Youtube comments of Boarface Swinejaw (@boarfaceswinejaw4516).
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whats important to remember about this whole "west vs east, the US vs Russian influence in europe" is the actual individual sovereign nations of europe. countries that join NATO or the EU do so out of their own free will. it was their choice, and if they want to utilize the same type of military exercises that made other NATO nation militaries formidable, within their borders, then that is their right.
I remember when Russia set out demands, lines on the map, for how far american and NATO warplanes and military exercises were allowed to go into europe (weeks before the invasion of ukraine). what struck me as befuddlingly bizarre was that the line went from the top of sweden down to the bottom of sweden.
Not only was sweden treated as non-existant territory not belonging to a country with the ability to make its own decisions, but finland was disgarded completely.
Thats how Russia views europe, thats how Russia views the world. as territories, and if your country isnt large enough you dont even get the courtesy of having your governments thoughts and considerations heard, nevertheless even respected.
and that is why NATO expands east, because no country (except Belarus and Serbia) wants anything to do with Russia and their bullshit.
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"post modern ruling style"
Its called populism, and has existed since before ancient Rome.
On the face of it, it seems like a good thing, doing what the people want and as such ruling and acting with popular mandate.
The problem is that populist regimes tend to...
-condition their populaces to think, feel and live a very specific way, allowing them to "other" everyone who thinks differently.
-condition them into combining anti-elitism with anti-intellectualism, resulting in the destruction of academia independant from government or religion.
-create scapegoats out of minorities
-create aggressive policies and bills where the upside is highlighted and the downsides are ignored if not straight up hidden from the public, helped by the anti-intellectualism and scapegoating.
-conditioning the populace into looking at "dear leader" as divinely mandated and the best leader, creating a cult of personality.
Erdogan, Putin, Mao zedong, the ayatollah, Hamas, Kim Kong in, lukashenko, Orban, Netanyahu, all of these figures are populists, and all their governments proclaim themselves the voices of their people. Because they've conditioned their populaces to think that way.
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its important to remember that many countries in the EU are net recipient of EU funds, and as such has more leeway regarding defense expenditure (example being poland).
likewise, a lot of EU countries have accumulative military spending, which is to say that since they arent constantly fighting some war, the money spent on procuring guns and vehicles isn't burnt up.
another point thats relevant regarding support for ukraine is that countries like germany are expending their gdp directly to provide financial aid, meaning that they are providing support in other indirect means.
and lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the US military expenditure is in many ways propped up by its arms sales, meaning that the us military isn't just a defensive project, its an industry with a level of profit. so forcing even countries that dont have their own massive weapons manufacturing to somehow keep up with countries that do is pretty bizarre, especially when its pretty obvious that the US wants to be the primary contributor of guns and ammo to NATO countries, because of the financial incentive.
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as much as i'd like to blame CIA or some NATO organization, as that would be a strategy that sounds like part of their MO.
However, there is a lot of reasons why they wouldnt do it.
-if exposed, would sour relations immensely between the US, CIA or whatever and their allies. wouldnt be worth it.
-Its likely closely guarded by the parties most closely related to it, namely germany and russia, thus further risk of being exposed.
-The gas has already been shut off, so it would be immensely foolish to do it.
The argument for why Russia would have done it makes a lot more sense, as Russia not only has a history of petty attacks, but causing a gas leak right into the sea, fucking up aquatic life and forcing the EU to spend time and money fixing the pipe or at least sealing it, sounds exactly like something they would do.
a scorched earth strategy that is as shortsighted as it is backwards has been the russian MO since the middle-ages.
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@ElysV135
this is not some limp-wristed political stance, this is literally "no, this is not the 18th century anymore, you cant just randomly annex territory from your neighbours".
IF Putin wins land, that will mean that literally every nation with imperialistic ambitions has absolutely fuckall and nothing to be worried about. Iran can take land from Israel, China can take Vietnam and Taiwan, Turkey can take Cyprus.
and thats without going into how this war is fought solely by ukrainians. The west isnt forcing Ukraine, in fact a lot of western countries even tried to get some peace talks going but it was the Ukrainians who refused. Ukrainians would rather die before being forced to live under russian control, before they would ever ordain themselves to be subject to the influene of Putin.
they still remember the Holodomor, wherein Soviet (russian) policies caused 4 million deaths in Ukraine. Thats why they are fighting, because they'd rather die in their tens or hundreds of thousands in war then die in their millions due to some other russian genocidal policy.
You'd have more luck convincing Israelis to abandon israel and let their nation be absorbed by their neighbours then you'd have convincing Ukraine to surrender.
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It really speaks to people's illiteracy on the topic of economy when the topic of Sanctions come up and people think they dont have any effect because the impact isnt immediatly noticed.
Sanctions are like weights, it takes time for the exhaustion to take effect and Russia is already suffering, particularly militarily, from the effects of not trading with the west. Important components that were once easy to buy are out of reach, and Russia does not have industry to manufacture substitutes. To act as if that doesnt impact Russia is beyond absurd. but there are so many shitty arguments i keep seeing flung around.
"but the ruble hasnt fallen, its even risen"
The thing about currency is that the value is artificial, and the only real value that exists is that which is being used. My dirty socks are worth 1 billion dollars, not because they cost that much to manufacture, but because i say so. But if no one is willing to buy my dirty socks, the value of them is essentially irrelevant.
Some of the world's strongest and sturdiest economies have low value currency because it makes it easier to trade with them. What does burning through reserves to maintain the value of the ruble actually succeed in doing outside of putting up a facade?
"Sanctions are immoral becuase they hurt the russian people"
80 years ago the allies blew up axis cities, steamrolled their populations and broke the very spine of their industries, all of this to end the war. Nowadays we concern troll about the impact of Sanctions on a country that has invaded another.
The only realistic alternative to sanctions if one sought to end this war would be to bring the war directly to Russia, which would not only hurt russians a whole lot more than sanctions, but would also guarantee a nuclear war.
"should europeans suffer for Ukraine?"
Ukrainians are all suffering for us. Russia's ambitions does not end with Ukraine. Putin's ambitions do not end with Ukraine.
Likewise if you were to put it up to a democratic tally, most people would support Ukraine, despite how much some grumble about the cost of gas, oil and other imports.
ANd ultimately our suffering is our own fault. we decided to heft so much of our important industry, our necessities, on an unstable volatile giant reigned over by a dictator. We arent just suffering, we are becoming independant, and that hurts. Nuclear power plants are opening up in germany once more, as just an example. Self-reliance and work opportunities lay in the near future, and thats a good thing in the long run.
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@haakonah
My misspelling of Independent is due to the fact that i wrote it the way i, non-native english speaker, pronounce it.
Secondly, Im not french, but i do neighbour Denmark and my country has its own history of being colonized and invaded by Denmark, so i shouldnt be biased in favor of denmark, so i am arguing on facts not feelings.
Thirdly, Greenland wasnt "colonized" in the typical sense, because the Norse settled the southern portions which were uninhabitated before the Inuit Thule people spread across Greenland, before the "natives", thus making the danes that live there as native as the inuit.
Greenland isn't Congo, and it speaks to a downright feral level of idiocy to pretend that it is.
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its a very symmetrical war in a lot of ways. but the two sides are not symmetrical for the same reasons.
Ukraine has better weaponry, but less of it, as well as a smaller army, and therefore has to be cautious.
Russia has more weapons of equal and often less quality, but a massive army (due to massive mobilization numbers) and can therefore afford higher casualties.
wounded ukrainian soldiers are circled out of combat and replaced with fresh troops, as each man is more worth alive than dead.
Russia relies on mercenary and prison cannon fodder to take the bulk of bullets and bombs, as the better equipped veterans are sent in to sweep up exhausted Ukrainian defenders.
so whilst it is a symmetrical war, Ukraine is fighting it sustainably whilst Russia is not. If Putin knew what was best for russia he'd end the war, turn home and hope to salvage relations (unlikely), but at this point he is more likely to create his own Putin Jugend, sending every man, woman, child, old or young, into ukraine in hopes of victory.
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@publiusventidiusbassus1232
euro-centrism mostly. like, what is immediatly relevant to modern day european politics and past politics and beliefs.
not that many people were ever killed in the name of shamanism. Like, Genghis believed in Tengri, but that never really influenced his genocide across the steppes beyond how he dealt with different religions, which is to say the tolerated them. same can be said for every other instance of shamanism, paganism or what-have-you.
Buddhist religious violence does happen, and with examples like japan and countries like Myanmar it goes back quite a bit, but its always been low intensity, low-kill count and perhaps most importantly ostensibly "defensive", and when you consider how closely tied religion has been with politics for most of history its a revelant thing to keep in mind. so its unfair to pin it on buddhsm as a religion when its moreso violence born from the clash of ideology born from religion. Its kind of like how the roman's suppressing jews and christians for not sacrificing to roman gods was less so an example of Roman religious zealotry and moreso Rome's desire to maintain cultural and political dominance by forcing others to adhere to their norms, particularly stubborn abrahamic religions. its how societies maintained cohesion.
with Islam, again, its euro-centrism. Islam has done horrible shit with almost unimaginable killcounts in areas of the world, particularly india. and thats without mentioning the slave trade that is still ongoing in certain areas. However Islam is not really a relevant political force in the west, with even the existing miniorities being steadily accustomed to western way of life, and perhaps most mportantly, our political system.
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@thearpox7873
We can acknowledge that all politics contain elements of populism and that populism can be very prone to bad results. Kings, emperors, Jarls and nobility, all have lived or died on a perceived sense of populism, because without it they'd face revolts and rebellions and civil wars.
Thats why kings and Queens occasionally did good policies that helped people, because they were dependant on the love of the people.
Same with the emperors of Rome.
But illiberal democratic populism, particularly in the age of capitalism and oligarchy, doesn't have the benefit of long-term rulers concerned with strengthening the realm for the purpose of creating a stronger society, but instead to empower their own paranoid rule and allies.
The saving grace of liberal democracy is the middlegrounds, fair proportional representation and separation of leaders, religion, media, law, military and the agencies that oversee those five aspects of society.
The strength of liberal democracy is shown when a populist leader is not able to overturn democracy and become a strongman ruler, thus maintaining a false perpetual populist state. The checks and balances which makes it difficult for a half-baked wannabe emperor from rising to supreme power and completely subverting democracy.
For comparison, look at africa where democracy is a very recent concept, and the bureaucracy and regulations, the checks and balances, do not yet exist. They don't have the same frameworks as us in the west.
So its not about finding an alternative to populism, it's about forcing populism to play by the rules of a free and democratic society, and in the process of playing by the rules inevitably be exposed for the flawed political movement that it is, to be inevitably overtaken by new populism, which then gets overtaken by new populism and so on and so forth.
If a singular train of populism goes on forever, you get communist revolutions and fascist takeovers, you get nationalist springs and civil wars.
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@MrThundaro
its not the hallmark of prosperity but having more voices than one in power prevents situations like the one rome faced, where several mad emperors, with power through autocracy, crippling and sowing the wounds that would eventually cause the death of the empire as a whole.
You could have 5-10 great emperors, but then you have a single commodus and caligula and it all falls apart. and its no mystery as to why, when rome went from relatively democratic with senatorial power and became autocratic instead, that as time went on and more power was given to the emperors the power of rome began to fail. Emperors are more charismatic, and the good ones are better at ruling and administrating, but thats putting all your eggs into one basket.
how many times did one emperor take territory, just for another to immediatly lose it?
Suddenly an empire that spanned continents was ruled by only a handful few who were either not capable, knowledgeable or strong enough to rule entire provinces on their own. the consolidated power became rome's weakness.
Good autocrats are Great at conquering, just like the mongols. but as soon as the great emperor who spearheads the conquests dies or goes crazy it all collapses between warring generals and claimants.
Are democracies immune to this? of course not. but if presidents die we elect a new one. we dont have a 20 year war between his sons and his brother. that is what a good democracy is: contingencies.
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Johnny G
The issue wasn't political violence, the issue was political violence in order to forcefully instate a demagogue who lost, what is for all intents and purposes, a fair election.
Thats not the type of revolution even the fiercest communist wants, thats just fascism.
If the capitol hill rioters had, lets say, violently protested one of the forever wars, Wall street or stood against something objectively bad, then no one one the progressive left, only establishment left, would have criticized them. it would have been seen as a rallying cry.
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@EdoTimmermans
"russians are no longer as poor as they used to be"
yeah, they went from starving to existing. too bad about the extreme alcoholism and an authoritarian government preventing anything beyond a lower-class living.
Russia has little to no middle-class, and the fact that pretty much all of russia's federal funding and focus circulates on the same handful of cities on the western 5% of russia speaks volumes. At least i know for certain people in texas, alabama and mississipi got wifi, computers and some sort of governmental representation.
You're right, the US does have a massive drug problem, but i was moreso referring to how Russians are killing themselves with drugs like Krokodil, meanwhile americans are busy legalizing marijuana. there is progress on the american front on dealing with drugs in a constructive manner.
The worst part about your argumentation is that you're comparing the aggressively transparent studies, analysis and reporting from the states with the "hush hush" reporting of Russia, a country that doesnt even acknowledge the invasion of Ukraine as a "war", and then concluding that russia is better off.
Short of just being intellectually dishonest, its dishonest and malicious.
"As Russia seems to be so isolated in your mind, it would be good to inform yourself about the 'Brics nations"
Okay, now i know you're huffing glue.
-China is passively denouncing Russia's actions as their behaviours would set a dangeorus precedent when it comes to Taiwan. China does trade with russia, but russia does not profit from it, china does.
-India's reason for being NEUTRAL during this whole debacle is because it fears russia would become too dependant on China, India's greatest rival. Seeing as how russia is cozying up with china, India might turn to the west for an alliance.
-Brazil is a corrupt non-entity unable to get its shit straight. and even then, they are NEUTRAL.
-South africa is on the verge of major enviromental disaster and its government might legit collapse. again, another NEUTRAL country whos shitty government might reach out for russia to recieve aid, not provide it.
-Iran is on the verge of a revolution, but they are indeed aligned with russia, mostly out of convenience but still. same with egypt, though egypt is facing major problems as well.
-Turkey has literally supplied Ukraine with weaponry. no idea what you are on about, Turkey is taking this as an opportunity to mess with russia. Turkey is also aligned with azerbaijan, whilst russia is aligned with armenia. There will absolutely not be an alliance between turkey and russia.
-argentina and saudi arabia are in an uneasy neutral position. they are favorable towards russia, but whether they'll forge anything with russia depends on how the war goes.
Germany and the UK got into bed with russia and got dependant on russsian gas, and they suffered for it, but only temporarily. its looking like a warm winter and both the UK and germany are going for electric heating, with powerplants being opened again. The rest of the EU was already minimally reliant on russian gas.
gasoline is indeed a problem, but russia is not the only country with access to gasoline.
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@kurousagi8155
Except the US bombing in Cambodia helped strengthen the communist cause in the region, because all the communists had to do to draw in more recruits is point at the corpses of civillians. When the hell will people learn that collateral damage against a guerilla enemy only creates more guerrillas, not less!
Which was especially bad in Vietnam where the US military literally measured success in dead enemy corpses, a strategy so bizarre you'd be surprised the Roman Empire never used it. Especially when commanders began to artificially inflate their kill counts.
Vietnam was soviet-communist, China and Cambodia were sino-communist, now if your understanding of the cold War doesn't extend outside of "communism vs capitalism" then it's difficult to understand, but once you apply the Cynical lens of autocratic regimes fighting for power and territory it starts to make more sense.
After the Vietnam War, Vietnam had to fight a war against China and Cambodia, with Vietnam being the ones to topple the Khmer rouge and end the genocide.
And the US, trading massively with China and seeing the soviet Union as its primary global rival (because most of Latin America was soviet communist) supported, mostly behind the scenes, the sino-communists. Not because of some secret love of communism, but because of "enemy of my enemy is my friend" type of deal.
Vietnam was not Korea, and whilst Korea was saved from a gruesome communist fate Indochina suffered more because of the American fiascos then it benefited.
It falls significantly short of proving the Domino theory, and instead proves that impoverished post colonial countries, from Angola, Cuba, Venezuela to Vietnam, will inevitably fall for extreme ideologies that seek to throw off the shackles of foreign overlords.
If you want to fight communism, then take away people's reasons to become communist in the first place.
And then there were all the countries that didn't become communist despite the supposed "domino theory", or the countries that loosened up their communist rhetoric not long after becoming communist.
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thats the thing, you cant have strong economic and cultural ties with countries that are increasingly misaligned politically as well as culturally.
the problems in hungary and poland isnt merely "oh there is bigotry", its that their political systems are becoming increasingly skewed and authoritarian, and their economies are becoming increasingly "inbred" for lack of a better term. despite their potential they are net-recievers of EU funding.
Viktor Orban has drastically changed electoral and legal policies during his reign to consolidate and ensure his continued rule. That isnt merely politically disagreeable, its downright frightening.
And as we saw with britain post brexit, when the EU legal requirements no longer applied to them, not only was there a major economic backslide but everything from quality-checking goods, to labor laws to basic border control went to shit, because the brits cannot and will not maintain their end of the bargain.
The reality is that you cant have economic cooperation, especially not as intimately as the EU does, without also the political requirements. and for "EU skeptics" to call that "authoritarian" is fucking ridiculous when the Union is voluntary.
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@Slithermotion
no one is talking about taking away all private housing. your paranoia is showing.
what is being talked about is appropriating property from gargantuan land owning monopolies as to mitigate a rapidly growing crisis.
you cant stop a forest fire by just growing more trees, because the systemic problem will continously expand outwards.
obviously a better solution would have been to create artificial caps on number of housing a company can own, and how far they can legitimately hike the pricing of their property, but the issue there is that since people, like you, were against small measures to mitigate major problems later down the line, more extreme solutions will have to be applied in the future. these problems only keep growing, and building more and more houses until singular cities occupy continents, all whilst thousands of houses stand empty and unused in the center of it all, will not solve the issue.
"people on the left thinks the economy is a magical mechanism"
says the people who think the free market is a god which, the slightest infringing against, will result in murderous wrath.
Cuba didnt become communistic because their leftist president said "hey, i found this funny little economic experiment in a book", but because a fascist regime set up by the US to appease local corporations brought the situation in cuba to such a position that shit would have gone to hell regardless of what ideology spurred it on.
the same people who blame the treaty of Versailles for the rise of H itler refuse to acknowledge the ways in which capitalism itself gave birth to violent failing communistic regimes.
All countries need some elements of socialism, all countries need a democracy, and all governments should act on behalf of the majority before they succumb to acting only on the behalf of the miniority.
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its an overlooked point, aye. Ukrainian soldiers arent superheroes, they are humans, and humans are capable of being scared, especially in the face of death. the saving grace is that Ukraine, thanks to western oversight and support, is more capable of keeping their soldiers alive, whether thanks to equipment, intelligience or just medicine.
even then, its understandable extremely daunting, both for those drafted to fight and their families.
the only thing you can really take solace in is the fact that you fight today so that young men, women and children tomorrow can live in peace. the lives lost will not be forgotten.
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Oh fuck off with this "its just racism" shit. Whilst race is definitely one factor, which is unfortunate, there is also about a dozen other more important factors that must be accounted for..
Differences between Ukrainian refugees and Middle eastern and african refugees...
-Legitimacy of refugee status.
We know they're from Ukraine. The issue with the whole "syrian refugee crisis" was that a great deal of the refugees werent from Syria to begin with.
-Demographic of Refugees.
Most Ukrainian refugees are women and children and elderly, whereas in the case of middle eastern and african refugees a large majority are males, combat aged males no less.
-Neighbour.
Most countries that have opened their borders are literally neighbours with Ukraine. its absurd to argue that the polish and lithuanians, who have family in Ukraine, should be just as keen to open their borders to people from the middle eastern countries they've never heard of. Its cute to think in terms of "strangers are just friends you've yet to meet" but that doesnt work in reality when you have to account for a dozen or so ideological and cultural, nevertheless linguistic, barriers.
-Culture.
We dont have to assimilate Ukrainians were they to stay long time. At worst, they are conservative, but not quite Sharia Law conservative. We also dont have to ween them off destructive cultural practices like honor-cultures and genital mutilation.
-Politics.
Again, whilst Ukrainians might on average be more conservative, they're also more likely to be more typically politically aligned with the rest of the Countries their fleeing to.
-Terrorism.
Another concern that people are constantly downplaying is terrorism. In the case of Ukranian refugees the likelyhood is extremely small that we'll see anything resembling terrorism from the refugees in this case because, why the fuck would a Ukranian drive a truck into a crowd fucking Oslo or Paris? or blow up a store?
Meanwhile during the syrian refugee crisis the people fleeing the war were literally from the same population as the ones who had started the war. You literally had the heads of terror groups stationed in and living in Europe a third of the time.
-we're in this together.
Russia has made threats against Finland and sweden, two countries that have maintained neutrality for over a century.
Its easier to form bonds of brotherhood with Ukrainians in times like these because we might soon be fighting for the same thing. sovereignty and freedom.
So boiling this down to just "they dont like brown and black people" is fucking stupid and intellectually dishonest. Yes, racism is a problem. But you're acting as if Africa, the middle east and europe is united as basically one country like the US, where the only differences are economic.
note added because 20:40
American policy making aided in causing the refugee crisis in the middle east, not Polish, not Lithuanian, not Swedish or Finnish, American policy making.
Pretend for a second that your country is neighbours with Russia, and a neighbour of your country, whos politics, culture and religion is almost the same, has been invaded.
Stop trying to tie this into american identity politics, stop trying to downplay the differences between combat aged males from syria vs mostly women and children from Ukraine, and why the latter has an easier time to migrate. Racism is a problem, it really is, but its such a miniscule factor among thousands of others.
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@user-ik4kh9lt6d
"racial tensions are getting worse in America"
No, no they are not. To argue that is to downplay the past 100 years which were significantly more tumultous.
Also, visit any border, and what you will find are people from both nations culturally, ethnically and even linguistically intermingling. This idea of borders you have seems to be derived from playing strategy games rather than actually observing reality.
When I travel from France to Germany its not like entering a separete universe, where everyone suddenly speaks German. That is literally absurd an an inherently anti-human view of looking at reality.
Borders exist because of governments, not the people.
And the reason there is violence at the Mexican border, violence which the civilian populace would rather avoid mind you, is because the American drug war and destabilisation of South America resulted in a powerful and profitable smuggling industry, resulting in wars with the cartels.
If it was truly a "cultural" or "ethnic" conflict, you wouldn't see most of the fighting be done on the streets of Central and south America, yet that is where the actual war is. Internally.
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@elanv
The problem is the electoral college has made "right wing and left wing" into political positions, rather than vague approximations of political alignment. the concept was invented by the french to denote those who support monarchy vs those who supported democracy, positions far more simple, linear and contrasting than, say, "Do you want higher or lower taxes". this has resulted in a cartoonish situation where the republican party is no longer defined by specific policy positions, but rather which loudmouth can shout how much they love god, hate socialism and want to illegalize tran s people. How the hell Marjorie taylor greene is still allowed in congress after "jewish space lasers" is beyond me.
the cure would be to get rid of electoral college, gerrymandering and adopt proportional representation. then you'd actually see a wide array of political parties of different shades and nuances, nationalists, christians, as well as socialists and enviromentalists, and everything in-between.
the alt-right and communists wouldnt be able to monkeywrench centrist compromises by holding policies hostage, likewise extreme fringe parties all over the spectrum could align on specific policy questions, preventing the dominant parties from holding all power.
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Unsurprisingly americans are the ones most outraged at this because they havent had a real war occur in nearly half a century, and even that one was mostly off-shore. Because you dont understand that people's lives are at stake. do you this is about hardline principles that immediatly fall apart when you look at it through a lens not constructed out of comfort.
This isnt "censorship because you're not allowed to share opposing opinions", we got plenty of opposing opinions. plenty of people who hate the leaders of the western world, from people who hate and despise Biden, to Macron, To fucking Zelensky. We got diversity of opinion and politics. We got pro-russia people, we got Putin sycophants. We got em all, and they are free to speak as they wish.
The reason Russia sponsored networks that spew propaganda in favour of Russia is banned is because they are breaking literally every law there is when it comes to news, ranging from slander to endangerment of lives, whilst also actively posing a threat to people's lives. And to make matters worse, they are unaccountable, because Russia does not respond to criticism, Russia does not respond to inquiries about its media and what it says, because Russia is a dictatorship ruled over by a fucking madman who has ensured that everything goes through him first.
And their propaganda, their business models, directly contribute to Putin's power, which is at this moment a foreign hostile power that seeks to cause the death of thousands of people, and the overthrowing of a democratic nation.
Unless you're gonna go out there and start advocating that ISIS videos should be allowed to be shown on TV in the name of "fair representation of opinions", i think its best to sit this one out.
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@dontforgettolike7127
Except Obama didnt refuse to concede an election whilst rabble rousing his cult of personality under the auspices of being "beseiged by commies who are trying to take our country and sell it to china".
radicalizing is a lot more than just words, but trumps words were nothing but radical. poorly articulated, simplistic and moronic, but nevertheless with radical words. and that is what you asked for, his "violent" rhetoric.
i could go on some 12 paragraph tangent about how he held constant rallies, even when he became president, where he constantly made enemies and publically denounced and humiliated people, declaring them betrayers or commies.
Remember when he praised general mattis "the mad dog", then the moment the general criticized trump before resigning, Trump went on a tangent about what a piece of shit mattis was and how trump "fired him", a blatant lie?
this kind of shit is what radicalizes. revionistic lies built up to make it look like you're always on the offense, always on the attack, always sniffing out the enemies "undermining democracy".
and thats without mentioning how he threatened to sent the national guard to quell protesters, to shoot them down in the streets and praising footage of women, children and elderly being beaten by law enforcement.
Even Pat robertson, the old christian fundamentalist vampire who has always had trump's back, told trump that he was going way too far, ready to deploy troops on american soil against americans.
And guess what, now Pat is a traitor too.
Dont act obtuse or dumb, You know what trump has been doing and its way above and beyond anything any leftist or right winger before has done.
Even bush's Calling on god before the invasion of Iraq was less radical.
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@0xCAFEF00D
you basically said it yourself though.
Eastern europe in a bid to fight "western values" thoroughly romanticized Russian behaviour for the longest time, with everything from the pan-slavicism to authoritarian politics further sowing the idea, especially in the heads of people like Putin, that Democracy is secondary to a strong leader who will lead a land strongly.
im not saying Latvia and Estonia are responsible for the invasion of Ukraine, not by a long shot. there is only one culprit here, namely Russia. and the EU is no free from blame by a long shot, having been led down the primrose path by germany and its suspiciously pro-russian economic policies.
Im just saying that this whole "wow, europe/the west really screwed over eastern europe" shit is at best hypocritical and at worst downright revisionist.
As a fellow swede i too harbor resentment towards the EU, from its mishandling of immigration and its favoritism of the central europeans, its constant pushing of the Euro, many of its naive or backwards laws etc, to the fact that there is no way to kick out countries like hungary from the cooperation, hinting at a severe level of naivety. i could go on.
But brexit, the war in Ukraine and the EU response to chinese economic and cultural warfare has made me appreciate the benefits of the European union more and more. From the way the EU distributes Eu contributions to areas that need it, without getting bogged down with Local political favoritism (which as we have seen is a major problem in the US and the UK) to being able to work and travel anywhere in the EU.
The EU is one of the few examples of human history of political union or organization working primarily within the confines of Realpolitik, which is a nice change in a world so divided.
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@Jackal4563
1st off: Korea is a hyper densely populated country. Even if we only talked about death counts, fact is that total amount of covid cases in general is WAY lower than in Florida. Florida has around 6 million covid cases, South Korea has about 1,3 million.
And even then, South Korea has nearly three times the population of Florida. So even though Florida is common retirement state, the elderly population of south korea dwarfs Floridas elderly population by a massive margin.
2: a major issue in east asian countries is a rapidly aging population being contrasted with a younger population that is either too poor or just lack the motivation to have more kids.
if you thought the issue with younger generations not reproducing quickly enough to support an aging older population was a problem in the US, its about 5 times worse in Japan and Korea where they have a larger population but a way smaller and worsely situated younger population.
3. Though a lot of the people who die are people who may already have been sick or old, most people who get infected are people on the frontlines of our society, the nurses, the doctors, the truck drivers, police, the people who keep the proverbial bloodflow of our society alive in the first place.
Them getting sick is bad enough, them potentially dying is way worse. Thats something you fuckers never consider. How many of the hundreds of thousands dead were absolutely vital members of society? How many doctors can a small town afford to lose? how many parents can a small family afford to lose?
With other words: Your argument is dogshit and is based on an extreme stereotype of florida that ignores that countries like Korea and Japan suffers many of the same issues, but still managed to counter the pandemic WAAAAAY better.
so fuck off.
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@elusivemayfly7534
a big problem is the political compass in general, and how the electoral college system of the US has basically disenfranchised democratic nuances. as a result, instead of having nationalist, christian, socialist, enviromentalist, socio-democratic, christian-democratic etc parties, you got republicans and democrats, right and left.
and when the only way to extoll your virtues as a republican or democrat, right and left, is to be more right and left, you inevitably wind up with crazy people.
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Medieval armies were all about being able to adapt and arm oneself in the most efficient manner possible to confront as many potential dangers as possible.
Look at a viking as an example of a dark age medieval soldier (though this could apply to saxons and the like as well). Armed with a spear, which could be used for hunting and fighting. an axe that is both a weapon and a tool, A seax which is a precise tool and also a weapon, a large round shield that is covering but also decently light, as well as bow and arrow, which are also tools of war and hunting.
Sure, a dude clad in gambeson wielding a funnily painted roundshield and an axe might not appear as glamorous as a typical roman legionary in his shiny Lorica segmentata, but right off the bat he has more of his bases covered than said professional soldier.
The Viking can hunt for food, fight from a distance and fend off cavalry. and thats just at the beginning of the middle ages.
Another aspect that wider medieval society figured out about war is that most humans, most people, are not particularly good killers. sure they can march, fight, be struck and strike back, but killing their fellow human can be difficult even in the heat of battle, which is why the job of most medieval soldiers wasn't to kill but to keep the enemy busy whilst the heavy infantry comprised of proper killers or the heavy cavalry dealt the coup de grace to the enemy formation. That was what medieval armies ultimately became specialized in over time.
If anything, a medieval army (12th century maybe) could take on a roman one (post marian reform) because of its more 3 dimensional mobilization and being able to properly adapt and specialize. ignoring of course the superior logistical capabilities of the roman empire.
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@vtheman1850
"many nations opt out of liberal democracy"
No, nations have their hands forced out of democracy, usually lured by strongmen into making away with the rights and values that gave them the right to vote for the man in the first place. and before you know it, your country has become the wehrmacht or imperial japan, waging war on its neighbours in the name of some lost glory.
A vanity project by your "glorious" leaders whos delusions of grandeur will render your cities to rubble, your monuments to ash, and your people to corpses.
Germany during ww2 was not a democracy, it "opted out" of that democracy, and it lead them to years of brutal warfare followed by soviet oppression (in the east).
Ask the same germans if they'd be ever willing to do away with democracy again and they'll tell you otherwise.
The failures of american democracy are born out of the fact that the US is an absolutely gargantuan country, but with weird and sometimes corrupt laws that are put in place specifically to tailor political outcomes to favor specific groups of people. from historical voter suppression to frauds. to act as if all democracies are the same is absurd.
And Zelensky's administration is not perfect, but to act as if his administration is no different from the government that came before it would be an absolute lie born from the fever dreams of a panicked putin sycophant, desperate to pretend that a man chosen by the majority of his people is no different from the foreign dictator currently killing those people.
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@vtheman1850
Sweden, Finland and Ukraine and many countries like them chose to not join NATO. Because they chose, as sovereign countries, to be neutral, to be amicable, to be a bridge between the west and the east.
Putin, in one fell swoop, ended that. He burnt the bridge, and forced countries that had made the choice to be Neutral to no longer be Neutral. Before 2022, the EU had only lost member countries.
Now, Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova are clamoring for EU memberships.
You can lie all you want, try to paint some picture about how irrelevant europe is, and how we all need to abandon the "treacherous" US and embrace Putin as our protector in Europe.
Well, look at his armies. Soon a month will pass and Ukraine still stands. Ukraine, the one country that stood alone, still trying to mend relations with Russia, has withstood Russia's invasion. Not even the army of Belarus wants to fight for russia, despite being a puppet state, because Belarusians do not want to kill their neighbours in the name of Putin.
If the EU was truly was worthless and unimportant on the global stage as you try to frame it as, why does Russia, China and the US choose europe as stage worth fighting for? why does the EU accrue more candidates to join its union? why does Russia struggle against a single country, whilst at the same time threatening the rest of europe with retaliation for aiding Ukraine, a lone and "weak" country whos capital and leader still stands?
The Ukrainians are paying a price they are willing to pay, for something they've fought for since they first became a country, and something they've fought for since 2014. A free Ukraine.
To people like you, fighting for your country against an invader who wants to drape your homeland with the veil of USSR style economic mismanagement and oppression might seem dumb, but for Ukrainians, its worth risking your life to fight against that.
Slava ukraini, and go fuck yourself.
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@TheManofthecross
thats intellectually dishonest though.
Russia is still an authoritarian hellhole whos supreme leader poisons political rivals and declares wars and attempts annexation on its neighbours. the market is rigidly controlled by the government and its oligarchs. Though no longer communist, its still the same government, with many of the officials hailing from a period when communism reigned. The justifications for their actions has changed, but the actions remain the same.
same in China. modern china can hardly be classified as communist outside of propaganda, and can moreso be classified as fascist. and yes, there is very little difference between fascism and most communist dictatorships. its sort of like how the Nazi's hated socialists and never instituted a single socialist policy, yet are still called socialists. its propaganda. theirs and that of their enemies.
Personally i would rather attribute genocides and wartime atrocities to governments in general. The same government and Monarchy that oversaw the irish potato famine, the slaughter of Hindi through famine and war, who spurred on colonization and the equally disastrious de-colonization, is the same government and monarchy that still holds authority in modern Britain. and the british still cherish the memory of their blood-soaked empire, so there isnt even a separation in terms of morality.
If i kill a person and claim i did it in the name of the "planned economy", is that a death by communism?
If i then rescind my communism and kill a person in the name of the "free market", is that a death by capitalism?
personally, im more keen to think that both those deaths were caused by a crazy asshole with a gun. every person has their justifications and ideology, but 9 times out of 10 the justification is merely the bridge towards the goal, not the goal itself.
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@holden6104
the difference is that the vaccines are a immediate solution to a very present problem that the government has pointed out as a major priority. a government that we have built up and elected officials for, under the direction of the medical establishment that similiarly has been built up over the centuries to specificly be knowledgeable on the subject matter of societal health and wellbeing.
This is not me saying "what about the other drunk drivers". what a befuddlingly fucking absurd comparison.
I am saying that the issue at hand, aka corruption in the medical industry, is an issue that has existed for decades and has only gotten worse, and only now when there is a clear and present danger, now everyone who has previously stayed quiet has decided to crawl out of the woodwork and point out the obvious as if its some great revelation.
to use your metaphor more accurately, this would be akin to the drunk driver complaining about getting subjected to police brutality during his arrest, despite having never complained or even given the faintest shit about police brutality before. Not helped that said drunk driver is a drunk violent idiot who put peoples lives at risk, thus in part almost warranting the more severe treatment.
and even then, if we move away from the nebulous world of metaphors it becomes immediatly clear that lockdowns and vaccinations work. its part of the reason why South Korea, despite 30 million more people in it than florida, somehow has evaded covid with only a 10th of the death toll and with an absolutely miniscule infection rate.
Yeah, Pfizer are not the good guys. but at this point there are no good guys and all you can hope for is a bad guy who at least provides what he sells.
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@amh9494
You say that, but Ukraine is a giant country home to approximately 40 million people. Ukraine's ability to defend itself is derived from its size and previously put up defenses, in conjuction with western aid.
In other words: the things preventing russia from taking Ukraine are things that, had russia invaded any other country in europe, might not have been guaranteed to work.
Finland has a tenth of the populatin of ukraine, and far less land. Most of the baltic countries would have struggled to put up a fight.
i agree that millions of migrants with conflicting values are a massive problem, but its worth noting that funneling migrants into europe is a strategy employed by russia, belarus and allegedly even hungary. not to mention the hundreds of thousands of visas that poland's government sold.
So while i agree that its an issue that needs to be resolved, turning to the same far right nationalist factions that cause most of these problems in the first place, including supporting Russia's genocide of white christian europeans in ukraine, is not the solution.
Marie Le pen claimed Putin was an ally of the christian europeans against Islam. tell that to the churches Russia has bombed.
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@stephenjenkins7971
"almost no americans worry about being bankrupted by lack of healthcare"
now, thats a straight up lie. there is a reason why healthcare coverage is such an important topic for presidential candidates, and why something even as horribly flawed as obamacare is preferably to nothing at all, and why Trump ran on the idea that he'd introduce "trumpcare" to replace obamacare, a promise he promptly dropped because he is a conservative to the chagrin of a hefty portion of his voters, though fortunately being that many of them are elderly they do have access to medicaid.
Tons of americans worry daily about healthcare costs, be they pharmacutical or from hospital visits, with 31 million americans being completely without healthcare coverage at all.
Fuck sake, just look at the cost of insulin in the US, and considering the presence of diabetus and obesity in the US, it on its own detail a nasty trajectory of american medicinal coverage. as if the failure to properly respond to the pandemic wasnt indicative enough of widespread medical illiteracy and outright distrust.
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@veggiesupreme3556
(sorry, long reply)
TL;DR, Privatization is how it starts. the US once had a ton of healthcare programs and strong worker unions, until they were busted apart and shut down by corporate interests with profit-motives that ran contradictory to the non-profit social services that existed.
thats how it starts. "we just want to privatize parts of it to make it more efficient", and before you know it costs and whatnot rise whilst medical personel gets less and less, because the motive becomes profit and profit cuts corners. But because the early costs only affects a small portion of the population (those who have to pay out of pocket) whilst most people get a small cut to their taxes, the problem grows gradually enough to be easily ignored and swept under the rug.
The US once had several strong healthcare options (not quite universal, but there were different programs meant to give a foothold to the concept) alongside strong worker unions and whatnot, but increased pushes for "privatization" citing the inefficiencies of governmental ran programs has repeatedly killed off any staging point for universal healthcare.
Once you introduce profit-motives into something thats supposed to be inherently unprofitable (at least directly. having a populace who can seek medical aid whenever they need to results in a net:gain in terms of employment and overall GDP) you've already injected the proverbial dogshit into a wound under the pretense of covering it up. its only a question of time before it becomes infected.
and understand, im not anti-capitalist or some shit. i prefer living in a society where the individual can pursue careers and paths that allow them to reap the benefit of their own creation and become wealthy or rich. But having seen the american medical dystopia, and how conservative parties in europe want to not only emulate but outright copy aspects of republican politics, i am extremely wary of it.
edit: now, not all right wing parties are nessecarily outright pro-privatization of healthcare and other social services, but 99 times out of a 100 the populism concerning immigration, nationalism, outsourcing etc are just smokescreens to push for more corporate powers within government and social services.
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@AR-GuidesAndMore
well, you're a rather useless participant in the political process then.
In europe we practice representative democracy on a individual level, where votes = seats, which is virtually night and day when compared with the american system where one party wins, thus shunning the other 50% of the country to the backside as the winners entrench themselves inb4 the next election when they lose.
In sweden the nationalist party, which at one point didnt even have enough votes to get a seat in parliament, has recently "won" the election, because we are a representative democracy and fair is fair.
If the populace of sweden wished they could vote to leave the EU, and the EU could do nothing about it. and that is the key part of the EU. The EU is a democracy, each member state votes, but not all of them win, as is common in a democracy. but they are free to leave and thus become sovereign again.
If the day comes when the EU refuses to allow states to leave, then i will agree with you. until then, screaming about the "authoritarianism of the EU" is akin to screaming about the inherent oppression of wearing underwear.
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@Hardcore_Remixer
the problem with constant cheap imports is that you undermine your own production, industries and labor force. sometimes it makes sense, but as shown with europe's economy staggering due to Russia and China its clear we became overreliant.
the people need to make money, not just those at the top, or else people wont be able to engage with the consumerism system and prop up the economy in the first place.
"enviromentalism is clearly a thing for countries that can afford it"
thats pretty cute logic, too bad it falls apart when you consider that poor countries suffer the worst from climate change and pollution. Floods in south-asia, droughts in africa, heatwaves in the balkans and eastern europe.
"as for risking china and russia becoming stronger, what options do poorer countries have"
That would be a good point, but again, the issue is the framing of poor vs rich country, as if the core issues aren't derived from domestic problems.
Sweden is a country covered in snow 6 months of the year, with a population of 10 million stretched across a landmass 3 times the size of the UK. yet despite economic downturns, inflation and reckless immigration is still not a poor country. why?
-Sweden is a progressive country, which is an attractive prospect to young educated people.
-Sweden modernized the rural countryside
-anti-corruption measures and transparency in government.
-Being cooperative with EU and its neighbours
-Built an energy grid that isn't dependant on foreign countries' raw material aka gas or coal.
Again, its the issue with this mindset. the easiest way out rather than building something long term and sustainable.
Germany also made the mistake of choosing gas over electric and now they suffer immensely for it as well. who cares if its profitable. imagine if Hungary had spent the billions given to it by the EU to build a powergrid, providing jobs for its citzens, an independant power supply and the ability to sell the surplus.
politics is literally WHERE WE CAN REACH A MIDDLEGROUND.
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@yellowtunes2756
Prigozhin could have said anything, so what? Prigozhin and his men fought and bled for russia for over a year, undersupplied and abandoned, and frequently having their victories and achivements stolen by other officers and generals.
Prigozhin is the only person in Russia who was close to the ground to see what was happening and powerful enough to talk back against putin and the MOD without fear of immediate lethal reprecussions.
And there is a reason why Prigozhin made it almost entirely unchallenged all the way to rostov, being almost treated to a parade when he arrived there.
There is a reason why Wagner was one of the most if not THE most efficient wing of the russian forces and thats because Prigozhin, at his worst, was realistic about strengths and weaknesses of his own forces and of the enemy.
of course you can argue about Mediazones data, what the fuck are you even on about. Mediazone is russian, meaning that it has stakes in the war, and its anti-putin, meaning that it has a bias. regardless whether you agree with them or not, they are not a staunchly reliable source.
and even then, their numbers are constantly misappropriated and misunderstood. a lot of vatniks say that only "37k russian soldiers have died so far", despite the fact that Mediazone has expressed that those are just the numbers of death certificates they've verified, and that the real number is likely 2 or 3 times as high.
but if you want to trust a country that was actively throwing people in jail for calling the invasion of ukraine a "war" then go ahead.
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@benmidnightflame
the "america deserved it", downplaying TYT smearing a journalist, repeated poor hottakes and biases, many of which oddly are tied to his relationship with TYT as well.
Hasan, and Vaush similiarly, fall into the same trap that the internet right wingers fell into. They make basic arguments for things their audience already agrees with. and when they inevitably fuck up in an argument they'll settle for the pigeon strategy of kicking over the pieces, shitting on the table and declaring victory.
Crowder and the like arent much better, and in most ways are worse since they actually go out of their way to go after people who dont spend most of their days on internet politics and shitflinging.
Breadtube has become a memed echo-chamber for a reason, and there are already cracks in the facade because people are more gung ho about having someone with a good view-count spout the same rhetoric as them.
Made worse when breadtubers get repeatedly cancelled by their own audience for stepping out of line, their reputation partially salvaged because the rest of the breadtube steps in and vouches for the targets honor.
Contrapoints getting cancelled because she enjoyed not having people worry about pronouns, Lindsay getting cancelled for her shittake concerning raya and the last dragon.
and less we say about Quinton the better.
And then you have the current, what hasan would call, "drama" aka "warmongers on TYT smear an anti-war journalist", where everyone crawls out of the woodworks to give their hottakes, which age about as well as milk.
With vaush, irishladdie the creep himself, coming out to comment on how inappropriate it was for jimmy dore to criticize ana kasparian's choice of clothing... in a drama that occured and was resolved 8 fucking years ago.
i guess jimmy should have apologized to his fans on reddit as well, then it would have all been good.
"crowder wont debate him, therefore good"
crowder also wont debate TJ Kirk.
the "debate me, bro" schtick isnt not as powerful as you think. adopting the hollering ape strategy of the opposition is not the 5d chess move that people think it is.
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@napoleonfeanor
Its the goal that matters. im under no illusion that liberal democracies are perfect, but its a fact that liberal democracies are the ones closest to achieving the goal of creating a segmented government that keeps receipts on itself and maintains a level of basic transparency. i should probably note that i am northern european, not american, so when i talk about liberal democracy im talkng about the average ones, not the US with its horribly flawed electoral college and gerrymanderying and supreme court and "winner takes all" elections.
"how is it liberal when views that were perfectly mainstream get criminalized"
which view has been criminalized exactly? last i checked, society has everything nazis and communists to christians and atheists preaching and hollering from their respective corners.
if you're complaining about not being able to defame, slander, usher death threats or howl slurs and disrupt the lives of day-to-day people on the street, then yes, we arent 100% libertarian. and im fine with that.
"operate within the frameworks of society and have no intentions to abolish institutions".
except not only have we seen the abolishing of institutions, we've seen the rapid non-institutional addition of sudden new frameworks which only exist to sandbag the opposition, combined with murky additions like electoral super-majorities which gives the dominant party more than the proportional amount of political power. and thats without going into hand-picked judges overturning constitutional legal precedents without warning.
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@EdoTimmermans
What the fuck are you even on about?
first off, your premise is complete horseshit and flies in the face of societal infrastructure and logistics, aka the things we as a society have built up collectively and use collectively so that we can focus our efforts on other things.
A doctor is less equipped to survive Antarctica than the average eskimo, but maybe the doctor has more valuable skills. its how societies work, mate.
There is a reason why Ukrainians can still use smartphones, get fastfood and utilize cheap chinese products despite being caught in a war, and thats because of a powerful advanced infrastructure similar to that of the rest of the western world.
Russians being often poor, with lack of access to good education or good infrastructure doesnt make them "tougher and hardier" more than it does the Somalians.
They arent tougher, they are more desperate, and are willing to do more desperate things. there is a reason crime and drug use is such a massive problem.
secondly, the US sure as fuck wont collapse before Russia. at most, it will struggle, but the fact that americans despite political divisions are more united than russia shows this. The fact that Mexico and Canada are allied with the US whilst all of russia's neighbours are doing their best to oppose Russia speaks volumes.
"sanctions dont do what they are supposed to"
Except they do. Russia struggles to obtain vital components to build many of their weapons and vehicles. doesnt matter how much oil ya got if you cant fucking repair your tanks and guns.
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having watched a lot of, quite frankly, horrifying combat footage showing russia's advances, the main reason i think russia advances, but very slowly, is because of a lack of sufficient combat-ready tanks and APCs.
a russian BTR can fit upwards of 10, maybe 12 people. yet there is a ton of footage of russian BTRs and Tanks rolling all on their own, without support, toward ukrainian lines. When they hit a landmine or get stopped by artillery, upwards of 20-30 men depart from the heavily crowded vehicle, including men sitting ontop of the vehicle (many of them get eviscerated by the artillery).
one of two things will happen at this point.
A: Ukrainian artillery and drones will neutralize each of the 20-30 men
B: because of a lack of artillery, most of the 20-30 men make it to nearby forests and abandoned trenches in deadman's land, making it no longer deadman's land.
Russia repeats this clown war strategy where individual vehicles carry way more soldiers than they should until they manage to put enough pressure on a ukrainian position to push through. if two clown-cars worth of russian soldiers manage to fill a trench, now you got a pretty solid bunch of men to push a underdefended ukrainian line from.
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once more, the progressives are essentially controlled opposition if only through their predictably neutered nature as a movement. a bunch of arm-flailing children trying to "fite dah powah" through strongly-worded letters and cancel-culture, because ultimately its about virtue signaling by champagne socialists and earning brownie points on twitter.
Before the first biden presidency is over the progressivist movement will either be commercialized and bought out, neutered into irrelevance due to being ran by shortsighted narcissists or become fringe due to its constant need to big fights with the biggest opponents it can find whilst lacking the numbers or strength to do so, all whilst being about as friendly as a rabid human raised by rabid dogs.
Meanwhile any worthwhile change on a bottom level, like confronting noodles like AOC or other justice democrats for being limp-wristed, or pushing for unions and trying to spread their movement and become grassroots, will be considered uncouth, boring or worse, not "diverse" enough.
"Unless i can sell Merch with my progressive Logo on it, or do 99% of my activism on twitter, it aint worth it, bucko."
Its just tiring seeing this shit happen again and again. Nothing will be accomplished except giving fox news and the right the ability to play the victim card... again.
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@Julian Cicone
"they arent trying to get fox news removed off air, they're just trying to get fox news go to bankrupt and thus removed from air by cutting out their feet from under them"
And even then, that wasnt my point, nor was it kyle's.
The problem is that there are far worse beasts out there, beasts that are both more destructive and also more easily defeatable, and if fox news were to fall before they do all that it would happen is that they, a considerable worse network, would take their place.
This is idiotic beyond belief, and the fact that 40 progressive movements got together to do this, rather than anything actually productive, tells a lot about the state of it all.
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@AUniqueHandleName444
thats an absolutely bizarrely idiotic thing to say.
no, it is not easier to course-correct a national or global economic crisis. point to literally any other country going through economic crisis and what we see is that once a country start spiraling it wont stop until it hits the bottom and stays there.
Obama made things better, and i say that as someone who does not like obama. His policies were by and large a net-positive.
"meanwhile under trump we saw historically low unemployment" YES, because of a trend OBAMA STARTED.
these aren't school grades where its easier to go from poor to decent than decent to perfect, its a fucking country with an economy based on a million different factors. and the comparisn itself is just stupid for more reasons than just being banal, it makes no sense. each text exam in a school starts with a clean slate. the economy of america does not restart with a clean slate every time someone new gets into office.
Obama inherited a mess, Trump did not, but trump left a mess behind.
imagine if someone were to dig a 90 feet deep tunnel, then someone else came along, dug further 10 feet, and then proclaimed himself to be the greatest digger ever because "the tunnel has never been deeper". technically true, but bullshit in practice.
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@physiocrat7143
the EU is the UK's largest trading partner and the UK has been consistently reliant on an economy it built up through trade, tourism and other commerce with the EU. with brexit, or more specificly, hard brexit, the UK not only severed the ties and burnt the bridges but complicated its own abilities to maintain its own economy.
You cant just aggressively downsize and economy and hope it sorts itself out. pig farmers have to cull massive amounts of livestock and fishermen are on sucide watch because their industries went from struggling to destroyed in a single move by Bojo the clown.
And thats without going into how brexiteers didnt consider for a second the actual logistics of how their sovereignty would work.
take the fishing situation as an example.
Fishermen from denmark, france and spain go to british waters to fish because some of the best fish exist in those waters. Now the obvious and immediate reaction to that fact is "well, its british waters. british waters for british fishermen. tally ho". and so Bojo and the brexiteers sought to set out some harsh lines in the sand against EU fishermen.
but here is the logistical issue: Fish dont have borders, Fish reproduce and lay their eggs in waters closer to the EU countries, before being born, becoming adults and migrating to british waters.
what this means is that the only reason fish in UK waters are larger and healthier is because EU fishermen actively seek to avoid fishing in their own waters to make sure the harvest is greater for everyone.
and this really is the perfect analogy for the failures of brexit.
So much of UK's wealth is dependant on resources they can only really utilize and have access to as long as they are in close relationship and working in tandem with other neighbouring countries.
With brexit the UK severed many of those ties, and in order to get even a semblance of the old stability back the UK has to accept humiliating trade deals which, in some instances, are far worse than those they previously had.
You're the one who knows dangerously little about how economy and trade works, thinking this is the middle ages where a century of plague and famine is a good thing because by the end of it you'll have less peasants and thus more bargaining power.
you cant just go around and blame remainers all the time when the people who are supposedly on your side keep fucking up and neglecting their duties, mishandling every situation that lands in their lap.
Nigel Farage, Ukip, the brexit party, Boris Johnson, Theresa May, Lord frost, Miss truss, after a while you just have to accept that if every brexit politician you got is a moron, maybe brexit itself is moronic.
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@bachelor3846
"there is no clear correlation between democracy and economic wealth"
depends. on a GDP level, perhaps not, but on an individual level, no doubt about it. Most countries that strengthen their democratic institutions become wealthier as they generally become more pro-free market and capitalism, and note when i say capitalism i mean "controlled capitalism", not the banana republic style colonialism.
i am more socio-democratic than anything else, so i recognize the dangers of the "capitalism silver bullet" mentality, but there is a reason why china was generally a better place when it decided to adopt something resembling free-market economics, before winnie the puh decided to do a major backslide back into severe authoritarianism.
of course, a country needs actual time to foster a strong economy. You're pulling the "oh look, apartheid ended and south-africa is even poorer now. turns out apartheid was good" logic, where a stable dystopia is considered better than a steadily improving country because said improvement was only acquired through chaos which leads to times of unease.
Every country looks worse in the immediate aftermath of a major regime change. the fact that Ukraine managed to maintain a modicum of democracy despite being entirely surrounded by the russian federation is no small feat.
Ukraine was ruled by a severely pro-russian regime before the revolution, and so most of its institutions and economy existed to serve Russia to some extent.
Then you had the maidan revolution, which had its own time of unease because it tried to undo said russian control, but then that was followed by a russian invasion that lead to the conquest of crimea, which undoubtadly had an impact on Ukraine's economy. Then there are the insurgents in eastern Ukraine which were busy raising hell, which resulted in its own counter response, making things further chaotic.
But of course, why bother mentioning all those major events. lets just pretend that Ukraine daring to be independant was the sole cause of its economic woes, rather than the annexations, insurgents and now invasion by the world's largest fucking country.
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@dirckthedork-knight1201
Which of it was speculation? the fact that Alexander and Hephaeston compared themselves to hercules and Patrocles? I mean, so much is ultimately speculation. Can curtius be trusted as much as Adam of Bremen's accounts of the vikings? do they have access to facts that we do not?
Ultimately i base my speculation on accounts that arent outlandish and that fit within the framework of both the culture and behaviour of the people at the time.
Royals, kings, emperors, they had numerous lovers, including male ones. Even if only as a statement of power or influence.
Concepts such as gay and straight didnt exist, instead there was the pentrator and penetrated, and the young male lovers in hellenistic societies fell into the latter, and men worth their weight would prove often position themselves in the former category.
Alexander's father had male lovers, his powerful rivals had male lovers. Hell, Bagoas the younger was the lover of Darius before being gifted onto Alexander. The beauty of the young man being something Alexander complimented.
I never said he didnt have sex with women, thus bisexual. he was still an emperor expected to have heirs, though he had a suprisingly few heirs.
But arguing against his bisexuality, regardless of his relationship with Hephaeston, is silly.
besides, Even if they were just Really REALLY good friends, the extent of their friendship and the culture they grew up in would almost assuredly imply they might have been intimate at some point due to how close they were, due to how blurry the lines between friendship and love was.
Idk.
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@hieudominh4113
Make no mistake, the US has a track record that would make China look comparatively gentle.
disruption of democracy and freedom in latin america, resulting in the birth of fascist and communist dictatorships, the destabilization of middle eastern countries, which is without mentioning their actions in Vietnam (which were hypocritical) and balkans (which is why Serbia is pro russia).
I am under no illusion as to the intentions of the US, but the fact that the US is ostensibly a democracy with two major parties, whereas Russia and China are in contrast countries with only one party really allowed speaks volumes as to the difference.
Its clear that Russia, in its eternal goal to expand its territory to "defend" its territory is on a track heading off a cliff, and Ukraine was that cliff. They dont want to restore the soviet union, obviously, but Putin wants to restore imperial borders, and whether his intentions are defensive he is going by the conquerers playbook.
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Europe needs to get its house in order?
I respect Ukraine and its people, but lets not play noblebright and stupid. Ukraine suffers from corruption and other major political problems that would make it difficult for Ukraine to join the EU. They were basically Belarus 2.0 before the maidan revolution, and many of the old russian-satellite-state problems still remain despite how anti-russian Ukraine has become.
Hell, this is a problem that is quite noticeable even in Ukraine's military, where equipment and the like sometimes just straight up "Disappear", a problem which would make it a hassle for Ukraine to even join NATO, an organization which cares more about the logistical and reliable end of military strategy than just "how many men can you field".
Yes, the EU has problems, deep ones, but Ukraine isnt fit to Join the EU, its not the other way around.
The EU has criteria.
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whilst sanctions are good, it takes time for them to work. Ukraine's people need a place to hide and be safe, their children fed, their soldiers armed and given medical aid. IF we cannot fight, we can at the very least provide whatever aid is possible.
It is on days like these that we are all Ukrainian, and an assault on Ukraine's democracy is an assault on ours. If we forsake Ukraine, we will have forsaken ourselves.
A lot of moving pieces at the moment. One of them, at least in Sweden, is to provide Ukraine with the sought after NLAW anti-tank weaponry. The UK has already thankfully been quick to act and provide Ukraine with a decent number of them, and most of Sweden's government is for providing weapons to Ukraine.
What makes the whole situation worse is that Russia wasted no time in assaulting the entire country. The shock and awe seemingly existing to hide the fact that they cannot engage in long term conflict, not only because of sanctions but also because of internal instability in their country. If we can aid Ukraine in enduring this onslaught then Russia's onslaught might ultimately fail.
Another smaller news story was that a Russian platoon surrendered to Ukrainian forces when given the kill order, refusing to kill what they perceive to be neighbors. Whether that situation has occured more than once is unknown, but it seems even a lot of russian soldiers arent entirely on board with this, which would mirror the protests in Moscow.
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@Juho221
Not this shit again.
How the hell is Ukraine supposed to defend its cities, villages and people from Russian aggression if they are not allowed to fight anywhere near populated areas, especially when populated areas are the ones the russians are, by the nature of their very invasion, trying to invade and take over?
think for a fucking second.
Russia tries to take a city.
Ukraine stands in the way of the russians trying to take a city.
Ukrainian forces, thus by proxy, will be near the city.
and thats assuming the fighting hasnt already turned urban by, again, THE FUCKING INVADERS INVADING THE CITY!
"a bad side and a slightly less bad side"
ah yes, over a million Ukrainians have been fucking deported to russian "filtration" camps, a pretext for a full on fucking holocaust, but we're still gonna pretend Ukraine is just as bad because their defense isnt 100% optimized. GG.
Do you apply the same critique to the soviets at Stalingrad or the french partisans in Paris?
Look at Mariupol, and tell me that Russian bombardment is aimed solely at military targets.
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@Godfrey544 the problem with mercenaries isnt whether or not they are willing to fight, but whether or not they are willing to die. thats why mercenaries fell out favor in the first place. its why Wagner conscripted criminals to take the brunt of Ukrainian firepower, and why Wagner is now considering running off back to africa where they can wage assymetrical war against rebels and oppress civillians.
Same with blackwater. they're far better armed and trained than their adversaries, being local militia, taliban or rebels, that the risk of death is relatively low and the payouts are high as the companies (or countries) paying them just care about protecting assets. which itself is a defensive effort which further gives advantage to the smaller and better trained and equipped force.
However, when push comes to shove and you have to fight a largely symmetrical conflict where you know men will die, where vast amounts of equipment will be expended and salaries arent a guarantee, standing armies beat out mercenaries.
it has absolutely nothing to do with how "tough or hardened" young men of the period are. this "hard times create hard men who create good times" stuff is horseshit spewed by lazy intellectuals.
In times of peace, where all you care about is protecting assets or people, mercenaries are preferable.
in times of war, you want a standing army. incidentally also one of the reasons why Rome dominated.
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@JanBruunAndersen
Thats not really what populism is in practice.
Whilst it sounds nice on paper, and in certain circumstances can be a thing of nessecity, most of the time populism is a detriment to politics and society at large.
for starters, populists make promises that it never intends to keep. even moreso than regular politicians since their promises are wide and scattered across the political aisle, and very little effort is made to explain the actual logistics of how they intend to keep the promises. the lack of loyalty to an ideology or any real idealism at all usually means that the populist will, once they get the power, keep only the promises they made to their powerful friends.
secondly, populists rely on a "us vs them" mentality to spur on fervor and support. Whilst coordinating anger and will against a corrupt establishment is good, way too often is populism used by the establishment to vent angst and anger at scapegoats and out-groups, re-directing people's anxieties at other people. In case there is any question why every dicatorship, down to every faltering democracy relies on populism to re-direct people's frustrations.
Erdogan says its the infidels who ruin Turkey, Putin says its the West who infringe on Russia, China says american capitalism is the greatest evil, and Viktor Orban says the "wokeness" of the EU is why Hungary is in dire straits, and african dictatorships blame homosexuality and witchcraft.
its always the disenfranchised miniority who are to blame for all the problems, never the people with power and a history of screwups.
Thirdly, and perhaps most overlooked: The conditioning.
Its easy to give people what they want if you can control what exactly people want, or are allowed to want.
control education, ban books, fire teachers who try to teach kids about non-approved history or artwork even science. instill in people a sense of nationalism or even ethnic identitarianism, so that the next time you make a controversial decision you can just tell the populace that you're doing it "for the people".
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@AFFoC
except thats just the red herring, rabble rousing about LGBT policies and immigration, whilst using the anti-EU fervor to remove your own laws and policies specifically put in place to defend your own democracy against government overreach.
And he does hate the EU, as does the people he has rabble-roused to share that opinion. The EU has always been both a political and economic cooperation, and countries knew this when they first got involved. They've always known that they, as members, are subject to consensus decisions by the various member states. If you hate that aspect of the EU, congrats, you hate the EU. and if Orban's buddy Putin is anything to go by, Orban would like for the EU to become weakened until its about as useless as the UN.
This idea that the EU somehow radically changed is fucking ridiculous, especially when the option to leave has always been there.
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@shockcityrocker
Im not saying that Elon isnt a capable billionaire, of course he fucking is. i literally said that his powerful grasp over good PR has allowed him to hold onto a position of power thats unrivaled more or less.
But he is more than that, or at least he thinks he is. he thinks himself a philanthropist and an enviromentalist, someone whos legacy is more than that of a 21st century oil Tycoon, and thats where he ultimately flounders, because he aint.
and half the tech-shit his company shits out is subpar in comparison to the way he hypes it up.
Just look at Optimus, the "robot". its literally the embodiment of what his empty promises looks like. just ignore the fact that the closest we've gotten to reliable and consistent robot mobility is what we've seen from boston dynamics. Tesla is totes gonna pop out some proper humanoid robots in the next 10-20 years or so. totes.
"and it will be a success, just like the Hyper loop."
he lacks scientific merit, and Tesla is not the forefront of technology. the decision to rely on private contractors for space travel stemming from the fact that every administration since the moon landing has sought to defund and weaken NASA.
again, dude is rich, extremely rich, and he is good at being rich. failing at being rich when already rich is itself an achievement. but when he dies he will be remembered, not as a ford, but as another tycoon, and thats clearly not the legacy he wants to instill.
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@heater5979
"re-defining words"
no one is re-defining anything. the question is whether "man and woman" refers specifically to sex, specifically gender or both. i too wish left wing politicians would take a firm stance on it, but the concept of gender being the social aspect of sex rather than the physical isnt anything new, and its not going away any time soon. the fact that a politician would be cautious in answering that hints at some level of awareness and caution at the very least.
If you want people who bloviate without a second thought, maybe the US would be a good destination.
calling it "fear" is disingenuous, when the reality is that every politician speaks in double-speak, cautious of saying anything that may be used against them.
Labour is literally discussing replacing house of lords with something based on representative democratic values rather than archaic tradition. going after a deeply entrenched and cronyistic institution, yet you legitimately think they are frightened when it comes to "defining a woman"?
"people like you", as in someone who compares at best an embarrasing moment of socio-political indecisiveness from labour with the country-shattering ineptitude by the tories that threatens to tear the country in half.
Even through the lens of apathetic pessimism, comparing the worst of labour with the worst of the tories and coming out with the conclusion that "neither are worth the effort" is at best intellectually dishonest and at worst straight up stupid.
Even labour at its worst isnt even a fraction of how bad the brexiteers are, be they tory, reform or Ukip. one thing to be weak, another to be dangerously deranged.
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@literallywheeler
its important to note that throughout history there has always been two islams, western and eastern, bedouin and persian, the latter generally representing a degree of multi-culturalism and the former being often more rigid and traditionalistic.
a lot of islamic history can essentially be summarized as a constant push and pull between hellenic-persian influence vs african-arabian influence, as well as the shia-sunni conflict.
Islam was not that disimilar from christianity for most of its history, with secular teachings, acadamia, growth of human rights and varied teachings and interpretations.
there is a reason why photos of iraq and afghanistan in the 1960s included women wearing skirts and no veils, and why some muslim countries, in particular turkey, even blazed ahead of some european countries in regards to women rights.
Islam, though characterized as "pure", was very much keen on modernization and progress as the rest of the world.
cue destabilization, colonization and religious conflict however and all that progress was steadily and rapidly undone, with shia governments (often times more secular) being overthrown by sunni militias and extremists.
Christianity, as a religious force, has declined in the western world, but as a cultural and political force, even if only because it tags along western political and cultural influence, it still a force.
and yeah, jesus would probably struggle to recognize modern christianity as being born from his own preachings.
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@redhammer9910
except thats not true. you are still a sovereign nation. in the same way that you are still a sovereign autonomous person when you join a club house. You are free to leave at any moment, and dont be surprised if member benefits are no longer provided to you if you repeatedly break the rules.
The EU is not totalitarian, because ultimately its optional to join. even if the EU demanded that every person wears purple on the 5th of may, it would still be optional to do so, because you can leave.
Besides, we've already seen what happens with countries that leave the EU, aka the UK, and how rather than become "more sovereign" they are controlled even more by the EU and the US, aka their biggest trading partners, because rather than be a member of the club they are now an outside party, forced to comply from the outside if they want to trade.
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