We picked out the Germans and the Japanese and said how monstrous they had been while overlooking the civil rights problems in the USA, ignoring blindly the atrocities carried out by the British and French Empires and everything going on in the Soviet Union. (the Germans relied on this in fact, noting no one gave a damn about the Armenian genocide under the Ottoman Empire)
And besides, technically Septima hasn't actually committed a crime under our present laws, as her livestock treatment processes are within bounds allowed for animal welfare, and our legal and cultural systems are barely able to recognise all Humans as equal under the law. Sophont-kind in general might well face immense prejudice before reaching the point where they have the same acceptance level as a Human who merely has a different colour skin tone does today - I dread to think what Splices, Provolves and AIoids will face over the next two centuries...
Good points.
I will preface my remarks with the infuriating reality that my national government (the US) dealt with the NSDAP and Japanese governments in a horrifying unjust way.
At no point were we going to insist on destruction of the Nazi government UNTIL our soldiers were coming face to face with the realities of the death camps...and even THEN, it took the ferocity of our ordinary soldiers to force even half measures out of our corrupt and evil government.
Our government was also directly using genocide against Japanese civilians...while simultaneously not worrying about Japanese genocide against other groups.
I live in Richmond, the home capital of a nation born purely out of the desire to exploit humans as slaves...and we never addressed that from a government perspective either.
BUT.
I am not my government. Many in my country took justice into their own hands when it became clear our corrupt leaders would not. Do not buy the lie that the government truly represents the people.
It should, but even here in the US...it mostly does not.
As for the second section...what is legal in the code of a corrupt government is not always what is right or just. An unjust law is no law at all. That should suffice in short form to cover my views on 'but this evil is legal'!
I wish I could give a long answer to these discussion points. My nation's intentional suppression of the facts of how we have behaved for most of our history is...I can't even find the words...distressing to me. Our current trajectory is not headed in places that make things better for people within it's power...and that is most of the world. I try to share what I know and what is happening with my neighbors and anyone who is listening...but the culture of the lie is so strong and pervasive...that even those who should know better only know the barest of actual true information.
Upon reflection, if I were to place myself in your story...I'm Valerius. I'm a reasonably comfortably well off Olinbar who is not in a seriously powerful position...but is also not an 'asset' in the sense of being debt controlled...I have sufficient resources to choose who I serve. And I've a history of having bought the lie. But I've been liberated from the lie...and I'm trying with my limited but still meaningful power to do good.
The reality is we do what we can for those within our power. The truth demands nothing less. However, unless and until we are granted a Naomi or Buri or Appia...my pessimistic self doesn't see good things coming for my home. My hope lies in exposing others in my circle to the truth in the hopes that the skill sets awakened will be sufficient to craft more effective solutions to the evil.
