[breakem]

Then perhaps governments could confine the shooting to them (its) selves and leave the rest of us out of it.

There is no governemnt without the people.

Even the most toptalitarian government will fall if enough people stand up. You cannot hold the Germand or Russians free of guilt or responsibility for what their governments did.

[agrandis]

Even the most toptalitarian government will fall if enough people stand up. You cannot hold the Germand or Russians free of guilt or responsibility for what their governments did.

That is true and an important truth at that. But it does not justify the slaughter, rape, or terrorizing of civilians. Some may accidently be killed, some may be intentionally killed when they take up arms, and all will be "terrorized" in general by the war, of course, but intentional targeting and harrassment of civilians is always ignoble. Modern American forces are famous for their restraint in this regard, and I'm glad they are.

[Aurelius]

"Even the most toptalitarian government will fall if enough people stand up. You cannot hold the Germand or Russians free of guilt or responsibility for what their governments did."

This places almost impossible demands on people. They must achieve unity, they must in large numbers be willing to place their own lives on the line to achieve what they can not expect to have more than near zero probability of success. If human nature were such as to make such mass uprisings more than the very remotest possibility, authoritarian governments (including our own) such as we know today could never have arisen in the first place.