@cjd
Damn, you're such a nihilist.
She is not an international drug lord with connections. She is a feminist. There's a difference.
And right now, the law can change, if feminists have the right to murder after birth. This will not affect just one child. It will affect many lives to come. It's these points, where you can see its a hill worth dying on. And if that "dying on" means looking for a few months for a new job, that's barely an inconvenience at that point.
I think the word you're looking for is cynic, and yeah, you're not wrong.
For what it's worth, I would probably refuse to switch position too, mostly because I'm somewhat OCD about refusing what I feel is "corrupting myself". But I also count my blessings because I don't fear being put out on the street, and I acknowledge not everyone lives so securely.
@cjd
A cinic would in my definition expect police to do a bad job, and eat donuts.
I have been called a cinic many times in my life, and I agree with the term. But here, you were talking about a legal exception for murder. That is nihilism. Because at that point, what even is worth it?
But the American political/social/cultural landscape does NOT care about protecting children - as you can very well see from how this case is playing out in the court of public opinion.
Holding out in a jury over what is right may be noble, but it is not going to solve the underlying problem. We have been here before, and we know there is only one way that this ever ends.
Evil Must Be Made To Feel Fear.
Whether it be witch burnings, or heads on pikes, or something else, it must be so, public and so terrifying that the people who want to do this stuff go beyond considering themselves victims because they can't. The terror must be so material that those who are throwing ice cubes on tiktok are instead cheering for the execution, and the thoughts of evil cannot even take up residence in their heads.
And a nihilist will say that the evil only comes back again later - and that's true. But for a few dozen generations of virtue, it's still worth it.
Unless under invasion, no serious country puts individuals in the situation of having to choose whether to martyr themselves to protect values that the government claims are sacred.
And you have to ask yourself if it's even smart to stand up for what you believe in. If you lived in El Salvador prior to Bukele and you testified against a gang member, they might go to prison, but then their familia would kill you. Would it have been worth it?
Knowing that the alternative is to elect Bukele, and get the whole lot of them rounded up and thrown in the can for the rest of time makes it pretty clear that the answer is no. And it also makes it pretty clear that prior to Bukele, the whole criminal justice process amounted to little more than a fig leaf over the fact that gangs were operating with the government's blessing.
The Purpose Of A System Is What It Does. So if government sanctions the murder of children, then government is a child murdering system. Sacrificing yourself, or you future, for a cause you believe in is indeed noble, but would you sacrifice yourself for a fig leaf?