+1

Kinda rude to label my perspective as "delusional"

It has been proven many times it is the poor that fill the military, not criminals. Who are usually intelligent enough to find other means to make money, than deal with the threat of imminent death.

Which is why i9 specified there are rapists and murderers, but they're a small percentage who are already part of a professional and private military, or released from prison in exchange for service.

But even amongst the professional soldiers and released convicts, there's going to be many who dont fit your label of rapists/murderers.

I am making some assumptions based off of historical data, so if you have proof otherwise, i'd be quite interested to see it, as i am always adding new data to my understanding of world events.

No. That's not funny. It's disrespectful to the victims of clerical sex abuse, and to the majority of priests who did nothing wrong. You have probably half a million catholic priests in the world right now. That's a lot of people.

The evil fucks who abused kids are not priests now, they're convicts, or dead.

That's the issue. When bad things like this happen, there is generally a minority involved. Like when terrorists do something, everyone blames the entirety of that population.

And as for the main conversation: In war, there will be sections of a military organisation that will be worse than others, depending on who is giving the orders. And when in that situation (on the receiving end), you have no choice but to think of every enemy soldier as being the same, because you can't know which one is going to rape and murder you, or which one will let you pass by safely.

My grandmother told me stories about the "Black and Tans" in Ireland when she was a child. They were notorious because some of them did notorious things. One of them took a shot at her cousin when they were playing in a field. The bullet grazed his ear. And they were laughing, probably because they missed. Luckily the truck moved off and they didn't shoot again. She was only six years old then. Her father was shot dead around that time too, for no reason.

My great-grandmother told my mum that one came to the house asking for a cup of tea and something to eat. She brought him in and gave him tea and soda bread. He didn't say much, but he ate, thanked her, and went on his merry way. The entire time, she was scared because she didn't know what he would do. Usually, she would take my grandfather and his siblings and run into the fields when they'd hear the dogs barking along the road, but that day, she was caught off guard.

War is awful. And while I get what Melusca is trying to say, you can't really feel sorry for soldiers, drafted or not. They're the ones with the guns and they can choose to kill or rape civilians, or not. They have a choice in how badly they act.

Yeah, you caught part of my drift ;)

I honestly don't know if they go to war with the intent of killing people. Maybe they just expect to do some odd jobs, repairing vehicles, digging fortifications, that sort of things, and would only expect to shoot to defend themselves if they're attacked. What I do know however, is that I've met some WW1/2 veterans who did end up killing their enemies at some point, because they were told to do so, and despite that unfortunate fact it didn't turn them into monsters.

But that's just my opinion as someone who's not directly affected by the conflict and, while I understand why Ukrainians would see the Russian soldiers as monsters given the amount of war crimes comitted by the Russian military, I just don't want to make blanket statements towards some people just because they were part of a war nobody but Putin wanted.

It does, but when it creates division it breaks the community in two and makes people pick sides. I know that for some it looks like we don't have any freedom to express ourselves, but if topics that are negative creates division expect admins to push back and remove them. The website is called Steamgifts and I believe the main topic is Steam and Games and giveaways. Off topics are allowed, but shouldn't create hate, division or disputes.

Sorry I do not agree with you.

It's fine. I only share my opinion. You are free to disagree. 🙂

A lot of them are not scum unless they open their mouths and share their views of the world. Threads and topics pushes to show their true colors, so the less you know the less you fight over it.

Threads that portray subjects like the war pushes people in one side or the other, creating bigotry and/or racism. It's not that we should sympathise with evil or like evil, but focusing on it or standing for one ideology hurts and divides people that might have nothing to do with the war.

I personally ignore war threads here and that's probably I voiced my thoughts on this update. My opinion might not be something you or others agree with and that's fine. I just don't wanna mix politics with games as games are my area of relaxation, not getting more stressed, angry or negative.