I cannot agree to disagree. Not while you are torturing and killing innocent civilians, I cannot agree to disagree about whether it is necessary or whether as you suggest you are doing it at all.

When you stop waging this illegal and immoral war, when you stop the sacking of this republic, the raping and pillaging of the world’s resource, then I have no problem with agreeing to disagree. This is not an academic argument we are having.

Do you want to talk about this academically? History is going to come down on you so hard it’ll make your grave spin you sad, mal-informed minion!

I really have no patience for people who are not taking a side on these issues. It’s one thing to be informed about misdeeds and to stand against them, or to be misinformed or morally vacuous and stand behind them; but how does a person of even average intelligence justifying not stepping in at all?

This is so much like a mugging that’s taking place on a city block, and the majority of people are afraid to intervene. They are cowards. Where do they think that mugger is going to go after he’s finished with his victim? And especially if the mugger is law enforcement himself? The only chance we have is to act collectively to apprehend this criminal and banish him from our neighborhood.

To try to gage our chances of success not only impedes a collective action, it is also unprincipled. Do we want to survive unscathed in a world dominated by crime and inhumanity?

I opt for principle, and I can only hope that the costs won’t be too high. Others have faced a much more ruthless foe. Think about the Christians who faced the lions.

But if you put yourself in that scene, in the times of the decline of the Roman Empire, who would you rather have been: the Christians being put to the lions, or the Romans who sat and applauded the spectacle?