"I was just following orders."

[Cunt]

In many cases, if you go against the authority you lose...possibly everything.

So with slave armies, are they responsible? I think of conscription as 'slave armies', by the way. If someone is drafted, and has a moral 99% that they won't kill, but also a moral 100% that they won't let themselves be killed, do they get a pass for killing because they would have been killed themselves if refusing to kill?

See, this is why I stayed out of the army...my ethics are my own to fuck up.

[Cunt]

"I was just following orders." Is it ever a valid argument for justifying what you did?

Yeh. If you're handing out aid.

What if handing out aid is really causing more misery?

If a population cannot be supported, giving some grain seems like a good idea. Since I am Canada, say I give LOTS of grain. Let a few decades pass, with the unsupportable population well-fed, then have a Canadian crop crisis. Now stop feeding the original population, and MORE people starve to death than ever would have without my having sent 'aid'.

Simple, huh?

[Svartalf]

"I was just following orders." Is it ever a valid argument for justifying what you did?

If NOT following orders entails a large likelihood of your getting lumped with the people about whom the orders your contemplating to refuse were, maybe you'd rather comply?

[Rum]

It almost exclusively depends on who wins, which side you were on and if anybody saw you. War, where most of this happens, really doesn't have the rules most of us think it does or should. Messy effing business.

[MrJonno]

There are going to be circumstances in your life where you don't have all the facts and there isnt the time or resources to explain them so you are expected to obey someone who is meant to have these facts. It doesnt justify murder but may for example justify me building a computer server with a certain configuration because my boss asked me to even if it doesnt make sense to me it might make sense to him

[mistermack]

"I was just following orders." Is it ever a valid argument for justifying what you did?

Yeh. If you're handing out aid.

What if handing out aid is really causing more misery?

If a population cannot be supported, giving some grain seems like a good idea. Since I am Canada, say I give LOTS of grain. Let a few decades pass, with the unsupportable population well-fed, then have a Canadian crop crisis. Now stop feeding the original population, and MORE people starve to death than ever would have without my having sent 'aid'.

Simple, huh?

Yeh, simple. I was just following orders.
I'd be fucked if I disobeyed on that kind of logic.

[Gawd]

If you want to take issue with the reasoning behind the Iraqi invasion and the result, that's an entirely different matter. But it is completely unacceptable to belittle the brave men and women who are merely following orders. If Andy asserts there is no reason to think the men and women in Iraq are brave, then for what reason would he believe America's armed forces are brave in Afghanistan? Or any other country for that matter? I stand by my statement.

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/news- ... 25280.html

Do you agree with what this bigoted American wrote?

[Tyrannical]

Meh, civilians are mostly a myth anyways in a war zone.
You are better off having open engagement rules, as that would encourage the real civilians to leave.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

If you want to take issue with the reasoning behind the Iraqi invasion and the result, that's an entirely different matter. But it is completely unacceptable to belittle the brave men and women who are merely following orders. If Andy asserts there is no reason to think the men and women in Iraq are brave, then for what reason would he believe America's armed forces are brave in Afghanistan? Or any other country for that matter? I stand by my statement.

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/news- ... 25280.html

Do you agree with what this bigoted American wrote?

Do you agree with what this bigoted Canadian wrote?