Jacoby wrote:
The ban has to do with countries with active jihadist movements linked to isis
Well then where is the ban on Nigeria, the country that is home to the second largest branch of ISIS?
Dox47 wrote:
Who's to say that things would have gone down that way? Maybe murdering Stalin makes him a martyr and forces his successor into taking a much harder line than they would have preferred, and causes more suffering than if he'd been allowed to hold power.
How far do you take this?
I know you're not a pacifist, so you don't follow this to its logical conclusion (who is to say that stopping your murder is for the best?). I also think that, as you are on some level libertarian, you'd agree that it is sometimes justified to use force to defend liberty.
I absolutely agree with you that it would be better to use non-violent means; the classic case is travelling back in time to re-negotiate the Treaty of Versailles, rather than to kill baby Hitler. But if tomorrow the governor of Oregon announced he was going to start ethnically cleansing, presumably you'd support insurgents who tried to stop that happening? Or do they need to wait until their neighbours are being loaded into vans? Or until the executioners take aim? I realise that these are emotionally loaded scenarios but I think that's pretty unavoidable when talking about punching Nazis.
Sure, maybe the lieutenant governor was pulling the strings all along and getting rid of the moderate governor could let him fulfil his plan to turn Oregon into a nuclear wasteland, but that might be a risk worth taking. If nothing else, once you reach a certain threshold then it becomes hard for the next guy to be any worse.
I realise this is getting quite detached from one guy spouting his own brand of rubbish. For my part, while I'd theoretically agree with you that people shouldn't get hit for saying things, I find it hard to get upset in this case.