As much as “I was just following orders” is not enough to excuse someone of their responsibility in atrocities, “I was just issuing orders” will not excuse anyone either.
Anyone who thinks that just because someone didn’t pull the trigger, that means they’re not guilty, you can get your ass back in line to lick elons boots.
This is in the same vein as “Hitler did some good things” kind of cognitive dissonance. While the statement may not be wholly false, the fact that anyone could overlook everything he did that was bad, to find some small piece of something he did that can be construed as “good” is simply trying to put an objectively evil person into a better light, when they do not deserve it.
There are plenty of misunderstood people in history that did very good things, and were killed/maimed/murdered/imprisoned/tarred/feathered/whatever, because they did something that the wrong people saw as bad.
Nobody should ever try to find a shining light of good deep down in the black abyss of Hitler’s life.
Reminds me of subway. They somehow survived that whole PR nightmare, but still… They’re not nearly what they used to be.