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Comment by pmoriarty | Hacker News Reader

I respect conscientious objectors far more than those who choose to kill.

Not every soldier is a bloodthirsty Blackwater mercenary. I think it takes more courage to put your life on the line for your country than to avoid putting your life on the line with some moral justification you've come up with. Not all wars are the same, obviously.

Perhaps I would respect the conscientious objector in the case of Afghanistan, but if there is a draft for WW3 and everything is on the line - our country, our freedom, I would respect the soldier who answers the call of duty more than someone who tries to get out of it (unless they just object to the killing part and still go as a medic)

It takes a lot of willpower and courage to swim against the tide of your entire culture especially during wartime. My grandfathers were both COs. They didn't spend the war sitting around relaxing. One served as a smoke jumper (forest firefighter) in the Sierras and the other worked in a mental institution, which in those days was more like Bedlam than a hospital. They had to pay their own way and missed out on GI Bill benefits (fair enough).

>with some moral justification you've come up with

>more than someone who tries to get out of it

This sounds pretty dismissive of conscientious objection, regarding it as little more than a veil for cowardice. You're entitled to your opinion, of course, but I'm curious as to whether I've judged that correctly and how strongly you hold it.

Suppose I'm a millionaire who refuses to pay taxes because that is financing war. Isn't it a little bit too convenient that me not paying taxes makes me richer for "moral reasons"?

If someone stands to gain from something, one must assume the least noble of all plausible motives.

During the second world war, only about 25% of the solider fired their rifle during the war. Among those few that did, the wast majority did so in response of a buddy getting shot or shot at.

It takes a lot to get people to kill an other human being. A country and freedom sounds like a nice concept but in the battle field what actually count to push people over that edge is pseudo-kinship.

You can join the war and not kill people. In fact it's very common that soldiers fail to pull the trigger on a live target. For most soldiers, in most battles, it's rather unlikely that they will (knowingly) kill someone, or that they even get in the situation where they could.

I can make up all kinds of moral reasons on why I might object to being part of a war, but "I don't want to kill people" is bullshit. "I don't want to put my ass on the line" is a good reason, it just doesn't sound too good when everybody else is doing just that.

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