Ask Lemmy

That's what you say to justify genocide. There are children there.

They are brainwashed supporters of genocide. I read about a guy who left to get his 2 newborn twins registered at the hospital and they got killed along with his wife while he was away.

"No innocents."? Fuck you. I wouldn't wish this misery on my absolute most hated enemy.

That is usually how a genocide is justified to the public. Every member of the 'undesireabe' group is guilty of being an undesirable, and can thus be justifyably murdered.

Examples:

All Jewish people are guilty of some conspiracy and/or killing Jesus

All Muslim people are guilty of replacing white christians and/or terrorism

All LGBTQ people are guilty of grooming kids

All Palestinians are guilty of 'occupying' Israeli land.

etc.

Every example of this is a tool of propaganda to get the public to go along with unfair treatment up to and including genocide. The fact that they're all easily refuted doesn't matter. It goes hand in hand with the view that the group aren't fully people.

This reasoning is never ok, no matter what group of people it's used against this time. When you recognize it, call it out for the sham it is.

nobody thinks a whole group of civilians deserve to be killed off that isn't a complete dumbass

Hard no.

The idea that your can judge an entire group of people to be innocent or not is heavily flawed. Even if any groups cultural influence was hypothetically incredibly evil, do people deserve death for being influenced by their surroundings? How do we gauge who has true evil in their heart, and who was harbouring doubts but couldn't say anything? We literally can't, and that kind of thinking shouldn't be used to decide judgement of a person, let alone who lives and who dies. In practical terms things get muddier sure, but we're way past that point.

At this point I feel like the conclusion of violence is made first, then the justification coming afterwards.

If there are no innocent ones, how can anyone be a judge of someone else

Let the sinless one throw the first stove

A core principle of modern (western) legal states is that it's preferable to let 10 guilty people walk free before wrongfully punishing one innocent. I'm aware that we often don't manage to live up to that, but it is the ideal.

That's why guilt of the individual (!) has to be proven beyond reasonable doubt, it's why certain evidence may become inadmissible if it's been acquired illegally, it's why suspect's may walk free due to formal errors. We try to make absolutely sure that cutting corners doesn't lead to wrong conclusions, even if it means that we sometimes have to let criminals go unpunished.

Following that same principle, "it's possible that there's a significant majority" isn't enough. Where's the proof that there's not a single inhabitant of Gaza who doesn't support Hamas?

Also, since when is it a crime punishable by lifelong imprisonment or death to be hateful of someone?

And if you and your entire people were held in an open air prison for as long as you could think back, would you not grow hateful of your jailers?

Last but not least: The logic that "there are no innocents [on the other side of the fence]" applied by Hamas towards the Israelis led to October 7th. If it was flawed then, how is it not flawed now?

There's plenty of examples of people of both nationalities living, working, cooperating, or interacting together.

"They're all guilty" is bullshit.

Ask those people if there are any innocents in Israel. All of that society contributed to a genocide. We could ask the same thingabout the US. I didn't get thrown in jail from repeated protesting, so I'm just as much to blame.

Insofar that you add "innocent of absolutely anything and everything that anyone could ever morally doubt, on a philosophical lebel", definitely no.

Innocent as in not responsible for the crimes of others? Yeah, obviously. Depends though but vastly yes.

no, because you cannot hold one person accountable for the actions of a different person unless they directly enabled it.

Isn't that just neutrality?

Edit: Oh you meant "no innocents in enemy territory". No, that's not valid.

The idea of free will is unfalsifiable. So far, there is no evidence that there is anything causing conscious beyond, physical, chemical interactions. This means, that most likely, humans do not have free will. Every action, every thought, is caused by some chemical, or physical thing, and is ultimately predetermined.

The idea of "guilt" is born out of the idea that humans have free will, and are therefore culpable for "bad" or "immoral" actions. But humans do not have free will. Punishing a "guilty" person, is actually just inflicting suffering on the qualia, or the conscious experience of someone, for circumstances completely out of anyone's control, including themselves.

I believe that all people are innocent. Every act of violence should be evaluated as if it was being done against an innocent person. The only difference between a killer and a saint is that of brain chemistry.

As for Israel specifically, since that is a different question than the nature of innocent, here is my reply:

• Israel funded and supported Hamas to undermine Palestinian authority
• Israel had extensive knowledge on Hamas' capabilities beforehand, but "accidentally" ignored warning signs

I see a few people blaming Hamas for Oct 7th. I disagree. When a dog bites someone, do you blame the dog or the owner?

The way I see it, the only truly innocent people are those who sincerely do not know right from wrong, and they're mostly children. The rest of us are each and all responsible for our choices and actions.

This one is just projection. To believe this statement denies there are plenty of people who are innocent on both sides. We are not talking about those people.

We are talking about the people who hate the other side on both sides, but once again we aren't talking about both sides here. One side has made the statement popular to dehumanize the other side.

This is what we are talking about. You can't agree with this statement because it is used as an excuse to kill people. Regardless if the statement has truth to it it is in essence propaganda used to manipulate people.

Those who say there are innocent seem to lack empathy.

What is a child guilty of in the conflict? There are always non combatants who are stuck in this wanting no part on either side.

Palestinians have every right and plenty of reasons to hate Israelis as far as I am concerned