventing a case. Since you made me aware of it, I've been for years empathizing with the family and church of Nahida and Samar Anton, just as I seek to empathize with all victims of violence and warfare. To whataboutery, Jesus says, unless you repent you will likewise perish. But there are still the same two cases, either they were sniped unjustly while they were taking reasonable precautions, or the sniper didn't intend to kill innocents and was using reasonable (but mistaken) determination about the shooting. Case basis determines what was just and unjust about the war plan (and in this case history will likely favor the nascent martyrs). But by calling something "murder" you've already judged the case rather than recognizing the difficulty, and you've avoided dealing with the hard calls. I empathize with the LPJ who promotes them as martyrs, and I empathize with the IDF who proclaimed innocent error and may have much they can't say about it for their own reasons. And I leave the case open even as I lean one direction because it's not my job to judge it.
Your rewording hasn't changed the scenario much. If the war was declared under law of nations and is active in my region then my family is already known to be at risk of death just as if a hurricane was approaching. We take precautions. If we're poor or negligent and can't prevent the death, then people die, in fact people are kinda used to that happening around the world. Of course the survivors are tempted to be violent, and they too are subject to the same law of humanity as everyone else; a mistake under severe provocation is not punished the same as one under minimal provocation, but they're both mistakes. But what, of the two states, should I tell the state that hasn't taken precautions to protect its citizens and may be committing war crimes against them that it's my job to protect their citizens, but the state that takes precautions not to kill innocents but knows that some might be killed anyway is to be judged as murderers? That doesn't necessarily follow. Your conclusion (again prejudging the case as "murder) doesn't deal with the issue. If it were "murder" i.e. intentional killing of an innocent, of course it's wrong. The question is when it's unintended and collateral, and you haven't answered that question.
In the hostage situation, the problem is that we're talking about people powerful enough to be surrounded by many effective slaves and to have sycophants all around them who are interested in protecting the leaders' lives. Apologies if you pivoted to a different case. But even hostage rescue teams recognize the risk of hostages dying, and they proceed anyway. So (not to ask who is retarded), such teams use creative means to take down the aggressors without intentionally killing the hostages.
Do you understand that by going through the motions of ordinary life, there's a slight mathematical risk that an innocent person might die by your actions? I suggested that risk be 1 in 100k per day. Is that risk acceptable to you, seeing as there's no way to get it to zero short of eschatology? If that risk is acceptable, would it also be acceptable that a military, or a rescue team, could engage activities if they reasonably judge that the risk of innocent death is equal to the same number? Because if you see that much logic, then at least we're putting a number on it instead of the problem of acting like it's totally zero. I do believe that God always gives an option to anyone at any time where conscience would not be betrayed on any point, but I don't believe that we should strain out gnats and swallow camels; we should deal with the weight of mercy and justice at all times, and deal with matters that have the weight of a pinch of spice only at liberty. The type of anarchism you're proposing leaves nobody free to deal with the powerful who surround themselves with innocents who would suffer if their horrendous abuses were forcibly stopped. And that abuse is worldwide, well-known, and weighty. If a nation goes in and makes every effort to prevent collateral casualties and in all their efforts a single lapse in judgment leads to a civilian death, it's a death but it's still a lot less weight by comparison. If we're letting the camel destroy the whole house while we're objecting that the homeowner let in a gnat, that's sinful.
So I've answered your questions. Mine remains. I'm framing it in terms of zero tolerance versus the ordinary tolerance of the unforeseen that we accept getting in cars every day. You do get in a car most every day, correct?
Well, Jesus strikes me as an idealist. Not the case for you?
First of all im not sure you have the right to decide another race is subhuman. You’re such a hypocrite anyway - anytime someone on this site mentions “the jews” or “talmudists” you cry and shit yourself over “mUh group judgements”. But when the topic changes to slaughtering arabs BOY are you GUNG-HO about their “right” to blow up toddlers.
Are you retarded dude? I did get specific, I named a specific event where your team specifically murdered over 100 toddlers in a daycare, because it was attached to a “valid target”. Blow it out your ass. Over 50,000 innocents were killed by israel since Oct 7th ‘23, that right there has created more “terrorists” than anything else.
Is that what you think is happening? Israel is “unintentionally” murdering all these Christians in Lebanon and Syria and Palestine? Lmfao. All the little kids getting doubled tapped in the head and genitals by snipers.
Let me know when thats the scenario being discussed. Because I’ve never seen a war that went like that. The wars you’re so set on conducting seem to leave mountains of innocent corpses. Infact, invariably far more innocents are slaughtered than combatants. What’s the limit for you? How many innocent lives are too many to lose, for one valid target? Would you firebomb Dresden if you heard hitler was visiting?
Yeah, Jesus is both idealist and pragmatic. We're talking the pragmatic side right now though. I thought about it, and the Amish are doing pretty well so maybe you should join them. However, it still applies that then you don't act warlike about people who disagree with you, and you'd have to lay off the calls for Israel to be prosecuted too because no ideal pacifist claims the right to punish anyone else by force. I talk to these zero-aggression people often, and so if you want to go that way consistently you get to lay off the verbal attacks and the calls for the destruction of the destroyers.
If nobody has the right to determine if another party has committed crimes against humanity (i.e. to judge them unworthy of continuing to have their own human rights), except Jesus, then the criminals continue apace and you don't have the right to stop them. If you do have the right to call for them (e.g. Israel) to be punished by force, then you do believe in the right to judge them unworthy of human rights. Two ways, pick one, you can't pick both and be consistent. (What I tell people is that if you want to judge a whole race including children, you need to have the case heard that the children are contributing to belligerence, and nobody here tries to meet that bar at all; the closest argument is that Jewish, or Arab, children are indoctrinated to the lifestyle, but that is hardly proof of choice.) There is a time to judge, and it's only for very serious cases, and that's a consistent standard. It's not consistent to say never to judge and then to judge, which is what I see you doing.
I picked a case where there's been relative agreement on the analysis. You're picking cases where there's wild disagreement on the fog of war, and you're (apparently) gravitating only to one side of the sourcing without any critical review (that's called bias). I told you, the girls' school has many competing interpretations right now, and seeing as this is Conspiracies and I don't believe in Sandy Hook either this has all the marks of a bigger Sandy Hook. It's likely it'll remain unsolved officially, while the theorists put together the best solution. But you have judged it already and called it my team. Well, even in the worst case, since I'm an American and some blame America, what should I do to fill up the suffering of Christ about this event? Should I be appointed to forfeit my life to Iranis because they claim my club took innocent lives? I do believe some people are called to similar ministry, but I don't think the call stems from another anon who has an axe to grind about the issue. If I've offended you I could make it up, but when I've asked you what I could do in good conscience we haven't gotten that answered either. You keep attributing motive with words like murder and charges about my intent, and that's not logical. I write because I have hope that you'll come to answer the questions I ask, but if you devolve to the illogic then nothing proceeds of it.
If your Israel figure is correct (and I hear the Iran figures are similar incidentally), even though it's only based on one side and for the sake of argument we'll say neither side is trustworthy, then what do you want done? We can say "big if true", and we can say "bad optics", and then, well, it's happened and it's in the ICJ. You could take the law into your own hands, but oh you don't believe in that. But the amount of ranting you do does amount to warfare because it's dehumanization of your enemy, and Jesus amplifies "do not murder" to "do not call your brother retarded" (that's an accurate translation).
That's not anywhere near 50,000 and, based on the evidence you've presented so far, isn't above 0. Present your evidence and then tell us what to do about it. If "what to do" means "call them murderers", you've declared war on them by abridging their human rights. I point out, you're free to, but your rulings can be reviewed by other humans too. In particular, when you call them murderers but you don't allow them the right to call other humans murderers, Golden Rule fail.
If there are intentional war crimes, of course they should be punished. Who do you trust to make that determination, Graph? Only yourself? Is this a case where the judge should be without sin? (The ICJ is plenty sinful but I trust them as having general accord as being authorized to proceed; if they blow it then Jesus will come after them at the right time.)
I can't comment on Dresden not knowing the facts. If you mean it as an example of the general question, I'll answer after you do because I asked you the same. We might both finesse it the same way by agreeing it's a tough call for the warrior to make on the field on a case basis, but you don't seem to accept that. Now, I still can't approve your phrasing because of the bias issue, but I'll try to give a guideline answer. One intentional civilian death is too many, because as you pointed out it's a war crime and the army should punish such a person, and if they don't then the nations at large may agree to punish; but those that are judged unintentional deaths are not war crimes and are not to be numbered (unless the numbering itself is taken as circumstantial evidence that some were intentional; though courts don't usually rule that way). However, all modern armies already know that and, like modern police forces, admittedly protect themselves with paper trails and brother coverage to claim that every such situation (with very rare exceptions) is indeed "provably" (i.e. documentedly) unintentional. So maybe we do need to move the question further, since you don't pick up on intentionality but assume it (as if the aggressor is always intentional and of course the proposed "civilian" is always unintentional in his baiting; but many nations also admittedly train people to pose as innocent solely to paint another as the aggressor). The question is quis custodiet ipsos custodes, in this case, Who Judges? You've judged one side as murderers, the other side as innocents among a vanishing number of (also judged by you) valid targets. The point of the war is that both sides disagree on the valuations, and you're taking one of the two sides on most of these reflexively. And, oh look, the side is always against Israel and America, but that's not important right now.
So the framing, as if it creates a dilemma, is not problematic if unpacked. Ultimately, does your standard by which you judge murder admit of any colloquy with other sovereigns, or are you dogmatic about it whether or not others might charge it with illogic? Because if it's impossible for you to change, there's no point in my going on. It's possible for me to change, because for me everything is on the table except the One who holds me. But I don't see you being open to discussion, seeing as you continue to use bias and prejudice in your allegedly unbiased framing. In my judgment. Once we've gotten an understanding on whether we are dialoguing to create a joint answer, or whether there's no swaying for you, then we can talk about how that standard (murder) should be applied in reviewing partisan evidence. But you don't seem to be interested in reviewing all evidence based on your conclusive language. So ultimately my second question might be: What else is there to discuss? If my purpose is not to convince you because you've convinced me you don't want to be convinced, I would indicate that by bowing out. But so far I remain doggedly convinced, against the evidence, that you are open to being convinced.