Authority says: "Killing poor people is a good idea." According to Perdix, we must agree with authority Morals say: "Don't kill unless defending oneself from direct bodily harm." Which would you choose?

...and that's how Hitler was able to do the things he did. Just following orders :(

#63, in your ivory tower, you'd be the hero who saves all the poor people. In the real world, the authority will kill you along with all the poor people. Your only real hope is to not live under such an authority. When it's choosing to become evil or being killed, neither choice is "good."

#68, yes. There was no good option. If you didn't follow Hitler's orders, you were killed then and there, and if you did, you were rightfully prosecuted (and maybe even executed) by those who stopped Hitler's evil. The reality is if you fall under an evil authority, you are ******. Your only hope is to prevent evil from taking over in the first place, or running away from it if it does.

@71 The only real hope of stopping someone of authority doing evil things is for enough people to rebel.

....or not allowing those types of people to rise to power.

oi perdix, don't be so pessimistic. There are so many brave and clever fighters throughout history who prove that those aren't the only options you have when 'evil' comes into power. There's a reason why unlike all the other countries occupied by Germany in WW2, Holland had only 100+ Jews taken to concentration camps (other countries had hundreds or thousands). When Germans made it so all Jews had to wear a star of David to be identifiable on the street, the Dutch king ruled that EVERYONE had to wear a star of David (he even wore one himself). Then when the Germans decided to round up all the Jews and take them away, the Dutch police got hold of the information a few days before it was scheduled and during that short time managed to ship almost every single Jew out to Sweden (or one of the other neutral countries I can't remember). When there's a will there's a way.

*Danish king, not Dutch, sorry. I got the two mixed up in my head. It was Denmark not Holland where this happened. But still :P

#84, the Danes were incredibly brave and clever. There were also other righteous people like Oscar Schindler that defied evil and survived. Sadly, you don't know of others that tried and failed because they and the people they tried to save were all murdered. Preventing evil from getting in power in the first place is the best hope. Once, it's in, it is hard to overcome.

Yeah, you can. You won't win.

Don't worry, OP. The legal advice of a 15-year-old has never lead anyone astray