It's pretty simple. It's irrational to morally evaluate the actions of people subjected to coercion (within the limits of that coercion). If people's lives (or perhaps even just livelihoods) were threatened then they deserve some form of leniency. We need to focus on those who initiated the violence in the first place (which is the state). Otherwise you're doing the equivalent of trying to determine whether it's moral for Nazi concentration camp victims to steal from each other in prison rather than focusing on the people that put them there.
People who gleefully went along with it on the other hand... well... fuck em.
It's pretty simple. It's irrational to morally evaluate the actions of people subjected to coercion (within the limits of that coercion). If people's lives (or perhaps even just livelihoods) were threatened then they deserve some form of leniency. We need to focus on those who initiated the violence in the first place (which is the state). Otherwise you're doing the equivalent of trying to determine whether it's moral for Nazi concentration camp victims to steal from each other in prison rather than focusing on the people that put them there.
People who gleefully went along with it on the other hand... well... fuck em.