TargetTerror
Member
I had a revelation tonight regarding the culture of victimhood in the US. Many/most police agencies advocate that you not fight back against an assailant, and this seems to be the dominate opinion in many parts of the US and certainly in the media.
However, most of the people with this view are also staunch advocates for intervening in the case of genocide, at least from a moral standpoint. There have been various arguments as to why the US should not mingle in foreign affairs involving genocide, but I've never seen anyone argue that it was immoral to kill the perpetrators, that their actions were not their own fault but rather that of their culture or society, or that the victims should have just laid there and wait for someone else to help them. The analysis for self defense or defense of others in a genocide is really no different than an individual self defense analysis, yet people will often come to wildly different conclusions.
The next time I encounter someone advocating victimhood, I will bring up the Holocaust as a comparison to show them the flaw of their logic. I'll ask, was it immoral for the Nazis to kill Jews? The answer should be yes. Then I'll ask, what should the Jews have done in the face of Nazi oppression? Should they have resisted, or just played along and given the Nazis what they wanted? What about 3rd parties? Should they have done nothing, or come to the aid of the Jews? Then I'd give them a typical SD scenario, where the threat of death is just as apparent and imminent as it was for any Jew under the Nazis, and ask them how that situation is different such that their opinion of what the victim should do is completely reversed.
However, most of the people with this view are also staunch advocates for intervening in the case of genocide, at least from a moral standpoint. There have been various arguments as to why the US should not mingle in foreign affairs involving genocide, but I've never seen anyone argue that it was immoral to kill the perpetrators, that their actions were not their own fault but rather that of their culture or society, or that the victims should have just laid there and wait for someone else to help them. The analysis for self defense or defense of others in a genocide is really no different than an individual self defense analysis, yet people will often come to wildly different conclusions.
The next time I encounter someone advocating victimhood, I will bring up the Holocaust as a comparison to show them the flaw of their logic. I'll ask, was it immoral for the Nazis to kill Jews? The answer should be yes. Then I'll ask, what should the Jews have done in the face of Nazi oppression? Should they have resisted, or just played along and given the Nazis what they wanted? What about 3rd parties? Should they have done nothing, or come to the aid of the Jews? Then I'd give them a typical SD scenario, where the threat of death is just as apparent and imminent as it was for any Jew under the Nazis, and ask them how that situation is different such that their opinion of what the victim should do is completely reversed.