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PaperclipPerfector  11d ago (text post)   26282 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026

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Sorry for the delay; I was traveling.

That doesn't mean that if not broadcast, they necessitate legitimate and reasonable concerns for malfeasance.

Right. I think it would be worse if there was less oversight, which you have suggested. I am open to concerns about live-streaming it. But making it less transparent than it already is would be bad, in my opinion.

Do you agree that when deciding to start a war against Iran on the basis that it's ruled by an an evil regime that hates America, as is so often alleged, that Iranian soldiers and their bases are legitimate targets, yes or no?

That's not the actual causus belli, but sure.

Or do you only believe that US servicefolk are exempt from being valid targets when others take issue with how America has been governed?

During a war? No, they are completely valid targets for the armed forces of other nations.

I'm not asking for what formal rules about declarations and acts of war say. I'm asking you, morally, what is permissible.

I think what the formal rules about declarations and acts of war say is very pertinent to what is morally permissible.

Or do you, like many Americans I converse with, instinctively believe that Americans are of greater moral value to others?

Americans are of greater moral value to me. They are not of greater moral value to God.

Where if they commit atrocities or represent the regime other allege are evil, that they can not be held accountable or be 'legitimately' targeted in the same way the US does to others?

Certainly, if a U.S. servicemember commit a crime he can and should be tried and sentenced before a duly constituted court in accordance with due process. Ideally that would be before the U.S. courts constituted for this purpose, but I have no moral objection to a U.S. servicememember being tried by a duly constituted foreign authority if there is no more appropriate venue and they respect due process (there may of course be various legal objections to such a state of affair).

The only legitimate ways to wage war are conveniently conventional and appeal to the perceived strengths of the US military. Dropping bombs on targets of convenience via air is legitimate, strapping a bomb to your chest and walking it towards your target of convenience is not.

Well, yeah. That's the thinking on just war that we inherited from the Europeans. Of course I think it's possible that Americans have always had perhaps a slightly different perspective on war than Europeans due to exposure to fighting a neolithic civilization (which was largely out of mind for Europeans).

I'd argue the vow itself is functionally ceremonial and irrelevant in the modern world. As it does not represent anything real or serious to many people. Regardless of whether we think it should or not.

I don't think this is or should be the case.

Whilst feeling of betrayal or the knowledge that someone wants or wanted to murder you carries more of the emotional weight.

I think murder is wrong even if no betrayal is involved. By itself the knowledge that someone wanted to murder me would carry very little emotional weight to me.

You're going to have to clarify

Okay. I said this before, basically, but I will restate it. Your article is all war dead. Not all of those people were killed by Americans. It's like counting everyone killed since 2020 as being COVID victims.

The majority of Trump supporters are in favor of bombing targets even with a great risk of civilian casualties. That's a valid plurality, I'd say. It's an interesting article in any case, that validates my overarching point as well

So I am glad we finally got to polling. I can't access the underlying details of either poll, but looking at the first one, the framing "The US should NOT use airstrikes if it meant killing innocent civilians." Remember, as I phrased it earlier:

You, of course, will not be able to find any actual polling or research suggesting that a plurality of Americans support bombing innocent civilians. You will argue that they support it from a consequentialist framework because they agree with actions that lead to the bombing of innocent civilians.

This seems to me to show that Americans accept the collateral damage, not that most Americans support bombing innocent civilians for the sake of bombing innocent civilians. However I rather wished I had the foresight to have included that turn of phrase in my original argument, which is rather weaker due to the lack of it.

It seems like you sometimes accept that proportionate collateral damage is acceptable, so I assume you would be with the majority of Trump supporters on this one?

Beyond that, if you're willing to risk your own civilians as victims then you can do that.

It's entirely rational for a state to treat its own civilians as different from other civilians, because it has different duties to its own civilians. However Americans do of course risk their own (usually soldiers) when they conduct airstrikes. Fratricide is actually a pretty serious threat.

The original point was about the validity of military targets. Nidal chose to wear that uniform and then used that uniform to advantage himself on the battlefield against his enemy. You can execute people for that, which America and others have done. But that's, again irrelevant to the point.

I think it's pretty relevant to the conversation of whether or not Nidal Hasan - who voluntarily swore an oath, betrayed it, and used his uniform to kill a number of his fellow soldiers (and one or two civilians, depending on how you count) - is a sympathetic character.

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