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On June 05 2023 02:42 Artesimo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2023 02:04 KwarK wrote:On June 04 2023 23:54 Artesimo wrote:On June 04 2023 23:43 KwarK wrote:On June 04 2023 18:20 Artesimo wrote:
This is part of the reason why I have been so adamant at arguing against dehumanising russian soldiers “Won’t anyone think of the good concentration camp guards. What did they do to deserve our hate?” I knew I could trust you to come in with some hyperbolic statement that completely mischaracterises what is being said / is happening. Defending the Russian people is one thing, defending the Russian soldiers who are fighting for the right to genocide the Ukrainians is another. These people are at worst Einsatzgruppen and at best the soldiers who kill the people who fight the Einsatzgruppen. Well if you followed the conversation in any capacity, you would know that my dislike for it here was because its needless hostility that might push someone over the edge - not about protecting these soldiers. And if you had made the effort to go back to when I first advocated that point, it was because I disagree with that stuff fundamentally and think it leads down a dangerous path for yourself. It is motivated by protecting our "western" way of life, our values, and our future. Not the russian soldier who's crimes are not any less condemned by it. Not debasing yourself takes away nothing from their actions. I don't just believe in basic human rights when they suit me. And I know I really gonna regret engaging on this, but the comparison of the russian war against ukraine to what the war of the nazis is just plain false. There is overlap in what is happening, but ultimately the russian war in ukraine seems to be to dissolve the state of ukraine and its identity - something which fits the legal definition of genocide. The goal is not to kill off all ukrainians. The war the nazis fought sought to eliminate what they deemed lesser races, so genocide in the sense that most people will use it: The murder of groups of people as a core goal. That is not a defence of either of those. Both can be described as genocidal, but there is still a difference between them. Both are unacceptable. I appreciate the irony of you reaching for some nazi comparisons when trying to defend something that was at the very core of their ideology and is generally not accepted within our values. The mass graves found might disagree with you that this isn't about killing Ukrainians.
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On June 05 2023 02:58 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2023 02:42 Artesimo wrote:On June 05 2023 02:04 KwarK wrote:On June 04 2023 23:54 Artesimo wrote:On June 04 2023 23:43 KwarK wrote:On June 04 2023 18:20 Artesimo wrote:
This is part of the reason why I have been so adamant at arguing against dehumanising russian soldiers “Won’t anyone think of the good concentration camp guards. What did they do to deserve our hate?” I knew I could trust you to come in with some hyperbolic statement that completely mischaracterises what is being said / is happening. Defending the Russian people is one thing, defending the Russian soldiers who are fighting for the right to genocide the Ukrainians is another. These people are at worst Einsatzgruppen and at best the soldiers who kill the people who fight the Einsatzgruppen. Well if you followed the conversation in any capacity, you would know that my dislike for it here was because its needless hostility that might push someone over the edge - not about protecting these soldiers. And if you had made the effort to go back to when I first advocated that point, it was because I disagree with that stuff fundamentally and think it leads down a dangerous path for yourself. It is motivated by protecting our "western" way of life, our values, and our future. Not the russian soldier who's crimes are not any less condemned by it. Not debasing yourself takes away nothing from their actions. I don't just believe in basic human rights when they suit me. And I know I really gonna regret engaging on this, but the comparison of the russian war against ukraine to what the war of the nazis is just plain false. There is overlap in what is happening, but ultimately the russian war in ukraine seems to be to dissolve the state of ukraine and its identity - something which fits the legal definition of genocide. The goal is not to kill off all ukrainians. The war the nazis fought sought to eliminate what they deemed lesser races, so genocide in the sense that most people will use it: The murder of groups of people as a core goal. That is not a defence of either of those. Both can be described as genocidal, but there is still a difference between them. Both are unacceptable. I appreciate the irony of you reaching for some nazi comparisons when trying to defend something that was at the very core of their ideology and is generally not accepted within our values. The mass graves found might disagree with you that this isn't about killing Ukrainians.
There we go...
I am not saying they are not killing ukrainians, but the goal is not to depopulate ukraine but to assimilate it. There is a difference between "we want all this land and its people. Kill those that can't be subjugated" and "We want all this land. Kill sufficient people first and have the rest of them die out slowly over time due to enslavement and various population control measures, we eventually want them gone completely". Not to mention that its still unclear if those mass graves are the result of state directed killings, or the war coupled with the circumstances in the russian army. And no, this also is not a defence of putin or russias war because that doesn't change anything about being responsible for those deaths.
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United States44449 Posts
On June 05 2023 02:40 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2023 02:07 KwarK wrote:On June 05 2023 00:23 Copymizer wrote:
I can tell i little story my grandma told me, she was born and raised in western Denmark and was an adult during world war 2 when Denmark was occupied by nazi troops. The nazi troops in her town was recruited from Hungary and was very friendly to the local community there and i believe they didn't want to be there but had no choice under the order of being occupied by the nazis There's always a choice. 'Do as you're told or die' isn't really a choice tbh. That said, German troops were generally not harshly punished if they refused to take part of massacres or kill civilians, but refusing to follow a 'lawful' order was strongly punished, often by execution. I'm personally willing to give quite a bit of leeway to German troops who took part of occupant forces in various countries but who refused to kill civilians if given that order.
Consider the bravery of all the unarmed non violent resisters through history who stood up to armed police or soldiers knowing they likely faced death. Now consider how much less brave you have to be as an armed and equipped soldier with armed comrades either side of you. Soldiers are just about the last people you want to say “do as you’re told or die” to. They’re used to facing people who want to kill them, that’s their job, they’ve been given the training and the tools to kill those people first. Nobody has more of a choice in the face of threats than soldiers.
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Norway28929 Posts
On June 05 2023 03:16 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2023 02:40 Liquid`Drone wrote:On June 05 2023 02:07 KwarK wrote:On June 05 2023 00:23 Copymizer wrote:
I can tell i little story my grandma told me, she was born and raised in western Denmark and was an adult during world war 2 when Denmark was occupied by nazi troops. The nazi troops in her town was recruited from Hungary and was very friendly to the local community there and i believe they didn't want to be there but had no choice under the order of being occupied by the nazis There's always a choice. 'Do as you're told or die' isn't really a choice tbh. That said, German troops were generally not harshly punished if they refused to take part of massacres or kill civilians, but refusing to follow a 'lawful' order was strongly punished, often by execution. I'm personally willing to give quite a bit of leeway to German troops who took part of occupant forces in various countries but who refused to kill civilians if given that order. Consider the bravery of all the unarmed non violent resisters through history who stood up to armed police or soldiers knowing they likely faced death. Now consider how much less brave you have to be as an armed and equipped soldier with armed comrades either side of you. Soldiers are just about the last people you want to say “do as you’re told or die” to. They’re used to facing people who want to kill them, that’s their job, they’ve been given the training and the tools to kill those people first. Nobody has more of a choice in the face of threats than soldiers.
I have no problem granting 'greater bravery' or 'more ideal behavior' to unarmed non-violent resisters than I give to 'soldiers who do the minimum of compliance to avoid harsh punishment'. I also most certainly think higher of the German soldiers who were executed for refusing to follow orders than I do of those who didn't. But from what I'm reading that's 30000 out of 18.2 million people, and I'm not going to condemn people for not being part of the greatest 0.2%. Also I'm not sure being armed but surrounded by x amount of equally armed people is actually all that good of a scenario for revolting, especially when you also factor in that attempting to ask questions to figure out if your fellow men might also be interested in revolting together with you might get you shot. In a way, I think it's probably easier if you're one member in a group of a thousand hopelessly oppressed people where your choice is a dignified death or an undignified life, and where this is a choice you're taking together with lots of other people.
Btw I understand if people think this particular philosophical tangent is too much of a deviation from the thread but I'd argue it's highly relevant.
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I've seen footage of a Russian commander brutally beating a whole group of his own soldiers (for abandoning their peers), all cowering before him trying not to make any noise. It didn't look to me like they had much of a choice.
There's an important difference between participating in an unjust war and committing war crimes. Lets keep that separated.
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I don't think anyone here argued that. I certainly did not. Of course the Wehrmacht did war crimes, and general crimes against humanity.
My core point was that not every Wehrmacht soldier took part in war crimes, and just being a soldier was not that easy to avoid if you were male, in Germany, and of a certain age range.
I am also not arguing that people who do war crimes should just go free. The way to deal with that is take prisoners of war, and then have war crimes courts that deal with each person individually. Kind of like it was done with the German soldiers after WW2. And after you win the war, you can have a court for basically any soldier involved, which is very reasonable.
If you start from the assumption that everyone wearing the uniform is involved in war crimes, you quickly get into really problematic territory.
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United States44449 Posts
On June 05 2023 03:36 Simberto wrote:
If you start from the assumption that everyone wearing the uniform is involved in war crimes, you quickly get into really problematic territory.
Depends on the war but to a certain extent, yeah, some wars are inherently criminal. It doesn't matter whether you're pulling the trigger or whether you're driving the truck delivering the bullets to the people who pull the trigger or if you're guarding the ammo depot with the bullets in it, you're a part of it.
The opposite is more problematic, it allows for a huge national effort to commit war crimes to be pinned on some poor sod who drew the short straw.
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United States44449 Posts
On June 05 2023 03:32 Magic Powers wrote:
I've seen footage of a Russian commander brutally beating a whole group of his own soldiers (for abandoning their peers), all cowering before him trying not to make any noise. It didn't look to me like they had much of a choice.
There's an important difference between participating in an unjust war and committing war crimes. Lets keep that separated.
You're literally describing a setting in which all of the men involved have already made a choice that their commander disagreed with. That's why they're getting punished. For deliberately making a choice against orders. If that's your example of them not having a choice then I don't think it's a good one.
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On June 05 2023 03:36 Simberto wrote:
If you start from the assumption that everyone wearing the uniform is involved in war crimes, you quickly get into really problematic territory. There's no use in arguing with Kwark, he made up his mind long ago and won't change it so why bother.
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United States44449 Posts
On June 05 2023 04:14 ZeroByte13 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2023 03:36 Simberto wrote:
If you start from the assumption that everyone wearing the uniform is involved in war crimes, you quickly get into really problematic territory. There's no use in arguing with Kwark, he made up his mind long ago and won't change it so why bother.
Look, I can get behind not painting all Russians with the same brush, saying that the people of a dictatorship can't necessarily be blamed for the actions of that dictatorship. Fine, whatever.
But the suggestion that we not paint all of the genocidal invading legions of that dictatorship with the same brush is a bridge too far. There are no good Russian soldiers in this war. There are good former Russian soldiers, there are good Russian deserters, there are good Russian POWs, but there aren't any good Russian soldiers. If you stand in the same uniform as the guy who recorded himself raping a toddler and you shoot the people trying to stop him raping more toddlers then you can be judged alongside him. There's no "I don't support what they're doing but I'll kill anyone who tries to prevent it".
It's like how My Lai stained the entire US army (with the exception of the heroes who pointed weapons at their comrades and made them stand down at gunpoint), not just the men who did it. If you shoot the men who would have prevented the atrocity then you can't be anything other than complicit.
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On June 05 2023 04:00 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2023 03:32 Magic Powers wrote:
I've seen footage of a Russian commander brutally beating a whole group of his own soldiers (for abandoning their peers), all cowering before him trying not to make any noise. It didn't look to me like they had much of a choice.
There's an important difference between participating in an unjust war and committing war crimes. Lets keep that separated. You're literally describing a setting in which all of the men involved have already made a choice that their commander disagreed with. That's why they're getting punished. For deliberately making a choice against orders. If that's your example of them not having a choice then I don't think it's a good one.
If you think they have a choice while getting beaten to the point of possible broken bones or brain trauma, then you're beyond reason regarding this matter and I will consider my part in this conversation to be over. You have a very serious misunderstanding.
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United States44449 Posts
On June 05 2023 04:38 Magic Powers wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2023 04:00 KwarK wrote:On June 05 2023 03:32 Magic Powers wrote:
I've seen footage of a Russian commander brutally beating a whole group of his own soldiers (for abandoning their peers), all cowering before him trying not to make any noise. It didn't look to me like they had much of a choice.
There's an important difference between participating in an unjust war and committing war crimes. Lets keep that separated. You're literally describing a setting in which all of the men involved have already made a choice that their commander disagreed with. That's why they're getting punished. For deliberately making a choice against orders. If that's your example of them not having a choice then I don't think it's a good one. If you think they have a choice while getting beaten to the point of possible broken bones or brain trauma, then you're beyond reason regarding this matter and I will consider my part in this conversation to be over. You have a very serious misunderstanding.
They literally already made a choice. That's how they got there. They're literally being punished for making a choice that their commander didn't like.
I don't get what you're not understanding here because it's perfectly simple. They were presumably told to hold some unsafe ground and instead of potentially dying they made the choice to run away.
You're now using this as an example of how they have no capacity to make a choice. It's like you're using a photo of a golden retriever as the central part of your argument that dogs don't exist.
If Russian soldiers don't have the capacity to make choices then what were those soldiers being punished for?
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I'm not going to discuss this. Getting beaten silly by a commanding officer is not a choice. You're not being reasonable, and you need to reflect on your words.
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On June 05 2023 02:42 Artesimo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2023 02:04 KwarK wrote:On June 04 2023 23:54 Artesimo wrote:On June 04 2023 23:43 KwarK wrote:On June 04 2023 18:20 Artesimo wrote:
This is part of the reason why I have been so adamant at arguing against dehumanising russian soldiers “Won’t anyone think of the good concentration camp guards. What did they do to deserve our hate?” I knew I could trust you to come in with some hyperbolic statement that completely mischaracterises what is being said / is happening. Defending the Russian people is one thing, defending the Russian soldiers who are fighting for the right to genocide the Ukrainians is another. These people are at worst Einsatzgruppen and at best the soldiers who kill the people who fight the Einsatzgruppen. Well if you followed the conversation in any capacity, you would know that my dislike for it here was because its needless hostility that might push someone over the edge - not about protecting these soldiers. And if you had made the effort to go back to when I first advocated that point, it was because I disagree with that stuff fundamentally and think it leads down a dangerous path for yourself. It is motivated by protecting our "western" way of life, our values, and our future. Not the russian soldier who's crimes are not any less condemned by it. Not debasing yourself takes away nothing from their actions. I don't just believe in basic human rights when they suit me. And I know I really gonna regret engaging on this, but the comparison of the russian war against ukraine to what the war of the nazis is just plain false. There is overlap in what is happening, but ultimately the russian war in ukraine seems to be to dissolve the state of ukraine and its identity - something which fits the legal definition of genocide. The goal is not to kill off all ukrainians. The war the nazis fought sought to eliminate what they deemed lesser races, so genocide in the sense that most people will use it: The murder of groups of people as a core goal. That is not a defence of either of those. Both can be described as genocidal, but there is still a difference between them. Both are unacceptable. I appreciate the irony of you reaching for some nazi comparisons when trying to defend something that was at the very core of their ideology and is generally not accepted within our values.
But it is at the core of their ideology. It is a cultural chauvinism instead of an ethnic one, but it's much closer than you realise. Perhaps not in how the Nazis treated the Jews, but how they treated the Poles. They considered some ethnic Poles as suitable for germanisation. They also kidnapped Polish children. Sounds familiar?
According to the Kremlin, the Ukrainians are brainwashed Russians. The Ukrainian identity is considered a disease that needs to be cured. As per the words of Vladimir Solvyov, eradicating people identifying as Ukrainian in Ukraine is akin to deworming a cat. The two articles below outlined what Russia was planning to do with Ukrainians:
https://web.archive.org/web/20220226051154/https:/ria.ru/20220226/rossiya-1775162336.html
https://ria.ru/20220403/ukraina-1781469605.html
According to the Kremlin, Ukrainians can be categorised into three groups: (1) those willing to be russified, (2) those who can be forcefully russified through repressions, and (3) those vehemently opposed to being russified. The latter are to be exterminated. The Ukrainian identity is considered as a new, "amorphous form of Nazism" that is to be eradicated.
How many Ukrainians need to be exterminated? That depends whom you ask. According to Alexei Zhuravlyov, an MP frequently featuring in Russian political talk shows, around 5% of the population are "incurable", roughly 2 million people. The propagandist Margarita Simonyan expressed her shock when she realised that a significant portion of Ukrainians are "infected with Nazism". A DNR leader, Pavel Gubarev said that as many as 5 million, and perhaps even all Ukrainians may have to be killed. They're also talking about imposing decades of terror to get rid of the Ukrainian identity.
Myself, I would estimate the third category at some 60-80% of the Ukrainian population at least. Pro-war Russians seem comfortable with killing tens of millions of people if necessary.
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United States44449 Posts
On June 05 2023 04:46 Magic Powers wrote:
I'm not going to discuss this. Getting beaten silly by a commanding officer is not a choice. You're not being reasonable, and you need to reflect on your words.
People who are incapable of making the undesirable choice are very rarely punished for making the undesirable choice for reasons that are tautological. People who are punished for making the undesirable choice are by definition capable of making the undesirable choice.
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Norway28929 Posts
On June 05 2023 04:46 Magic Powers wrote:
I'm not going to discuss this. Getting beaten silly by a commanding officer is not a choice. You're not being reasonable, and you need to reflect on your words.
I mean I'm not fully agreeing with Kwark in the broader sense here but on this particular part of the discussion he's clearly right. Those Russians would be the kind of Russian soldiers Kwark can think more positively of, because they actually refused to follow orders. If you wanted an example that'd back up your point, you'd point towards some other group of russian soldiers who were watching this punishment be enacted upon this first group, where it's fair to say 'that's bound to influence their ability to freely choose', not the first group which is being beaten up for utilizing that ability.
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On June 05 2023 03:04 Artesimo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2023 02:58 Gorsameth wrote:On June 05 2023 02:42 Artesimo wrote:On June 05 2023 02:04 KwarK wrote:On June 04 2023 23:54 Artesimo wrote:On June 04 2023 23:43 KwarK wrote:On June 04 2023 18:20 Artesimo wrote:
This is part of the reason why I have been so adamant at arguing against dehumanising russian soldiers “Won’t anyone think of the good concentration camp guards. What did they do to deserve our hate?” I knew I could trust you to come in with some hyperbolic statement that completely mischaracterises what is being said / is happening. Defending the Russian people is one thing, defending the Russian soldiers who are fighting for the right to genocide the Ukrainians is another. These people are at worst Einsatzgruppen and at best the soldiers who kill the people who fight the Einsatzgruppen. Well if you followed the conversation in any capacity, you would know that my dislike for it here was because its needless hostility that might push someone over the edge - not about protecting these soldiers. And if you had made the effort to go back to when I first advocated that point, it was because I disagree with that stuff fundamentally and think it leads down a dangerous path for yourself. It is motivated by protecting our "western" way of life, our values, and our future. Not the russian soldier who's crimes are not any less condemned by it. Not debasing yourself takes away nothing from their actions. I don't just believe in basic human rights when they suit me. And I know I really gonna regret engaging on this, but the comparison of the russian war against ukraine to what the war of the nazis is just plain false. There is overlap in what is happening, but ultimately the russian war in ukraine seems to be to dissolve the state of ukraine and its identity - something which fits the legal definition of genocide. The goal is not to kill off all ukrainians. The war the nazis fought sought to eliminate what they deemed lesser races, so genocide in the sense that most people will use it: The murder of groups of people as a core goal. That is not a defence of either of those. Both can be described as genocidal, but there is still a difference between them. Both are unacceptable. I appreciate the irony of you reaching for some nazi comparisons when trying to defend something that was at the very core of their ideology and is generally not accepted within our values. The mass graves found might disagree with you that this isn't about killing Ukrainians. There we go... I am not saying they are not killing ukrainians, but the goal is not to depopulate ukraine but to assimilate it. There is a difference between "we want all this land and its people. Kill those that can't be subjugated" and "We want all this land. Kill sufficient people first and have the rest of them die out slowly over time due to enslavement and various population control measures, we eventually want them gone completely". Not to mention that its still unclear if those mass graves are the result of state directed killings, or the war coupled with the circumstances in the russian army. And no, this also is not a defence of putin or russias war because that doesn't change anything about being responsible for those deaths.
It is perfectly clear that the massacres had approval from the very top. The Russian parliament even updated their legislation on how to properly make mass graves shortly before the invasion. I kid you not, they have laws describing how mass graves are supposed to be made.
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On June 05 2023 04:57 Liquid`Drone wrote:
you'd point towards some other group of russian soldiers who were watching this punishment be enacted upon this first group, where it's fair to say 'that's bound to influence their ability to freely choose'. My understanding was that Magic Powers meant exactly this, but I might be wrong, of course.
If you're an unwilling conscript and you're told to shoot at Ukranians, and you know that if you refuse there's a high chance you'd be beaten senseless with possible brain trauma or worse, and let's say you have a wife and kids to come back to... it's a very, very tough choice, and none of us here can say what we'd choose in this situation.
As it's super easy to say "I'd never do that, so they had a choice" when we've never been even remotely close to such situations.
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United States44449 Posts
On June 05 2023 04:57 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2023 04:46 Magic Powers wrote:
I'm not going to discuss this. Getting beaten silly by a commanding officer is not a choice. You're not being reasonable, and you need to reflect on your words. I mean I'm not fully agreeing with Kwark in the broader sense here but on this particular part of the discussion he's clearly right. Those Russians would be the kind of Russian soldiers Kwark can think more positively of, because they actually refused to follow orders. If you wanted an example that'd back up your point, you'd point towards some other group of russian soldiers who were watching this punishment be enacted upon this first group, where it's fair to say 'that's bound to influence their ability to freely choose', not the first group which is being beaten up for utilizing that ability.
Eh, they made the choice to run away presumably because they thought the immediate future was going to involve fighting an assault by armed Ukrainian soldiers rather than raping a bunch of unarmed Ukrainian women. Had their orders involved raping a bunch of unarmed Ukrainian women they likely wouldn't have disobeyed orders, it's not a coincidence that the orders they disobeyed were dangerous. Let's not confuse cowardice with nobility.
Even in the case of the second group of soldiers here though, they're seeing that the punishment is just a beating. Nobody likes a beating but I'm going to go ahead and assert that no amount of beatings would be able to compel me to kill an innocent child. Kill myself, sure, there's an amount of beatings that would do that. But not kill a child. Now it's possible that I'm some kind of moral superman whose philosophy is above the minds of Magic Powers but I somewhat doubt that.
Let's for a moment put ourselves in the place of the second group watching the first group get punished. You know that in a few minutes you'll be ordered to kill a child and that you can expect the same punishment if you disobey. The commanding officer starts with some mean names, works his way up to full on verbal abuse, then a wedgie or a noogie, then light slaps, then maybe some dead arms, then some punches to the body, then some punches to the face, and so forth. Stopping short of death but including some broken face bones etc.
I wonder at what point Magic Powers would say "yeah, I really don't have a choice here, guess I'll kill that child". We know that he believes that there is full compulsion at some point on that spectrum, that he would definitely kill the child and feel no guilt over it because he didn't have a choice, but where exactly. Would it take more than calling him names? How many noogies would he endure? Once we know where that point is we can safely say that at every moment below that he did have a choice. That he chose to endure being called a buttface rather than kill a child, that he was making an active choice in the face of threats.
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EPT
