If he had stuck strictly to cops, we'd be all good, but one of the first people he murdered wasn't one.

Going after the families of bad people when they really didn't play any role in the bad person's actions is abhorrent and indefensible. Kids shouldn't have to pay for the sins of the father and all that.

It doesn't completely invalidate the good he did do/say, but it's definitely a black mark on his record and why I can't really get fully behind him, even for meme reasons.

I've brought him up before, but I think Micah Xavier Johnson is overall a better example. Apparently he was a sexual harasser when he was in the military, which is obviously terrible, but at least you can say when he went on his spree that he didn't go for any non-cops.

    • PresterJohnBrown [any]
      1·
      4 years ago

      Obviously fucked up thing to do, but if it had not been done, the approaching White Army could have acquired them and used them to legitimize their cause and rally more royalists to their side. We could have seen a Black Hundreds ultra-nationalist government legitimized by Romanov children kept in gilded cages, no Soviet Union for Germany to fight in WW2, just another like-minded state, back to back against the world, blaming everything on Jews together.

      The possibilities are dark. Kids didn't deserve their fate, but it prevented what could have been one of the greatest horrors of all time, on par with the rise of Nazi Germany.

    • spectre [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      I'd say it's very different cause royalists could trace their bloodline at some point in the future and cause some real problems. I'm not at all a fan of it, and I would not want to be the one to carry out the task personally (it's very dirty work), and I'm not even sure I'd be able to make the call myself even knowing the likely implications. Anyway, not op but just wanted to share a couple thoughts.

    • Defix [any]
      3·
      4 years ago

      deleted by creator

    • budoguytenkaichi [he/him,they/them]
      2·
      4 years ago

      I would've preferred if they had done something like Mao later did with the Chinese Emperor: Re-educate and keep a close eye on them.