Moroni takes military action. While this is a people whose crime is in refusing to fight, it presents a danger to the hegemony because of who they are, and the reasons for their abstinence. We should contrast these king-men with the people of Ammon. In both cases we have a people who have sworn not to take up arms. The difference is that for the people of Ammon this is a pledge to God that has endured through multiple contests. For the king-men it is a decision of convenience, calculated to improve their dissenting position in the land.
Language: Mormon notes that Moroni intended to “pull down their pride and their nobility and level them with the earth.” There is an imagery of height differential here that is symbolic of the intended social situation. What the king-men want is a hierarchical situation where they are higher. Thus Mormon was quite right in using the imagery of something taller being “torn down.” This high edifice of their pride will be “level… with the earth.” This is also an important social metaphor. Not only is the imagery one of pulling down a building, it is one of making that building location the same as the surrounding land. This, of course, is metaphorically the Nephite social ideal of egalitarianism.