At some point your "I'm just doing my job" becomes, "I support an American dictatorship.". Do you not have morals? Your "job" has now become antithetical to the American Democratic Ethos - you are now a de facto traitor to your country. Last I checked, traitors are an enemy of the state.

....so again, what's the problem?

[–] hoshikarakitaridia@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

then they came for the civilians. And I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a civilian.

Yeah Thomas Mann's poem is still relevant and more people need to read it and understand it.

If you "only follow commands", you are still implicated in every action. If you are a cop you are literally one of the checks in the system of checks and balances.

[–] lars@lemmy.sdf.org 0 points 2 days ago

American Democratic Ethos

Not sure which slaveholders or Manifest Destiny folks you’re putting on a pedestal, but even if—big if—America’s dead once had admirable and pro-humanity values, today’s terrified, uneducated, unhappy, unkind, impoverished shithole does not.

Being an awful person appears to reflect perfectly these last generations of the American Empire.