Harry Bosch
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For the same reason that Christians deny that the Bible condones slavery: Denial.
Yet another war, this time with Iran
- Thread starter Jason Harvestdancer
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For the same reason that Christians deny that the Bible condones slavery: Denial.
Tigers!
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The outrage is two-sided.
Far too many of the deaths in Gaza are unwarranted.
Where is the outrage about the brutal killings in Sudan, Myanmar etc. Only seems to be a problem when it is Jews/Israelis/the west doing the killings.
Non-whites killing non-whites? Who cares? Not many it seems.
It is not being pro-Hamas to be rightly concerned about many aspects of Israeli policy in Gaza. It is pro-Hamas when all the ire is directed at Israeli without trying to stop Hamas in their actions.
Far too many people do not support Israel's right to exist.
The “No other country is threatened with destruction” is a wild take too. They really think global rivals wouldn’t love to escort each other off the board.
Gospel
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I haven't seen much of that out of you. Does that mean you're antisemitic because I personally haven't seen it? Now magnify that and the whole world population can be said to be antisemitic. Yawl really need to get over it like black folks ought to get over slavery.
bilby
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All countries have the right to exist.
No country has the right to expand.
Some countries may have justifications for expansion; If so, their leaders should sit down like grown-ups and explain why their expansion is justified, and an independent panel can listen to all parties to the disagreement and reach a consensus on new borders.
Where conflicts do arise, a powerful peacekeeping force from neutral countries should intervene and enforce non-violence.
That's how the UN was meant to work; Sadly the five permanent members of the Security Council make a mockery of the whole show, not least because they render the remaining nations of the world effectively irrelevant.
No country has the right to expand.
Some countries may have justifications for expansion; If so, their leaders should sit down like grown-ups and explain why their expansion is justified, and an independent panel can listen to all parties to the disagreement and reach a consensus on new borders.
Where conflicts do arise, a powerful peacekeeping force from neutral countries should intervene and enforce non-violence.
That's how the UN was meant to work; Sadly the five permanent members of the Security Council make a mockery of the whole show, not least because they render the remaining nations of the world effectively irrelevant.
Shadowy Man
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Art of the deal, baby!!
laughing dog
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The brutal killers in Sudan, Myanmar, etc… do not hide behind the veneer of moral justification nor do they many defending their actions.
Tigers!
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And yet not many care.
Even on these fora a thread about Sudan will die of neglect very quickly
Tigers!
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I have started a thread on Sudan. It died of neglect.
I have been active on the Gaza thread. Not much lately admittedly.
aupmanyav
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That will be a different topic. Start one, who stops you.
Yes, Hamas, Iran also were wrong and so was the US.
They are hurt by what Israel has done since 1948.
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DrZoidberg
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Funny
SLD
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Now Iran has seized two ships and fired on a third. Some ships are getting through though. But it’s a trickle compared to before the war.
Trump will be fuming mad. Expect more ranting and raving. He will soon start firing generals and admirals.
Trump will be fuming mad. Expect more ranting and raving. He will soon start firing generals and admirals.
Gospel
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I’ve stepped away from discussing Sudan here and have been having those conversations on other platforms. I also left the “Gaza just launched an unprovoked attack on Israel” thread, as it seems some users have an aversion to engaging with historical context. It's the identifying as white pe-po thing that I can't stand around here.
TV and credit cards
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Thank you for that.
DrZoidberg
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I think you’re missing the point. Judgments like that depend a lot on where you’re standing. From the perspective of people who have been on the receiving end of U.S. foreign policy, the moral picture doesn’t look nearly as clear-cut.
That doesn’t mean I'm saying that “everyone is equally bad.” It means that’s Derek’s opinion, not a universal truth. Depending on where you’re standing, the “world police” doesn’t look as spotless as Derec's making it out to be.
You're acting like the USA could pass a criminal background check for the “world police” job and not have HR frightened to death halfway through its file.
I concede that it's better, but many of magnitudes?
USA is the most benign imperial power humanity has ever witnessed. Not to belabor the point, but living under the thumb of an imperial power has been the norm for humanity since Sargon of Akkad. The British empire being in close second place as far as benign imperial rulers go.
If we take imperialism as the historical norm, and that our choices are, "which imperial power would we like to live under the thumb of" USA wins every day. Imperial powers are, as a rule, horrific. The Assyrians would flay anyone who criticised them openly alive. And let them scamper off home without skin. The Aztecs would take enemy captives, flay them, and walk around in their skin, just to terrify their underlings. Egyptians would cut off the hands of anyone who complains. Yes, we've found the mass graves of these hands. The Mongols exterminated entire cities for minor infractions. That's how Bagdad went. The Romans famously "created a desolate depopulated wasteland and called it an empire". The Spanish empire in the Americas... better than the Aztecs or Incas... still horrific. The USSR, thought policing, and gulags. Muslim despots of the Middle-East, electrodes to the testicles of decenters.
And it's not like our choices are hypothetical either. We have some very clear contenders to imperial powers. It's now China or USA (Russia is now firmly under Chinese domination).
Who would you rather swung around their imperial dick smashing you in the face, China's or USA's? China has actual concentration camps.
If absolute power corrupts absolutely USA has managed to be the least corruptible power in human history. I think that's something to celebrate.
Sure, Trump is a horrific ogre of a man. But he's not as bad as the leaders of Iran, Russia, China or Venezuela. He's NOT Hitler. He's NOT a fascist. And he's not an autocrat. He could be so much worse, and still look good in comparrisson.
Imperial powers, historically, have been absolutely horrific. Great Britain created an imperial power that encouraged free thought which is awesome and amazing. USA continued the tradition. I don't think you quite apreciate how much we have to be grateful for because those two powers in particular shaped, and still shape, the modern world.
I also don't think you quite appreciate quite how evil authoritarian regimes tend to be and how normalised and systematic that evil is.
USA isn't perfect. Far from it. But it's good to have some perspective here.
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Don2 (Don1 Revised)
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I think you’re missing the point. Judgments like that depend a lot on where you’re standing. From the perspective of people who have been on the receiving end of U.S. foreign policy, the moral picture doesn’t look nearly as clear-cut.
That doesn’t mean I'm saying that “everyone is equally bad.” It means that’s Derek’s opinion, not a universal truth. Depending on where you’re standing, the “world police” doesn’t look as spotless as Derec's making it out to be.
You're acting like the USA could pass a criminal background check for the “world police” job and not have HR frightened to death halfway through its file.
I concede that it's better, but many of magnitudes?
USA is the most benign imperial power humanity has ever witnessed.
That's like saying out of all priests who molested kids, Father MacRae gave them the most gifts.
Centuries ago, priests could probably just force molestations. We live in different times now. A lot more grooming happens and a lot more resistance. The behavior of priests over the centuries has been shaped by awareness and resistance, just like empires.
Gospel
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I think you’re missing the point. Judgments like that depend a lot on where you’re standing. From the perspective of people who have been on the receiving end of U.S. foreign policy, the moral picture doesn’t look nearly as clear-cut.
That doesn’t mean I'm saying that “everyone is equally bad.” It means that’s Derek’s opinion, not a universal truth. Depending on where you’re standing, the “world police” doesn’t look as spotless as Derec's making it out to be.
You're acting like the USA could pass a criminal background check for the “world police” job and not have HR frightened to death halfway through its file.
I concede that it's better, but many of magnitudes?
USA is the most benign imperial power humanity has ever witnessed. Not to belabor the point, but living under the thumb of an imperial power has been the norm for humanity since Sargon of Akkad. The British empire being in close second place as far as benign imperial rulers go.
If we take imperialism as the historical norm, and that our choices are, "which imperial power would we like to live under the thumb of" USA wins every day. Imperial powers are, as a rule, horrific. The Assyrians would flay anyone who criticised them openly alive. And let them scamper off home without skin. The Aztecs would take enemy captives, flay them, and walk around in their skin, just to terrify their underlings. Egyptians would cut off the hands of anyone who complains. Yes, we've found the mass graves of these hands. The Mongols exterminated entire cities for minor infractions. That's how Bagdad went. The Romans famously "created a desolate depopulated wasteland and called it an empire". The Spanish empire in the Americas... better than the Aztecs or Incas... still horrific. The USSR, thought policing, and gulags. Muslim despots of the Middle-East, electrodes to the testicles of decenters.
And it's not like our choices are hypothetical either. We have some very clear contenders to imperial powers. It's now China or USA (Russia is now firmly under Chinese domination).
Who would you rather swung around their imperial dick smashing you in the face, China's or USA's? China has actual concentration camps.
If absolute power corrupts absolutely USA has managed to be the least corruptible power in human history. I think that's something to celebrate.
Sure, Trump is a horrific ogre of a man. But he's not as bad as the leaders of Iran, Russia, China or Venezuela. He's NOT Hitler. He's NOT a fascist. And he's not an autocrat. He could be so much worse, and still look good in comparrisson.
Imperial powers, historically, have been absolutely horrific. Great Britain created an imperial power that encouraged free thought which is awesome and amazing. USA continued the tradition. I don't think you quite apreciate how much we have to be grateful for because those two powers in particular shaped, and still shape, the modern world.
I also don't think you quite appreciate quite how evil authoritarian regimes tend to be and how normalised and systematic that evil is.
USA isn't perfect. Far from it. But it's good to have some perspective here.
I’m not really interested in revisiting one of your carved-out wall-of-text history lessons. Your whole argument boiling down to ‘we’re not the Mongols,’ is hillarious. Anyway here is the ugly truth you seem to be missing. Even within systems you and I both agree are oppressive, there are people who support or benefit from them, and that effects how they view both their own government and countries like the U.S. That doesn’t make those systems ‘good,’ it just shows that perspective isn’t universal. The same way Americans who benefit from U.S. power tend to see it more positively than those on the receiving end of it.
That’s all I’m saying, so you can drop the usual, predictable, and intellectually lazy attempt to reframe my point.
TV and credit cards
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People like to bitch. It's human nature. Bitch, bicker, and and at all cost, be right. I present these august pages as evidence.
I think you’re missing the point. Judgments like that depend a lot on where you’re standing. From the perspective of people who have been on the receiving end of U.S. foreign policy, the moral picture doesn’t look nearly as clear-cut.
That doesn’t mean I'm saying that “everyone is equally bad.” It means that’s Derek’s opinion, not a universal truth. Depending on where you’re standing, the “world police” doesn’t look as spotless as Derec's making it out to be.
You're acting like the USA could pass a criminal background check for the “world police” job and not have HR frightened to death halfway through its file.
I concede that it's better, but many of magnitudes?
USA is the most benign imperial power humanity has ever witnessed. Not to belabor the point, but living under the thumb of an imperial power has been the norm for humanity since Sargon of Akkad. The British empire being in close second place as far as benign imperial rulers go.
If we take imperialism as the historical norm, and that our choices are, "which imperial power would we like to live under the thumb of" USA wins every day. Imperial powers are, as a rule, horrific. The Assyrians would flay anyone who criticised them openly alive. And let them scamper off home without skin. The Aztecs would take enemy captives, flay them, and walk around in their skin, just to terrify their underlings. Egyptians would cut off the hands of anyone who complains. Yes, we've found the mass graves of these hands. The Mongols exterminated entire cities for minor infractions. That's how Bagdad went. The Romans famously "created a desolate depopulated wasteland and called it an empire". The Spanish empire in the Americas... better than the Aztecs or Incas... still horrific. The USSR, thought policing, and gulags. Muslim despots of the Middle-East, electrodes to the testicles of decenters.
And it's not like our choices are hypothetical either. We have some very clear contenders to imperial powers. It's now China or USA (Russia is now firmly under Chinese domination).
Who would you rather swung around their imperial dick smashing you in the face, China's or USA's? China has actual concentration camps.
If absolute power corrupts absolutely USA has managed to be the least corruptible power in human history. I think that's something to celebrate.
Sure, Trump is a horrific ogre of a man. But he's not as bad as the leaders of Iran, Russia, China or Venezuela. He's NOT Hitler. He's NOT a fascist. And he's not an autocrat. He could be so much worse, and still look good in comparrisson.
Imperial powers, historically, have been absolutely horrific. Great Britain created an imperial power that encouraged free thought which is awesome and amazing. USA continued the tradition. I don't think you quite apreciate how much we have to be grateful for because those two powers in particular shaped, and still shape, the modern world.
I also don't think you quite appreciate quite how evil authoritarian regimes tend to be and how normalised and systematic that evil is.
USA isn't perfect. Far from it. But it's good to have some perspective here.
Could it be better? Of course. It could always be better. But the fringes trying to tear it down, no matter which end of the political spectrum they come from can't end well as they will always receive an equal amount of pushback, not because one side is more right than the other but because each side wants to be right.
Jimmy Higgins
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Central and South America on line four for you sir.USA is the most benign imperial power humanity has ever witnessed.I think you’re missing the point. Judgments like that depend a lot on where you’re standing. From the perspective of people who have been on the receiving end of U.S. foreign policy, the moral picture doesn’t look nearly as clear-cut.
That doesn’t mean I'm saying that “everyone is equally bad.” It means that’s Derek’s opinion, not a universal truth. Depending on where you’re standing, the “world police” doesn’t look as spotless as Derec's making it out to be.
You're acting like the USA could pass a criminal background check for the “world police” job and not have HR frightened to death halfway through its file.
I concede that it's better, but many of magnitudes?
Opium Wars come to mind. Just in case people wonder why China might have a chip on their shoulder regarding the west.
Well, it kind of was. That is over. Also, I've got to wonder, how much of that is the US verses how much of that is the UN and the general shock that was WWII after WWI.
The US was a leader, in part because we didn't have to rebuild after WWII, and helped usher a new attitude towards wars and conflicts. The UN was created to stop WWIII particularly after we dropped two nuclear weapons to end WWII. So while the US has been a leader in the field, it was a large conglomeration of like minded nations attached with it in deciding the use of alliances to maintain peace instead of seek out war was in our best interests. The big type of war.
Certainly wasn't perfect. The US made a mess out of Central and South America, to "stop Communism". We weren't defending the "good guys" in Vietnam or Korea.
In ways he isn't, but in ways, he is worse than Hitler, especially to America. Trump is destroying everything that was built up to stop the next Hitler, the next big war! Trump is backing out of global organizations on health, the economy, environment. Not because it is good for the US, but because he likes dismantling shit he didn't create. Hitler at least had a vision, something to build to. Trump is destroying the US Government (with the GOP's blessing), that stuff isn't getting the same sort of news coverage. Trump sought to remove out democracy by pushing mid-census gerrymandering, just so the GOP could barely hold onto power in the House.
Hitler and the Nazis sought to commit awful atrocities. Trump isn't a bigot because he is a clinical narcissist. But his inner circle is stuffed with bigots. Stephen Miller would have been one of those Nazis. Steve Bannon would have been one of those Nazis. Alex Jones would have been one of those Nazis.
Gospel
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Bringing up inconvenient historical facts doesn’t sway people who are determined to stay comfortable in their own bullshit. The receipts litter this forum. Every time I make a point, Derec and Dr. Zoidberg don’t engage it, they split it into irrelevant pieces & jam each one into a different pigeon hole.
I guess they never really outgrew this
