“Human nature is what we are meant to rise above.”

Katherine Hepburn

I would also stab him, maybe it would save millions of people,

So, it’s okay for you to kill in the name of protecting lives, but other people shouldn’t?

That’s the funniest thing I’ve read all day.

So, explain why it would be “right” to let the Japanese Empire continue to kill and rape civilians when there was a way to stop it.

Sounds like you’re saying that the Japanese raping and killing was justified because of the American killings that occured later.

Because I’m still not seeing an actual number.

I’ll posit my thought experiment one more time.

It’s August 1945. You’re a Burmese who escaped and made it to Washington. Harry S. Truman confides in you that he has a terrible weapon that will wipe out an entire city in an instant. He offers you the option. Drop the bomb and end the war instantly, or let the raping and killing go on while the Japanese dither about surrender. You can’t see into the future. How many months do you tell Harry to let the atrocities go on.

I just want to see one number.

I must have missed the answer.

Just give me a number. How many months would you, a Burmese victim of the invasion, let the Japanese go on killing and raping?

Pretend you’re a Burmese, Korean, Chinese, or Vietnamese citizen. You’ve seen your friends and family killed; had your home town devastated; watched thousands of women raped. Not only had you already seen it, but it was an ongoing thing. How many months would you have given the Japanese High Command to mull the situation?

Funny how you can’t actually answer the question.

Here’s a little thought experiment.

Pretend you are a Korean/Vietnamese/Chinese et al victim of the Japanese invasion.

You’ve had your home destroyed; your family members killed and maimed; seen thousands of women raped. The atrocities are ongoing, and every day you live in fear that you or someone you love will be the next one to die.

Harry Truman comes to you and asks how long should he wait for the Japanese to surrender.

How many months would you give the Japanese to make up their minds? Remember that the rapes and murders aren’t going to stop while they decide.

So, they were thinking about maybe starting the process.

Meanwhile, the war crimes were ongoing.

Let’s do a little thought experiment.

Pretend you’re a Burmese, Korean, Chinese, or Vietnamese citizen. You’ve seen your friends and family killed; had your home town devastated; watched thousands of women raped. Not only had you already seen it, but it was an ongoing thing. How many months would you have given the Japanese High Command to mull the situation?

So, you admit that the Japanese were enslaving and raping millions, and that stopped after the bombs fell.

Seems we agree on the most basic point.

Imperial Japan was as bad as Nazi Germany.

They were holding literally millions of people in slavery and had used biological warfare.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_women

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

The Japanese high command knew that they’d lost the war after Midway, but kept fighting for ‘reasons.’

Every day the war kept going, innocent people in the Japanese Empire were being raped and killed. If any of them had been given a chance to vote on the matter, they certainly would have okayed the bombing.

Not to be that guy, but there’s at least one Grimm’s fairy tale where a peasant tricks the devil.

[Off topic]

I want Micheal B. Jordan as the Black Panther.

Sounds reasonable.

That’s my assumption as well, but I don’t know what the protocol for this type of affair would have been.

I was also thinking that there might also have been ‘female companionship’ provided.

One thing I’d want to know. Was it 55 people in total, or 55 guests plus their aides? Would a rich person be riding around alone at night, or would they have somebody with them?

I remember being 15 and laughing at people my age who thought that “Catcher In The Rye” was written about them.

This guy interwebs!

A retired teacher once told me that the funniest thing about high schoolers is that they’ll repeat something they read in an old book and act like they discovered something brand new.

The overwhelming evidence is that actually engaging with a subject gets better intel than trying to beat it out of them.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/theres-better-way-get-information-torture-180953616/

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22830471-200-torture-doesnt-work-says-science-why-are-we-still-doing-it/

All three are saying the same thing.

Everything we are is the result of things that happened before. We can use the power of the past to push ourselves forward, or be overwhelmed by it.