Please imagine an Afghani drone killing 30 civilians in Washington.

Then think again about who is dehumanizing who.

I think the process of dehumanization occurs on all sides of the equation, and it's something to be questioned and examined whenever it happens.

Engaging in the same process and behavior damages the intellectual credibility of an argument because it allows you to ignore potentially relevant information. It also significant diminishes any moral authority you may be laying claim to.

I am perfectly comfortable judging people on the basis of the actions they willingly carry out. People who are at absolutely zero physical risk from the people they are directly and personally responsible for killing are morally culpable in my view, and I am not obliged to care about them.

I'm inferring from your statement that you believe that the only justified use of deadly force is a situation where someone is themselves at risk of physical harm, is that accurate?

As far as caring for them, I don't think anyone is obliged to care for anyone or anything (free will and all that). I do think that the more people that you choose to place into your own personal out-group of "gofuckthemselves", the more of your own humanity you lose touch with.

Your concern is touching. If only you had any left over for innocent people killed or bereaved with no warning, by people whose might at worst suffer some psychic pain pursuant their own actions.

The immediate and generational trauma and pain that's being caused by this violence is fucking horrendous and something that enrages and saddens me.

I choose to focus my ire on those responsible for creating the policies and making the decisions to create the situation, not the people at the bottom of the ladder who are responsible for enacting them.

I find your lack of empathy disturbing.

Have the drone pilots not thrown their humanity away willingly?

I think there's s difference between doubting humanity of someone because of skin color or sexual orientation or natinality or whatever, and someone who voluntarily became a murderer as a day job.

The pilots can stop killing people any day. They continually chose not to.

I don't think that we have sufficient evidence to draw that conclusion. It is likely that the drone pilots believe that they are fighting on the right side.

Perhaps a more profitable line of discussion would be: On what basis would you say that this constitutes murder?

You can't throw your humanity away.

I guess that's debatable.

I would say that even humans who decided to become monsters (say, Unit 731, Mengele, Breivik, various serial killers, etc) deserve human rights and humane treatment in eyes of the law, because taking those away is a bad precedent for society.

The state should consider them people because the state has to consider everyone people, and making exceptions is very dangerous.

That doesn't mean we as individuals have to morally consider them as anything other than the monsters they are.

You don't have to, but doing so is a strategy to prevent yourself from going down that same path.

When you cast people into the realm of inhuman monster, you're also telling yourself a story that there is no possible way that you could potentially commit the same acts.

Which is, 99% of the time, a total lie. Humans are exceptionally good at creating moral justification for whatever the hell we want to do.

If you're convinced you are constitutionally incapable of committing monstrous acts, then you're not likely to engage in the self reflection that would allow you to catch yourself if you start heading down that path.

Do you believe that there is ever a justification for taking human life?

Well, self defence and protection of loved ones is the obvious one.

Then goes the spectrum. Suppose someone is taking your property, can you employ violence to protect it? What if there is 1% risk of death to the thief? What if its 10%?

That's an excellent question, I'd say that's the kind of assessment that most likely needs to be made in the moment.

I'd prefer the people whose job it is to make those assessments on a daily basis to have a strong moral and ethical framework, and to have the psychological and institutional support to maintain a connection with their humanity.