The idea of taking another's life or liberty bothers me. I don't care if that's during a war against the Nazis, killing somebody that's busy raping my wife, done by a drone operator, or by a driver who's in such a hurry that he's trying to shave 20 seconds off his morning commute.
I find being my brother's keeper and shoving him in jail to be kept reprehensible, whether it's for drugs or rape.
I find being my brother's Judge to be reprehensible. Who made me God and Christ to not just evaluate a behavior's propriety but to impose a judgment on the producer of that b behavior and inflict punishment? Except perhaps for my own kid, whose character I'm rather in charge of shaping (and even then, it's with a bit of reluctance that I judge and punish).
At the same time I realize that if the US unilaterally disarms and only bad people have guns, knives and knife-training, and clubs, only bad people are willing to engage in violence, it will not stop the violence. If anything, many are held in line because of the threat of state-sponsored violence, even death. That goes for everything from murder and rape down to tax evasion. Already many consider the risk of being caught and punished so low, or the high from risking being caught and punished so attractive, that they engage in these kinds of behavior. In a society in which many have no interest in trying to be inoffensive and non-violence, altruistic and other-oriented, laws are necessary to impose order and to protect people who either won't protect themselves, can't protect themselves, or are simply engaged in some activity other than self-protection 24/7.
This includes attempts to protect the nation's borders by a duly elected government under laws that the majority (or their representatives) pass. It can also include this funny idea we have from the 20th century that when others, esp. allies, are under threat we get involved, and that might involve self-sacrifice or killing the allies' enemies.
It's a kind of schizophrenia that many Xians have, and it's not new. Jesus had little to say with the Romans and the soldiers he interacted with; or to the tax farmers, the "publicans." Reprehensible imperialists and oppressors, nonetheless his advice was to do their duty with as little oppression and corruption as possible. Paul said that the authorities--who already were oppressive in ways that make the treatment of the Palestinians by the Israelis looks kind and cuddy--were "ministers" of good and to be respected. Presumably as long as they didn't require Xians to do things contrary to God, in which case they are rewarded for their persecution.
Thoughtful Xians wind up having to come to grips with this schizophrenia. My former sect's mother church was firmly anti-totalitarianism and had nothing good to say about Hitler or Stalin (even when many on the left had good things to say about Stalin and the USSR). They generally supported the US military in WWII and were respectful in the later "police actions" even as we condemned them. There was no attempt to justify the other side, however: The N. Koreans were worse than the UN forces, but neither were good in any absolute sense. The N. Vietnamese were worse than the S., but at best would just kill and oppress more, not "not kill and oppress." However, even in WWII members went to jail for refusing to serve in the military, and did so quietly. This is one solution: The world requires one set of behaviors, Xians have another. You can have one set of opinions and views on priorities "in the world," but never forget that you're really expressing relative judgments on behaviors that differ in degrees of vileness. Godly and ungodly are separated, with all war and even the court systems on the "ungodly" side.
Another response is "just war theory." Some killing is okay if it's for a just cause, the lesser of two evils. Accidents happen, and rather than be burdened with the emotional baggage it's up to God--accidental deaths can be forgiven, and are to be avoided. But they happen. The line between Godly and ungodly slips; "our side" is Godly, their side is ungodly.
A frequent just cause--just ask any Crusader or the jihadists in the centuries before the first Crusude to attempt to roll back the Islamic Conquest--is spreading the faith. If any cause is just, surely that is. We can always spout the party (or doctrinal) line that all the sword-point conversions were voluntary and find secular reasons for the "justness" of the cause. Sometimes we find secular reasons because we don't like the idea of religion being a cause at all. We accept that when many Muslims say that Islam wasn't spread by the sword (of course it was; by that, oppression, peer pressure, and some because of true shifts in conviction). Of course, in that golden realm of Andalusia there were a lot of crypto-Xians and crypto-Jews because they "voluntarily" converted to Islam and continued covertly practicing their traditional faiths under penalty of death. (That continued for Jews when the Xians were in power; this "forced conversion" stigma sticks to Spanish Catholicism, but it's overlooked before then because we don't want to be accused of Islamophobic.)
Sometimes we decide what others' convictions and beliefs have to be and judge them based on what we want and claim their beliefs must be. This is foolishness. Theologians have wrought-out belief systems, mostly, and know where the dichotomies and inconsistencies lay. Lay members typically are clueless, and when confronted with them stare blankly. But we don't get to dictate their beliefs and then condemn them when they fail to live up to the high standards we impose on them. Condemn their actions, sure; but not for outside-imposed hypocrisy.
Note that even on DU, many who don't much like the idea of killing those usually considered "bad guys" tend to cease their recoiling when the bad guys are those that *we* don't like. We have our own version of a "just killing." It shows up often in attempts to minimize the atrocities conducted by ideological peers in the past or present, or in attempting to mitigate the murders some commit on account of societal factors. It all boils down to some lives mattering more than others and others being more precious. In some cases the split morality is perceived by those expressing it; in other cases, not a bit of it. It's nice to recognize this split when it happens, though. Many DUers are consistent in their pacificism and application of their views; many are not and have sharp hidden "this is always wrong, unless it's done to _________" gaps in their moral coverage.
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