[RcouF1uZ4gsC]

> 'The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of moral crisis preserve their neutrality"

I think with a hindsight of history, my view is different:

'The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who push people into active enmity claiming a moral crisis'

The Thirty Years War was a result of this and never needed to have happened.

More recently, and dealing with Kennedy, the Vietnam War was result of this kind of thinking. (Domino theory and that unless we opposed every single advance of communism the entire world would fall and be plunged into darkness).

The Cultural Revolution was another manifestation of this kind of thinking.

Someone, much wiser than both Dante and Kennedy once said: "Blessed are the peacemakers".

EDIT:

And even prior to Dante's time, there were the Crusades, where in the name of a "moral crisis", people were mobilized, and great atrocities were committed and much death and destruction resulted.

[wredcoll]

The sheer irony of you citing the vietnam war, which for the americans, was literally defending a nation against an unprovoked invasion, hurts my brain.

[manquer]

I did not follow ,Which nation were the Americans defending an unprovoked attack on ? are you referring the French ?

[wredcoll]

The Vietnam war, or at least the fighting that us Americans refer to by that name, was started by the sovereign state of North Vietnam invading the sovereign state of South Vietnam and ended when America (and allies) stopped defending the state of South Vietnam and North Vietnam conquered it.

You can make all sorts of arguments as to whether or not it was moral to partition the original state of Vietnam into two separate states or whether it was moral for America to be involved at any point, but I'd make the general argument that the state starting a war with a literal invasion is rarely the moral party in such situations.

[alephknoll]

Thats some deranged historical revisionism.

The vietnamese won their war of independence against france ( aka first indochina war). Then the US stepped in to protect 'european colonial interests' gave the southern half of vietnam to france with the promise that the vietnamese people will have a vote. When polls showed southern vietnamese were overwhelming for reunification with the north, we renegged on our promise and did not allow a vote. And hence the 2nd indochina war happened.

> The Vietnam war, or at least the fighting that us Americans refer to by that name, was started by the sovereign state of North Vietnam invading the sovereign state of South Vietnam

The vietnam war was the US fighting the Viet Cong. Do you know who the viet cong was? They were SOUTH vietnamese. The vietnam war wasn't the US fighting north vietnam. It was the US fighting south vietnamese freedom fighters.

[reducesuffering]

The Vietnam War was definitely involving the North Vietnamese military, PAVN, what? Just because the Viet Cong in the South was involved doesn't mean the North Vietnamese were twiddling their thumbs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tet_Offensive

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Offensive

[wredcoll]

> When polls showed southern vietnamese were overwhelming for reunification with the north, we renegged on our promise and did not allow a vote. And hence the 2nd indochina war happened.

Which is why the south fielded close to a million man army and the north had to murder several hundred thousand south Vietnamese when they won the war? They just wanted to reunify peacefully so badly?

[alephknoll]

> Which is why the south fielded close to a million man army

What does this have to do with the fact that most south vietnamese wanted reunification? You mean governments are able to pay poor men to sign up for wars? Shocking.

So we are agreed that the south vietnamese wanted to vote for reunification and the US renegged on that vote. Nothing else matters. That's the crux of the problem.

> and the north had to murder several hundred thousand south Vietnamese when they won the war?

But most of the south vietnamese military supported the north. Especially towards the end of the war. If your assertion was true, then how evil must the US truly be to allow hundred of thousands of soldiers to be murdered? Oh wait, you are just making shit up. And if the north was murdering hundreds of thousands of south vietnamese soldiers, there would have been an uprising. Oh wait, there was no uprising. Stop making things up.

> They just wanted to reunify peacefully so badly?

Yes. It's why the vietnamese agreed to the partition. They foolishly expected that the US ( the self-proclaimed defender of democracy and freedom ) was negotiating in good faith. Hopefully the vietnamese learned their lesson.

You are outright lying about basic historical facts. Not sure why you expected to get away with it. Especially here.

[throwaway99974]

>It was the US fighting south vietnamese freedom fighters.

Hilarious how now we are calling revolutionaries who fought to merge their country with a totalitarian dictatorship "freedom" fighters.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

[rqtwteye]

The US parties love this: “vote for us or the country as you know it won’t exist anymore”. Much easier than actually solving real problems.

[michaelmrose]

One side can honestly claim that because they other side said they would replace the entire government with stooges who could be "informed" what the constitution means by a man who doesn't even read briefs whose stooges would refuse to accept any vote that didn't affirm his parties control.

It also doesn't hurt that he said he would send red state militias into blue states to collect millions of migrants to be herded into concentration camps.

They have been running on destroying America while calling it saving it for 8 years. Meanwhile in their I know you are but what am I press strategy they are claiming that the other side is somehow destroying America despite all evidence to the contrary despite the only existential threat presented by business as usual being the widening gulf between their deranged super fans and the normals.

[immibis]

They're right.

[petsfed]

I think on one extreme you have the failures of neutrality that contributed to WW2, and on the other you have trumped up "moral crises" that characterized much of the Cold War.

Arguably, the reason the Nazis came to power was that a great many right-leaning German voters looked at their options and thought "this Hitler guy seems pretty crazy, but that'll probably cook off, so long as he helps us beat the communists", which is a special kind of neutrality that people can never seem to shake free of.

I get what Kennedy was responding to, his sin was in failing to understand (just like the German right) that "leftist" != Stalinist/Maoist, and that a communist takeover need not look like the October Revolution, and the regime need not look like Russia ca. 1935, nor China ca. 1960.

[soperj]

> I think on one extreme you have the failures of neutrality that contributed to WW2, and on the other you have trumped up "moral crises" that characterized much of the Cold War.

I don't know that I would characterize giving pieces of another country to the Germans as "neutrality".

[petsfed]

As much heat as Neville gets for his policy of appeasement (deserved or otherwise), I'm not sure Britain was in a position to stop Germany by force anyway. American neutrality is certainly open to criticism, and I think America's performative neutrality is why American companies like IBM ended up in such pivotal roles during the Holocaust.

That said, I am referring specifically to the "this Hitler guy probably isn't so bad" phenomenon that happened inside Germany and Austria. It was a dramatic failure to take a stand against Nazism, by middle class people whose neutrality on the persecution of untermenschen was motivated by a fear of losing their economic position (and the perceived economic opportunity of seizing the persecuted's assets. That is where the "socialism" in national socialism comes from, by the way), which overrode their ability to see all the violence and hatred that the Nazis wore on their sleeves. Its very similar to the neutrality of the Swiss during the same period of time.

[RcouF1uZ4gsC]

> I think on one extreme you have the failures of neutrality that contributed to WW2, and on the other you have trumped up "moral crises" that characterized much of the Cold War.

I would guess for every moral WWII, there are 10 (if not 100) other wars that use the language of WWII and result in a complete waste of lives and money and cause far more problems than they solve.

[lazide]

WW2 wasn’t a war about morals/a moral war, it was a war of hunger and greed vs self preservation. Just like most.

If it wasn’t that way, Dresden and Tokyo would never have been firebombed. No one thought those missions were moral or good. they were in the service of annihilating the enemy for survival.

[xboxnolifes]

Charitably, one could also read the quote as saying people should be actively opposing these atrocities, instead of staying neutral during them.

[roenxi]

That isn't how that sort of thinking is ever used in politics. If politicians start using language of "you've got to pick a side on this one!" it usually hints they're about to do something stupid. Occasionally evil.

The world is just too large and complicated for anything to ever boil down to just two sides. We can pretend it does for rhetorical purposes because otherwise political conversation gets hard; but it is important to leave space for the large group of neutrals who in all honesty probably have accurate interpretations of any given issue.

[immibis]

The truth is often close to one side or the other. Believing that is never the case is radical centrism, and leads to the absurdity where one can't decide between siding with the Jews or with the Nazis. I'd hope everyone sides with the Jews in that particular conflict, which isn't the same as saying they have to agree with every single thing every Jewish person ever does.

[Aerbil313]

> The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who push people into active enmity claiming a moral crisis

This statement usually implies that people who act according to a moral framework that isn’t “Live with the minimum amount of intrusion to other people’s lives” are doing wrong. I personally don’t buy that.

When they are told, “Do not spread corruption in the land,” they reply, “We are only peace-makers!”

Indeed, it is they who are the corruptors, but they fail to perceive it.

- The Holy Qur’an (2:11)

[ant6n]

How will the war in Ukraine be viewed from this perspective in the far future?

[rqtwteye]

I think there is some moral clarity in the Ukraine situation. There was simply no good reason to attack Ukraine. I understand that the Russians may be worried about the NATO expansion but that doesn’t justify to lead such a war.

[tejohnso]

There was also concern about ethnic and cultural genocide of ethnic Russians in the eastern Ukraine regions. Promises broken.

[immibis]

Russian history will view it that way and Western history will view it this way.

[michaelmrose]

There is only one truth. Russia started a war of aggression to seize territory.

[immibis]

Western history will view it so. Russian history will view it as the opposite. Truth is irrelevant.

[michaelmrose]

This is just a lie. They funded and armed separatists in this area which predictably led to armed conflict. When the conflict they started shed blood they had pretense to intervene. There was NEVER a genocide against ethnic Russians just a fight they started.

[dragonwriter]

> They funded and armed separatists in this area

And sent Russian troops in to pose as separatists.

[michaelmrose]

It appears that only Russia could prevent or end the conflict. On the territory that Russia controls they have build concentration camps to torture and murder the insufficiently loyal as they set about grinding their cities to dust their people to gore and erasing a culture and a people.

It seems like ceding any territory now would lead to further conflict soon both in Ukraine and elsewhere based on both recent history and Russias statements.

Furthermore it would abandon those in these territories to privation and mass murder same as the soviets perpetrated against them in the past.

[StefanBatory]

And yet your comment is downvoted..

I feel utterly appealed at the HN users who support Russian genocidal state.