Once the shooting starts, if we abandon our principles in order to win, have we won? Can you stop acting like government after the war? If not, the struggle was in vain since there is no gain in swapping out one gang of violent, unprincipled monsters for a new gang of violent, unprincipled monsters. Not even if they include you.
The only possible point in flipping the social pyramid upside down in this way would be in hoping that when the smoke clears you end up nearer the top. But that's not good enough for me. I don't want to flip the pyramid; I want a civilization based upon the Zero Aggression Principle and The Covenant of Unanimous Consent. I want there to be no pyramid, where some exist by coercively using others, at all. I don't think you can get there by acting like those in government act.
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Then again, here are a couple of appropriate quotes by L. Neil Smith:
ReplyDelete"Know, down to the last cell in your body, that the other guy started it. He’s the one who put things in an ethical context where considerations like decency and mercy have no referent. The less pity moves you now, the sooner you can go back to being a nice guy.
Know, otherhandwise, that the easiest, most humiliating path to defeat is thinking that to beat the enemy you must be like him. Avoid the
temptation to set your values aside 'for the duration'. What’s the point of fighting if you give up what you’re fighting for? If remaining consistent with your values leads to defeat, then you chose the wrong values to begin with."