No, fool. A leader isn’t yoked to someone else. A leader has the self-possession to disregard obviously immoral directives. A leader has the courage to put their own head on the chopping block to shield others.
Your Holders display none of that. They mewl and they whine, but not a single one of them has refused to do whatever they’re told to do. None of them has so much as stalled for time. Obedient little puppets. Nothing more.
Then let’s put it back into context, you foolish Amarr stooge.
Submission is to be rewarded with life.
So if you don’t submit, what do you get? Hmm?
You conflate not raising arms with submission, but the two are not the same thing. They are not the same thing at all. I don’t need to be an expert on your culture to point out that you’re clearly full of crap and not nearly half the expert on your faith that you sell yourself as. You sit there, judging everyone else, and you can’t even see the gaping holes in your own words.
Funny, because that isn’t in fact what I am saying.
So let me reiterate, so you can understand, because obviously, I wasn’t clear enough the first time.
Amash-Akura’s laws of just war, the Light or the Flame, has three steps of escalation. They are:
Offer your enemy no harm and the opportunity to remain in his position if he submits to your demands peacefully.
If your enemy refuses to submit, besiege them and offer those who fight for him no harm if they surrender and turn over their leaders.
If those who fight for your enemy also refuse to submit, then defeat them and their leaders, but spare those who do not raise arms against you.
Submission and ‘not raising arms’ are not the same thing. One is for the rulers. The other is for the ruled. One is respect for a foe who submits peacefully to your demands, the other is mercy towards those who, though members of a nation you have defeated in battle, and likely are opposed to your rule, did not raise arms against you. Mercy towards the innocent, for Amash-Akura ruled that you are not to mistreat your enemies.
Speaking of, I think I’ll see if Ms. Ramijozana has a preferred watering hole, see if she’s up for a tipple on account of being Tanoo exiles together. It would be a shame if absolutely nothing good came from all of this.
(I know it’s not what you meant, but, unsurprisingly, the Amarr have other ideas about what’s worth sacrificing for, and what it means to protect others.)
[replicated in spirit because I’m a goof and accidentally copied over this post]
Do I have to explain how law enforcement works to you? Or education systems? How about political, economic, or social pressure?
Following the Amarr religion is required by law in Amarr. A conquered people is required to follow the laws of Amarr. Those who refuse to do this are breaking the law, and therefore subject to detention and corrective punishment until they positively adjust their behavior. Just as they would be for breaking the law in any nation.
See, this boils down to the crux of your flawed arguments. Binary ‘if this, then that’. But that’s not how the world works. There are different levels of crime, and the punishment must fit that level of crime. Those who break the law must be struck down (since you’re going to want to use the exact wording, of course), but the manner and severity in which they are struck down must depend on what law they have broken, whether or not they had intent to break it, how severe the breach was, and how open to contrition they are willing to be.
Amarr has a legal system. Amarr has laws. These laws are in most cases, defined by Scripture. Our big error, and the actual thing we can be blamed for, is that we have given power to determine punishment on an individual level to those who can not be trusted to apply the right level of punishment to fit the crime (if one was even committed in the first place). Lords who, with no oversight, regularly break Amash-Akura’s laws on just treatment of one’s enemies.
More like refusing to. Khanid’s been more of a leader than the other Heirs, even if he’s an evil bastard out for his own power at the expense of anyone who gets in the way.
But pray, tell me: who does the ritual suicide of the Heirs shield, since you’re going to cite it as an example?
No. Not at all. In fact, none of what you’re saying refutes my point at all.
And if they refuse?
If those who refuse to follow the Amarr religion are not at all contrite? If they absolutely refuse to follow the Amarr religion, how do you defeat them?
Slavery or exile, are typically the end stage of such resistance. The former ensures the individual continues to serve the state in a productive manner even if they refuse to follow the laws of the state, and opens the possibility they might convert in time, or, failing that, that their children will, and the latter ensures that they cannot spread their seditious beliefs within the state.
It’s to preserve unity and prevent challenge to imperial authority. It eliminates rivals within the same generation that malcontents might otherwise rally behind. It’s to keep the Great Houses united and limit potential revolt for the duration of an imperial reign, in the expectation that they’ll have another chance, next time.
And if, once enslaved, they continue to deny the Amarr religion? If they continue to openly denounce it, and refuse to work? You know, they continue to resist.
Then life will be pretty damn hard for them, won’t it?
If you’re trying to get me to narrow down to some ‘and then they’ll be killed’, it’s not going to happen. My brother was that kind of person. He never took up the faith. He was punished for his rejection of it, and for breaking other laws. He was put in programs, given less education than me and my sister, and forced to work more menial jobs. But he wasn’t killed for it. He was made to serve, as best as he could serve.
Resistance means not serving the goals of those who would be your masters. Doing the jobs they tell you to do is submission. It is acceptance.
Until he was freed, along with the rest of your family, yes? So the process was interrupted, was it not?
I’m sure they would. They’ve freed themselves from the Amarr. The Amarr failed in those cases, to convert or to truly strike them down. They won.
And, for the record:
I’m not trying to get you to do anything. I’m simply pointing out the gaps, and watching you try to deny they exist. Is this the message you’re hoping to inspire others with? ‘Follow my teachings, and try not to notice the gigantic holes in the roof’?
You’re essentially arguing for suicide. And I don’t mean ‘suicide by Amarr’. I mean, not getting food, because you’re not working, getting separated from your family, getting beaten. In which case, the one doing the killing is you and this kind of sick ‘resist even when it’s pointless’ argument.
It probably disturbs you to know that most people do give up and accept it, eventually. Even if they don’t ever take up the religion, they stop being petulant children about it and just live their lives and focus on their family and friends.
Nonsense. The person doing the killing is the person withholding food, or delivering the beating. The person who holds the power is responsible for how they exercise that power. Blaming the victim is just another sign of the weak, hollow nature of your God.
Disappoint, perhaps, but no, why would I be disturbed by people seeking to survive? But it’s nice to hear that you feel refusing to abandon your principles and holding to what you think is right is being ‘petulant children’.