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Comment by Waterluvian | Hacker News Reader

The thing about the rich is that they have access to sufficient levels of abstraction that they can commit terrible, disproportionate violence without it looking that way. And then fools who crave the simplistic safe comfort of moral absolutes come to their aid.

Throwing a petrol bomb at a building with children inside is about as evil as murdering 150 students at an all-girls school. I'm obviously not defending that.

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> Throwing a petrol bomb at a building with children inside is about as evil as murdering 150 students at an all-girls school. I'm obviously not defending that.

Really? I don’t know how many were in his house but at most it’s attempted murder of a few versus killing 150.

I see a difference.

US law sees a difference too. The person that threw the firebomb will get the full weight of the law if they are caught, and spent an awfully long time in prison.

Those that killed the school girls will never face punishment.

And it's versus 150 innocent people vs. a few very guilty people.

If you want to draw that distinction, then don't you need to account for intent? I don't think the USG intended to bomb a school. The guy throwing a Molotov cocktail has even less claim to it being an accident.

It would be manslaughter where I am, 150 counts.

But the idea that the US cares is laughable.

The people barely care. The government certainly doesn’t.

The US has advanced targeting systems the molotov thrower didn't have access to; it's more reasonable to account for intent in the other direction.

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