Henry David Thoreau vs. Iraqi innocents

[smoothmoniker]

I don't think the Iraqi civilians can be held responsible at all. When a dictatorship is enforced by killing and torture and such, it's more like a kidnapping situation. Thoreau can't ask somebody to actually put their life on the line in such a case unless he believes in the supremacy of the state - that someone's life is worth nothing if they don't live as part of a functional government.

Undertoad, isn't this always the situation within which just revolutions occur? I'm struggling to think of a situation where power wasn't wrested from an immoral dictatorship (or king, or Generalissimo, or Polituburo) that enforced their rule with pain, cruelty, and fear.

Revolution, particularly just revolution, always "waters the tree of liberty with blood". This does not alter the ethic of personal morality within a given state; it adds physical consequence to a moral decision (Apologies to Deride, and all other Post-Modern ethicists).

Give me some time to think through the second part of your comment. I don't know that Thoreau defined his philosophy as pertaining to this situation, but perhaps we can take up his tools, and forge the remaining edifice of thought.

-sm