Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyndaran
Mercenary must mean hired aggressor otherwise you must define police as mercenaries. That would strike me as absurd.
Unless you mean it as a adjective then of course it can be more generalized for attitude.
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I don't see in principal why there cannot be police defined as mercenaries(a sort of condottieri police force that is hired by a town prone to faction for instance). Nor do I see why it must mean hired aggressor(any belligerent with the money can hire mercenaries not just an aggressor). The point of the word is that the terms are contractural. Most soldiers have some sort of connection other then the commercial but a mercenary, however honorable or dishonorable might just as well serve one side as another though they may have preferences(Swiss always specified that they not be used against the Cantons for instance). The chief reward for soldiering is usually intangible. Indeed if you press a point in a condottieri band only the warlord is a mercenary and the soldiers are arguably his liegemen. But in any case the point is that this is why mercenary is mostly a theoretical concept.
If I fight for the United States of America, I will be a citizen. If I fight for Britain or Israel I will be a sympathetic foreigner. My connection to those countries exists outside my military service. If I fight for Indonesia it would have to be as a mercenary as I do not care that much about it one way or another.