There is, however, a line where the action being taken is so clearly wrong that you cannot hide your culpability behind orders. The Nazis crossed that line and beyond. So simply saying “Nazis were just acting on orders” in comparison to anything today is too reductive to be useful.

There’s a level of trust that the person giving you an order knows more than you. If I’m told someone is an insurgent, but to me they look like a civilian and I refuse the order, what if I’m wrong? Then I or my team is dead. Trust in leadership is necessary for a military to be effective.

I guess you didn’t read my last sentence, but okay I’ll bite.

Strategic level planning and decisions lead to operational decisions which eventually leads to tactical action. That’s a lot of people with less and less info down the line with each one.

Those same soldiers were acting on orders and most were very far removed from the trigger.

I think part of Robert’s point here is that cops make the decision to pull their trigger autonomously, which makes them inherently more dangerous.

And please spare me the orders can be disobeyed bit.