馃懡 kevinsan

If your country's government has ever done heinous or even just questionable stuff militarily, do you hold yourself personally accountable for their actions, and do you punish yourself directly?

2 years ago

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8 Replies

馃懡 kevinsan

So of course the question is at least partially rhetorical. It came from my thinking of the Iraq war that my own government participated in as the aggressor (or liberator). There are enough parallels with what Russia is doing in Ukraine. 路 2 years ago

馃懡 swan

@moddedbear that's so ridiculous. People in Russia are already struggling as it is. They can't even withdraw their money because the ATMs have run out of cash and if I'm not mistaken, there's now a new mandate to convert 80% of your foreign currency earnings into rubles which is currently in freefall. The last thing they need right now is virtue signalling from video game companies who have no business doing so. 路 2 years ago

馃懡 eph

No. 路 2 years ago

馃懡 digbat

the obvious answer to this question is no. but...

how much say do we as citizens, have in what our government does?

what freedoms did we gain and preserve over the actions of our government?

if our government acts in a way we do not agree with what freedoms do we have to object and how might we bring our government to heel to the will of the population?

if the RU and BY people do not want the war with UA why have they not stopped it? i think, and hope, that given the opportunity to weight the facts of the origins of the RU/BY war on UA the warring population would want the war to stop: but RU and BY people do not have that freedom. 路 2 years ago

馃懡 moddedbear

I'm sure the answer is a pretty clear "no". To address the underlying question about sanctions, ideally their purpose isn't to punish the population but to put pressure on the government. A lot of the recent examples I've heard of unfortunately don't serve that purpose. Like I just saw a story about a game studio blocking their games from Russia and I honestly can't remember the last time I've rolled my eyes so hard. 路 2 years ago

馃懡 smokey

I feel like the fairly obvious answer is a resounding "No, the average citizen is not personally responsible for the actions of their nation. We all hold a little bit of responsibility as a society but the average joe schmo doesnt get to decide what the top level generals decide. I get the impression that this question is a indirect way of asking "should Russian citizens be responsible/punished for the actions of the Russian government? Is it right that sanctions are hurting the average person who has no say?" 路 2 years ago

馃懡 cobradile94

Why would I hold myself accountable? It wouldn鈥檛 be me who sent those soldiers to do awful things. I鈥檇 had no involvement in it. 路 2 years ago

馃懡 swan

Personally, I wouldn't, no. 路 2 years ago