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this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2026
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Empathy is pragmatic. Empathizing with victims is not pragmatic. No, those are not consistent, I'm sorry you are so blinded by this us vs them framing.
While saying that empathy for perpetrators is.
But rather than recognize that imperialist troops made a choice to literally become the enemy, willingly placing themselves on the opposite side of the class conflict from the working class and those of us who fight for it, we should give them a pass because free college is so tempting, and it's cruel and not pragmatic or something to keep child murderers out of our orgs. Also purges are bad. Yeah, ok.
Everyone who responded to you about how ridiculous you were being fully understands that they are human and it is incredibly bad faith of you to pretend otherwise. As for the second part, let's take out the double negative there so what you are saying can be parsed:
"they are not just acting as if they aren't victims of the system that corrupted them" -> "they are just acting as if they are victims of the system that corrupted them" Ok, yes, I tend to agree, they often do just act as if they are victims of the system. If what you're trying to say is that it is their material circumstances, the system they exist within, that led them to being imperialist troops, I would say that yes, material circumstances are ultimately responsible for the shaping of social factions. But that does not preclude anyone from having any responsibility for their individual choices and actions. Once again, the logical conclusion to that argument is that as communists we should not denigrate or hold anything against cops, presidents, capitalists, or any mass murderers since they are simply the product of their circumstances.
You're really reaching to try to salvage something from this dumpster fire of a position, aren't you?
It's really not, which is why it's so disconcerting (but also a little funny) to watch you flail about, trying to make any part of what you said earlier fit some sort of tortured material analysis.
I am not against empathizing with the enemy, and I never said otherwise. But no, it is not necessary to empathize with them to see any of the systemic issues that play a role in producing people like them, nor is it necessary to empathize with them to correct for it in the future.
I'm sorry you think that the very basic Marxist concept of class conflict is "us vs them framing." lol