Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Brian_K_White 1563 days ago
Being forced to participate in defense is different than being forced to participate in offense.

Defending is like paying taxes. Everyone has to do their part, and the day of payment coming due for enjoying the citizenship is too late to decide "maybe I want to change citizenships".

It's frankly dishonest to try to reduce and equate everything to "forced to participate in war".

1 comments

I fundamentally disagree. People don't choose where they are born and don't owe any aligiance to the state that happens to control that territory.

Just because the local mob accepted my protection money and left me alone doesn't mean I have a moral obligation to defend them against a competitor.

People don't even choose to be born at all. That isn't an argument.

There is no place one even could choose to live that doesn't have some sort of communal shared structure and resources, which everyone benefits from, and everyone must contribute to, and so "didn't choose" is yet again, not an argument.