I’m unimpressed with claiming that one has higher ideals generally yet one’s present situation is an exception in which they don’t apply.
I want to avoid a false dichotomy: they didn’t have to act like the American revolutionaries as they had a unique situation, however, they should have killed fewer people for treason, and with more rigorous trials, etc. They ought to have had a Constitution that was appropriate for reality and wasn’t a suicide pact for the state if followed. To have such a thing seems like signalling to the world one’s noble values and goodness, while its impracticality demands its violation and one is no longer bound by legality.
I’m unimpressed with claiming that one has higher ideals generally yet one’s present situation is an exception in which they don’t apply.
This is almost always true, but war usually is the exception in which they don’t apply. Thus, terror against farmers and the revolution devouring its children is better evidence for the terroristic tendencies of the French Revolution than terror against aristocrats.
I’m unimpressed with claiming that one has higher ideals generally yet one’s present situation is an exception in which they don’t apply.
I want to avoid a false dichotomy: they didn’t have to act like the American revolutionaries as they had a unique situation, however, they should have killed fewer people for treason, and with more rigorous trials, etc. They ought to have had a Constitution that was appropriate for reality and wasn’t a suicide pact for the state if followed. To have such a thing seems like signalling to the world one’s noble values and goodness, while its impracticality demands its violation and one is no longer bound by legality.
This is almost always true, but war usually is the exception in which they don’t apply. Thus, terror against farmers and the revolution devouring its children is better evidence for the terroristic tendencies of the French Revolution than terror against aristocrats.