I wrote this on a lead-up article. Being against the use of landmines up until the point of “Well, it’s different now because we need them” is hypocritical.
The world changed. Changing your opinion when the situation changes is smart, not hypocritical
Yes, changing your opinion when there are new facts is smart.
The problem is that what changed was “Other nations are under threat of invasion and might benefit from landmines” to “Now we are also under threat.” So, that’s hypocritical. Landmines were always good for defense from invasion, so perhaps they should have been banned under more strict circumstances.
If you’re only changing your position because now it affects you personally and not out of general principles, that’s hypocrisy.
That may be hypocritical, but having hostile neighbour, that itself doesn’t respect any conventions (and Russians absolutely don’t mind anti-personnel landmines among other things such as cluster munitions and chemical warfare) is a good stimuli to rethink ones principles.
🤦
