re: #168 moderatelyradicalliberal

Like slavery, killing children and collective punishment are all evil so I wouldn’t call Nat Turner a hero. I will say that Nat Turner’s action gives validity to the notion that slavery dehumanized slaves and slave owners alike. The Nat Turner, those weren’t children weren’t children, they were future slave owners. I saw documentary in which a grown giraffe stomped a baby lion cub to death. Sure it was harmless, but baby lions grow up and become stone cold predators. The giraffe eliminated a future threat. Nat Turner was dehumanized enough to think like that giraffe. It wasn’t enough to take revenge on adult white people or just white slave owners because he hated all of them. Had I been a slave, I might have too.

I saw the same with a lioness that began killing any hyena she could catch after losing a cub to one.

That being said, I’ve also seen the bolded part used in exactly the same way to justify the killing of Israelis by Palestinians—i.e. military service is compulsory for every Israeli over 18 years of age (with some exceptions), ergo every man, women, or child is a future soldier and therefore fair game.

I have a big problem with that. I’m not saying I think that’s your position, or even that I can’t fathom how a person could become so filled with rage & hatred over being brutalized that they would do such a thing, I just think it’s wrong.