The Peace Pledge! Calling all military types

[wolveraptor]

One way to reduce inter-species warring is to meet an alien civilization: in essence, introduce a new group.

The Jews fucked each other up until they started getting their asses kicked by everyone else. Then they tended to lay off, and started grouping themselves as "Jews" instead of "Levites" or something. As soon as you introduce a new group, fighting members of one group will unite to stand against the other. Consider Greece in the Greco-Persian wars.

Humans would group together to separate themselves from aliens with wierd customs and unimaginable cultures. Evolution has made us xenophobic, whether it extends to other races or other species.

[Spyder]

Agreed. A broadly anti-war stance, or even full-blooded Pacifism need not imply hate for soldiers.

However, the Peace Pledge doesn't say "All war is regrettable and must be avoided", it says "War is a crime against humanity".

To me, that implies criminalising all soldiers. Can I take it you argue otherwise?

Well, you're not responsible for starting a war if all you're doing is defending yourself are you? One could argue that the true purpose of a military is to stop war.

[Metatwaddle]

Well, you're not responsible for starting a war if all you're doing is defending yourself are you? One could argue that the true purpose of a military is to stop war.

You're not responsible for starting a war, no, but you're still fighting in one. I don't remember who it is, but someone here has a quote from Orwell that says, "The quickest way to end a war is to lose." So I don't think you really could argue that the military exists to stop a war, because when it comes down to it, the military exists mostly to fight.

If the people making this statement had said "The aggressor in any war commits a crime against humanity," that would be different, and perhaps more reasonable.

[Zornhau]

My point exactly. They didn't, which means they deliberately or accidentally insulted all those young men who died on the Normandy beaches.

What most annoyed me was all the special pleading and sophistry thrown at me by my liberal online friends.

Of course there are many many ways of reading the peace pledge such that it doesn't insult the WWII fallen, but they're not the most obvious readings.

[Spyder]

Well, you're not responsible for starting a war if all you're doing is defending yourself are you? One could argue that the true purpose of a military is to stop war.

You're not responsible for starting a war, no, but you're still fighting in one. I don't remember who it is, but someone here has a quote from Orwell that says, "The quickest way to end a war is to lose." So I don't think you really could argue that the military exists to stop a war, because when it comes down to it, the military exists mostly to fight.

If the people making this statement had said "The aggressor in any war commits a crime against humanity," that would be different, and perhaps more reasonable.

Pretending for a moment that the statement was factually accurate, if this person observes a war then he is observing a crime against humanity, the next logical step is determining who is responsible for this crime which logically leads us to the agressor. The statement "war is a crime against humanity" is a closed statement that does not specify any responsibility on part of the soldiers.

And to avoid strawmanning my argument about the purpose of military I said you could argue that its purpose was to end war, not end it quickly.