This is why I'm a libertarian: these horror stories will only stop once people take responsibility for their actions. A part of this responsibility is not allowing other men to commit immoral atrocities in your name. We're all responsible for these deaths.
I'm not responsible. The government has nothing to do with me. They are a racket that steals my money at gunpoint, nothing more. If a thug steals my money on the street and buys some bullets with it and shoots someone with them I am not responsible. If I cheered the thug on or made excuses for the murder that would make me pretty immoral which is why I don't defend the government at all.
I agree. It's the politicians that order and authorize these attacks and the people that keep voting those criminals into office that have innocent blood on their hands. My conscience is clear.
Are you saying that to be completely in the clear morally, and the only thing you have to do is not to vote in the politicians that order the atrocities?
I don't agree. I'm not from the US but I feel partly responsible for the millions of innocent people that have been killed (mostly by the US and partly by its allies) while I paid taxes to a government that supports the US, even though I didn't vote in the people who approved the support.
Although, shouldering all the worlds problems onto oneself is of course not feasible. But living more or less like an agorist is. Personally, I feel that achieving just that is many years ahead of me (though bitcoin will help alot to speed it up).
The question is, is it better to be a dissident (and have a clear conscience) at the cost of other ambitions? What if those ambitions are about creating (and hence adding value to society)?
For me, having a completely clear conscience is not possible when atrocities continue while better knowledge is so easily accessible as today. But, I won't allow guilt to consume my life either.
Still it is hard not to think of the opposition to the Vietnam war, nothing near that scale of opposition happened with the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Maybe we are getting more complacent.....
or more fearful.