Quote:
Originally Posted by The_Dunedan
Perhaps I have a problem seeing such atrocities as an issue of scale; part of the difficulty with being what I describe as a charitable individualist is that you eventually come to see every tragedy in very individual, visceral terms. I have a truly difficult time seing much difference between The Somme, Cambodia, Liberia, and Amazon oil-piracy; the human tragedy on the -individual- level is still the same. People lose their families, their friends, their homelands, their balls and intestines and unborn children, and then swear vengeance and are either annihilated or begin the killing all over again. What else has the 20th Century shown us? This is why I believe that the only circumstance under which it is acceptable to use force is if aggressed upon: because once force is used you may have to take it to some truly aweful places, and if you don't you may not make it out the other side: it is only when someone initiates the use of force that they forfeit their absolute right to self-defense.
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I am not trying to relativize the suffering or the atrocities. I am pointing out the different levels of responsibility and culpability. Otherwise, everyone is just as culpable of everything, and that is a degree of relativism I can't support.
Coca-Cola hires hitmen to kill union leaders in Colombia. Is everyone who owns coke stock, or drinks coke, or sell their product as culpable for that as the leaders of coke in Colombia?
United Fruit, now Chiquita, organized as many if not more coups as Occidental petroleum. Is anyone who eats a banana, sells their product, or own their stock as culpable as the CEOs who actually organized the coups and ordered the massacres?
Im not saying that those who choose to support these companies are absolutely innocent. But they are far from being as responsible as the people who actually give the orders.