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Comment by markus_zhang | Hacker News Reader

That's what you get from revolutions by slaves, bro.

To calrify (reagrding comments) I'm not saying this is noble deed but I would not judge them with ordinary moral standards.

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So when one has their citizens slaughtered whole-sale, they are then under obligation to offer good trading terms?

If we are to reinterpret France's wrongs in light of modern norms, why not too interpret the wrong of the Haitian's? Why is this "rules for thee?"

“Fighting oppression is more just than committing oppression” is a norm that has an incredibly long history. What also has an incredibly long history is trying to elevate the importance of the marginal consequences of those fights, over what was being fought against.

Because enslsavers created the situation in the first place. They wronged themselves by taking people who could have been educated and empowered and instead taught them violence and ignorance.

The same reason we don't get too hung up on American soldiers slaughtering SS officers after liberating concentration camps. Two parties can both be in the wrong while at the same time one is way more in the wrong.

war crimes are war crimes, abuse is abuse. Being a past victim doesn't make ur actions any less evil.

I'm not saying it's not evil, I'm just saying that if A enslaved B and B's family, it's perfectly normal for B to kill A and A's family. Is it legal? Is it good? I mean do you really think slaves care about laws or moral? It's brutal reality that we better avoid in one way or another in the future.

Murdering infants is barbaric. It's impossible to corroborate now, but many reports at the time suggested they used impaled French infants for a battle standard. I don't have a word strong enough to condemn that depravity. "That's what you get from revolutions by slaves, bro." comes across as extremely flippant. Slavery is wrong. Murdering innocent people is also wrong, bro.

Let's say when you do wrong X to someone, it's quite possible that they return the "favor" someday. I don't know what we are arguing here. Are they evil? For sure, but do you really expect them to be gentlemen revolutionaries who only kill those "should be killed"?

Actually Europeans did the same in not so long ago, not as slaves, but as slavers (or some more fancy words), so people can go down much further IMHO.

Singling out acts of violence to try to say that both sides are equally evil or that one side is more moral because of that one act of evil is stupid.

The greater picture is this: Haitians were slaves and had every right to fight against their oppression. The "white Europeans" belonged back home in France. They brought it on themselves.

I always like to use this thought experiment: which of the two sides had power to change the situation?

The Haitians couldn't help being slaves until they rebelled. The French could from the very start choose not to be slavers.

> many reports at the time suggested they used impaled French infants for a battle standard

Sure, and the Soviets claimed the Katyn massacre was perpetrated by the Nazis.

Consider sprinkling a few grains of salt on contemporary accounts by interested parties.

Well in this case, B killed everyone that looks like and shares an ethnicity with A. And if C enslaved B and B's family, but C had 1/4 of the same racial ancestry as B, he was spared. So not really a 1:1 comparison.

"Chaotic good" doesn't mean "Chaotic nice"

Because violence begets violence. If you violently abuse, maul, and kill a group of people, then they are loosed, you don't need to think in terms of anything more than "what else did you expect"? I don't know if you've ever watched someone you love beaten to death, or been maliciously mauled yourself, but I bet the person that came out on the other side would not be someone you would recognize. Violence has consequences beyond the immediate victims and it takes time and effort to undo. Everlasting economic sanctions certainly won't help.

One of the tragedies of slavery - like other severe forms of oppression - is that it doesn't ennoble the oppressed. In fact, it makes the enslaved person accustomed to cruelty, violence, iniquity, tyranny; and is likely to result in individuals who tend to be possessive, anxiety-prone, vengeful, violent etc. A bit like the adage about abused children growing up to become abusive parents.

(Of course, this too is a crass generalization.)

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