While I agree with your sentiment, I disagree with the overreaching arc of it.

I’d also like to note that you’re taking about the person who actually committed the crime rather than someone who is only connected to the crime by the uniform they wear, regrdless of their hand in the action.

A cook or nurse or on the other side of the planet from the atrocity can hardly be blamed for what the infantryman did on the individual level, or what the military has done on an organizational level. Furthermore, you don’t even know if they oppose those actions or are fighting against it in their own way until you talk to them. That’s the point I’m trying to make that others

If you fail to see and acknowledge this, then we have nothing more to discuss.

That said, extremism should be fought, no matter who it’s coming from. I have plenty of right wing friends I’ve cut contact with due to their extremism. And if I had friends from the left that were as crazy as some of the people I’ve seen here, I’d do the same.

Extremism only leads to more extremism and more fighting and more death. I’d prefer to avoid that if possible.