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On October 28 2023 05:24 Uldridge wrote:
Pregnancy can sure be extremely difficult. It's crazy how many ways it can go and how many ways it can turn out. Same goes for babies though. Babies are just as much a black box and you'll never know how torurous parenthood can be. Parents to be are not at all prepared. Personally I feel so extremely lucky to not have had a crybaby and I treaded the waters twice, even after my partner had to give birth due to HELLP. Friends of mine can't say the same and their lives have - possibly irreperably - changed.
I guess the best thing you can do in life is say: well, it won't happen to me. Because if you don't do that, you'll live the rest of your life in paralyzing fear.
I don't really see how this has any bearing on the discussion. I am also 100% in favour of support structures for parents. I think parental leave is too short in most countries (Sweden is pretty much ideal imho) and there's a whole host of other measures to support parents that we could adopt. One of them is a better funded and supported foster care system. Children whose parents don't want them/can't care for them for whatever reason deserve a better life than we're generally giving them.
That doesn't mean a mother has a duty to bring her baby to term when she doesn't want to. However awful that may seem to you. Similarly, I think that there should also be an option for parents to opt out of being parents. Obviously most people would never do such a thing. They love their child and want to care for them. But sometimes for some people, it just gets too much. Once again, ties into a far better foster care system than we have now.
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I am deeply pro-choice but I think the pro-choice movement harms itself when it takes such a firm "no matter what" stance on abortion. I basically have entirely identical views to Kwark on the issue from an ethical standpoint, but I think there is something belligerent about standing behind the general idea of "any time a woman wants an abortion, its 0% of a concern for anyone else" even though I agree with it.
Its more of an optics/campaigning/cultural concern, but maybe that same concern exists even without anyone even saying it. Maybe people would just make up a boogeyman of some "welfare queen getting abortions to sell babies" regardless.
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On October 28 2023 09:34 Acrofales wrote:
I don't really see how this has any bearing on the discussion. I am also 100% in favour of support structures for parents. I think parental leave is too short in most countries (Sweden is pretty much ideal imho) and there's a whole host of other measures to support parents that we could adopt. One of them is a better funded and supported foster care system. Children whose parents don't want them/can't care for them for whatever reason deserve a better life than we're generally giving them.
That doesn't mean a mother has a duty to bring her baby to term when she doesn't want to. However awful that may seem to you. Similarly, I think that there should also be an option for parents to opt out of being parents. Obviously most people would never do such a thing. They love their child and want to care for them. But sometimes for some people, it just gets too much. Once again, ties into a far better foster care system than we have now.
The discussion around the topic js more or less finished for me and I'm just trying to extend the sentiment to how difficult parenting can be. We've been optimizing so harshly on the production and generating side of things we're significantly lagging behind on the social dimension.
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United States41933 Posts
I continue to be pleasantly impressed by Biden’s foreign policy in the current Middle East conflict. He has successfully protected American interests in a way that has preempted America being required to directly intervene. America would be able to successfully win any conflict there but the best victory is the one achieved without firing a shot and he has effectively managed to get the Arab nations + Iran to stand down with a show of force and a clear declaration of American interests in the region.
There’s no win condition for the Arabs militarily, if they somehow defeated the IDF there remains the unspoken nuclear deterrent but it would be extremely destabilizing for the world if things got to that point. If Israel started nuking Arab armies in self defence we’d see an oil crisis, a Suez shutdown, and a collapse of non proliferation. Biden has essentially declared that America will not allow things to get to that point, the carriers will end any war on the day it starts. And with everyone on the same page the war is off the table. We may not have a happy peace but an unhappy peace is still peace.
But his stance on Palestine has been much more nuanced than hardliners might wish. He has acted as a good friend to Israel, but not a servant. He publicly has had Israel’s back and made it clear he will fight alongside Israel while privately acting as the friend that tells Israel when it is making a mistake. His speech last week was explicit that when he spoke about the victims of the conflict he meant all of the victims, Israeli and Palestinian. That when he requested funds he intended to use them both for military assistance and humanitarian.
White House statements on the evacuation orders have been critical and it’s clear that the US is twisting Israel’s arm on the siege. Water, power, and communications were restored because Biden made it clear that while the US would support Israel it would rather not be forced to defend the indefensible. That the world was watching and that if Israel wished to enjoy wider western support in the future then it should moderate its actions.
Obviously there is no good outcome for Palestine. There was never going to be one. But I’m reasonably confident that he’s navigating the best outcome for America in very uncertain waters.
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I can see the “America First” angle is probably solid. Don’t you think we could be doing more to prevent the atrocities though? I agree it looks like the strategy is “publicly declare loyalty to Israel, privately try to tug on their leash a bit” but it sure seems like more than a gentle tug on the leash is warranted.
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Passes the "shape your morals around your foreign affairs" test, but not the "shape your foreign affairs around your morals" one.
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On November 01 2023 23:57 ChristianS wrote:
I can see the “America First” angle is probably solid. Don’t you think we could be doing more to prevent the atrocities though? I agree it looks like the strategy is “publicly declare loyalty to Israel, privately try to tug on their leash a bit” but it sure seems like more than a gentle tug on the leash is warranted.
He let Israel hold US citizens hostage for weeks without food, water, medicine, etc while forcing them to dodge bombs the US sells to Israel while vociferously and materially supporting their ethnic cleansing campaign.
Can tell Kwark is becoming Americanized by his praising of shit tier foreign policy unprovoked
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On November 02 2023 00:56 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On November 01 2023 23:57 ChristianS wrote:
I can see the “America First” angle is probably solid. Don’t you think we could be doing more to prevent the atrocities though? I agree it looks like the strategy is “publicly declare loyalty to Israel, privately try to tug on their leash a bit” but it sure seems like more than a gentle tug on the leash is warranted. He let Israel hold US citizens hostage for weeks without food, water, medicine, etc while forcing them to dodge bombs the US sells to Israel while vociferously and materially supporting their ethnic cleansing campaign. Can tell Kwark is becoming Americanized by his praising of shit tier foreign policy unprovoked
I think the first part is an attack on the “America First” part of it, but I don’t know what to say to that. The few American citizens caught in this mess aren’t really very high on my list of concerns, and I doubt they are on yours either. I don’t wish them ill, but if 2 million people including a few thousand Americans are being indiscriminately bombed, and I found my criticism on the premise “Americans are dying” I’m either being disingenuous about my purpose because I think it’ll be a better appeal to someone else, or I only give a shit about American lives.
I guess “under an America First ideology which neither of us espouse, would the threat to American citizens be sufficient to also make this bad foreign policy?” is a question we could focus on, but I have trouble caring that much about that line of thinking. My first impression would be no – the State department is probably working pretty hard to get those people to safety, but there’s enough other national interests in play that Biden is probably “right” not to over-prioritize those citizens.
I think it’s likely that the administration is operating from the initial premise that for both selfish and altruistic reasons, the biggest threat they need to avoid is the possibility of this breaking out into a larger conflict with Iran and others; that conflict would be a disaster for Israelis, Palestinians, and a lot of other folks besides. And they think the best way to do that is to make clear that American might will ensure “defeating Israel” isn’t on the table. Without jeopardizing that, they would still like to achieve other objectives where possible (reducing humanitarian tragedy, protecting American citizens in the area, etc.).
In which case I would say “I’m not sure whether they’re successfully optimizing outcomes for our selfish national interests, but I’m pretty confident they could be doing more to prevent the atrocities.” I’m not sure exactly where you’d disagree with that, but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be “no, he’s under-prioritizing those American citizens.”
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On November 02 2023 01:18 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2023 00:56 GreenHorizons wrote:On November 01 2023 23:57 ChristianS wrote:
I can see the “America First” angle is probably solid. Don’t you think we could be doing more to prevent the atrocities though? I agree it looks like the strategy is “publicly declare loyalty to Israel, privately try to tug on their leash a bit” but it sure seems like more than a gentle tug on the leash is warranted. He let Israel hold US citizens hostage for weeks without food, water, medicine, etc while forcing them to dodge bombs the US sells to Israel while vociferously and materially supporting their ethnic cleansing campaign. Can tell Kwark is becoming Americanized by his praising of shit tier foreign policy unprovoked I think the first part is an attack on the “America First” part of it, but I don’t know what to say to that. The few American citizens caught in this mess aren’t really very high on my list of concerns, and I doubt they are on yours either. I don’t wish them ill, but if 2 million people including a few thousand Americans are being indiscriminately bombed, and I found my criticism on the premise “Americans are dying” I’m either being disingenuous about my purpose because I think it’ll be a better appeal to someone else, or I only give a shit about American lives. I guess “under an America First ideology which neither of us espouse, would the threat to American citizens be sufficient to also make this bad foreign policy?” is a question we could focus on, but I have trouble caring that much about that line of thinking. My first impression would be no – the State department is probably working pretty hard to get those people to safety, but there’s enough other national interests in play that Biden is probably “right” not to over-prioritize those citizens. I think it’s likely that the administration is likely operating from the initial premise that for both selfish and altruistic reasons, the biggest threat they need to avoid is the possibility of this breaking out into a larger conflict with Iran and others; that conflict would be a disaster for Israelis, Palestinians, and a lot of other folks besides. And they think the best way to do that is to make clear that American might will ensure “defeating Israel” isn’t on the table. Without jeopardizing that, they would still like to achieve other objectives where possible (reducing humanitarian tragedy, protecting American citizens in the area, etc.). In which case I would say “I’m not sure whether they’re successfully optimizing outcomes for our selfish national interests, but I’m pretty confident they could be doing more to prevent the atrocities.” I’m not sure exactly where you’d disagree with that, but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be “no, he’s under-prioritizing those American citizens.”
It's not really about prioritization. It's that fighting to send money to an ally holding your own citizens hostage while helping them be leveraged toward an ethnic cleansing campaign is shameful on both fronts ("America First" and "preventing atrocities").
The US state department failing to get Israel to release them and instead relying on Egypt/Hamas should be catastrophically embarrassing.
Eventually people will have to defend supporting an open Zionist in Biden, especially since he's tied with/losing to Trump in polls compared to his ~10% lead in 2020 at this point, but praising his foreign policy in this context seems silly at best.
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United States41933 Posts
They were in a Hamas controlled area and the state department got them released by Hamas. It would have been weird if Israel released them given that Israel didn’t have them.
Israel was champing at the bit to demolish the place and Biden successfully restrained them but to you the fact that they got back alive was “dodging bombs”. They didn’t dodge bombs, they dodged an apocalyptic ground invasion that Biden prevented.
There’s literally no winning with you and Biden. He got them back and gave up nothing in return but apparently that’s a failure. You hyperbolically claim they were denied food and water, when clearly they got both, and the only threat to their food and water was Israel, not Biden. Biden is the one who got Israel to break the siege.
Imagine your dream leader dealing with US citizens in a conflict zone controlled by a terror group. How does he top getting the citizens released unharmed? Where exactly is this bar Biden isn’t meeting?
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On November 02 2023 03:06 KwarK wrote:
They were in a Hamas controlled area and the state department got them released by Hamas. It would have been weird if Israel released them from a Hamas controlled area.
There’s literally no winning with you and Biden. He got them back and gave up nothing in return but apparently that’s a failure.
It wouldn't be weird at all for Israel to release them through one of several crossings they control. It's weird they refused and the US let them.
I'm not big on Zionism so it's certainly an uphill battle for an avowed Zionist to win my praise. Aiding and abetting Israel's ethnic cleansing campaign while using US citizens as hostages/leverage against Egypt unsurprisingly doesn't do it.
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United States41933 Posts
The entire thing could very easily have spilled over into a full scale war with disastrous global consequences. Between Israel’s unpopular wannabe dictator leader and massive popular Arab support for another attempt to destroy Israel the entire area was a powder keg.
Most US politicians would simply write Netanyahu a blank check, safe in the knowledge that the voters love war, they love victories, and they love Israel. Netanyahu, dealing with his own corruption scandals, his deeply unpopular reforms, and the catastrophic failure of his policy of promoting Hamas, desperately wanted to capitalize on the atrocities by immediate response. Given a blank check by the US we’d be seeing unimaginable carnage as he sought to polarize the voters on the issue of Gaza. We saw a taste of that in the first days with the blockade of supplies and the threat to treat anyone remaining in the north of Gaza as an enemy combatant. Biden yanked Netanyahu’s chain.
The nominally western friendly government’s of the Middle East would have been unable to avoid intervening had that not happened. They’re already not especially popular, they would have been dragged into a conflict that had zero potential for an Arab victory but could very easily cause the governments to collapse the way Lebanon has. The entire region could have caught fire and stayed on fire for generations. There’s no shortage of precedents, half the Arab world is already experiencing a collapse of state power and large scale civil unrest.
I don’t see how anyone navigates it better. The US had to pick Israel’s side publicly to declare a victor in a war before the war starts, preventing the war from happening in the first place. Had the US not immediately shut down any possible Arab escalation with a carrier group it would be likely that Israel would launch a preemptive strike on the air forces of its neighbors at the first sign of mobilization. It’d make Netanyahu look proactive which he needs after his colossal security failures and would have popular support, despite the destabilizing impact on the region. That didn’t happen because with a carrier group there there’s no justification for it. Netanyahu cannot justifiably burn the region down in the name of security when the US is already securing Israel. But the support comes with strings to protect America’s broader interests in a stable Middle East, something that is also very much in the interests of the people living there.
As before the question has to be “where is the bar, if not here?” What course leads us somewhere better than this?
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On November 02 2023 03:49 KwarK wrote:
As before the question has to be “where is the bar, if not here?”
Somewhere above aiding and abetting an ethnic cleansing campaign, for me at least.
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United States41933 Posts
On November 02 2023 04:17 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2023 03:49 KwarK wrote:
As before the question has to be “where is the bar, if not here?” Somewhere above aiding and abetting an ethnic cleansing campaign, for me at least.
That’s not an answer. You keep saying where the bar isn’t. I keep asking where the bar is.
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I was surprised by Biden drawing a parallel to the US's reaction to 911, going out to "deliver justice" in a fit of rage, while also making significant mistakes. And urging Israel not to act in rage repeating those mistakes.
It was then that I was again reminded of who else could have been president and fuck me if that wouldn't have been utterly terrible.
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On November 02 2023 04:17 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2023 03:49 KwarK wrote:
As before the question has to be “where is the bar, if not here?” Somewhere above aiding and abetting an ethnic cleansing campaign, for me at least.
Do you accept that given the current situation in the region, the choices seem to be, supporting Israel, or accepting a widespread war in the M.E. with a very uncertain outcome, including the potential use of nuclear weapons?
Because that is the premise Kwark is working from. If you don't believe that premise, then it's fair to just entirely move the bar, but I then do have to ask: what do you believe would happen in the situation where the US drops support for Israel right now?
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On November 02 2023 08:40 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2023 04:17 GreenHorizons wrote:On November 02 2023 03:49 KwarK wrote:
As before the question has to be “where is the bar, if not here?” Somewhere above aiding and abetting an ethnic cleansing campaign, for me at least. That’s not an answer. You keep saying where the bar isn’t. I keep asking where the bar is. It's above aiding and abetting the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and below being an ideal socialist. That seems like a reasonable range any other reasonable person should find themselves in to me. I find it disturbing and sad that's treated like an unreasonably high bar.
More specifically for me though, democratic socialism (non-reformist reforms) distinct from social democracy (electoralism/reformism), is basically my bar (which is hardly a secret).
Aiding and abetting the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians doesn't clear it and it shouldn't clear anyone's imo.
On November 02 2023 09:47 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2023 04:17 GreenHorizons wrote:On November 02 2023 03:49 KwarK wrote:
As before the question has to be “where is the bar, if not here?” Somewhere above aiding and abetting an ethnic cleansing campaign, for me at least. Do you accept that given the current situation in the region, the choices seem to be, supporting Israel, or accepting a widespread war in the M.E. with a very uncertain outcome, including the potential use of nuclear weapons? Because that is the premise Kwark is working from. If you don't believe that premise, then it's fair to just entirely move the bar, but I then do have to ask: what do you believe would happen in the situation where the US drops support for Israel right now?
This is a staple of US politics (climate change is one people are generally more familiar with) where after decades of shouting down the people (pretty much always socialists and whoever else they can get to come along) telling them not to stick their proverbial dicks in the bear trap, they turn — bloody member in hand — to ask what their bright idea is to fix the fact that their dick was severed by a bear trap.
Then once reattached, exclaim they have no good reason for them not to stick it in again. Then when they've ignored the warnings long enough and they've done it enough times that reattaching it isn't an option they look around and decide dicks are overrated and anyone that doesn't agree is the problem.
+ Show Spoiler +Apologies for the crudeness and gendered nature of the analogy.
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Your bar for freeing hostages is "when socialism"? Really?
No actual arguments, reasons or even the slightest form of historical presedence necessary. If not socialism, it's bad. No matter if the outcome was, all things considered, pretty good, it would have been better "when socialism" because "when socialism" due to "when socialism".
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EPT
