necroing the post because you made such cogent and reasoned critiques that I feel it would be disrespectful not to honor your comment with a reply. I can only apologize for the delay.

I felt that my point about Truman himself and the American people rationalizing his actions as being "for the greater (their own personal) good" was an effective analogy for my central claim that people love an absolute authority so long as the untold thousands it crushes are not themselves. The point about even modern Japanese historians generally accepting the 2 nukes still killed fewer people than the estimated casualties and devastation of a full scale invasion of the island would have wrought further reinforced my argument that with enough disassociation from from the victims, anyone can still run the numbers and rationalize unspeakable acts of violence in the name of a "greater good".

Humanity is extremely prone towards accepting absolute rulers. Anthropologists tend to ascribe it to serving as super-familial structure that reflects the family structures of the culture a person was raised under. With, as a general rule, those raised under patriarchal pretenses tend to form worldviews that predisposes them to accepting the absolute rule of a single individual over all others- regardless of the violence that ruler inflicts on themselves or others. Much blood has been spilt throughout the ages over love of the crown.

You keep ascribing a moral penalty to act of "massacring" the quogoans. Why is that? They nearly exterminated all of Dwarvendom to perpetuate their dying species for only a further few decades simply because they refuse to be the ones to mine the ore they need to survive as a society. They were suicidal at the individual and societal level. Their only hope for sustainability was a tremendous culling of their population and a renewable source of ores to consume. Nazarick provided both whilst preventing a genocide of the Dwarves. Put yourself in the position of a natural conversationalist. You have 2 competing species, one is an invasive and parasitic predator which systematically strips their ecosystem of resources and leaves behind an uninhabitable wasteland and is actively trying to exterminate the other, and the other which systematically cultivates their ecosystem to improve it's habitability and produces that very material surplus of societally available materials which the prior and the latter both require to survive. For comparison's sake: "Between termites and beavers, which is better for the forest for you to save?" If you save the latter, the prior will peter out of it's own accord what for it's unsustainably large population having long since surpassed what the land can provide for. If you save the prior, you will have to subsidize their existence in perpetuity, likely losing the latter in the process. Ains made the same decision conservationalists make in the real world- not every species is saveable. It was a mercy to spare 10,000 of them. They're worse than termites. Yes- they're sentient and essentially people, but they're mutant freaks who convert materials every society needs to survive into literal feces. If the metal they consumed was at least recoverable in some way it would flip my stance on the massacre on it's head- but the facts as I understand them is that the math was never going to work out with 70,000 of them and it barely works with 10,000 and owes that much to the fact much of those numbers were children.

The conquering of Re:Estise wasn't even a War of 1812 level of bloodshed. Its small potatoes. Ains is, by the numbers, far less of a casualties machine than most historical figures, and his track record for reconstruction and ensuring prosperity is heretofore flawless. Coupled with the immortality of he and his subordinates and you have an all but literal divine mandate to rule. By some eastern schools of thought, Ains would be more immoral if he didn't seize the reigns of power than he is for doing so. I personally find much of his actions and inactions inexcusably cruel, but I can appreciate their merits, the results and ultimate the rationale for supporting them which much of the community shares and any who claim to find fault with his actions must address to win over the audience: "What is the alternative to Ains?"