EPTUS Politics Mega-thread - Page 4190
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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets. Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source. If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread | ||
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Acrofales
Spain17737 Posts
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GreenHorizons
United States22398 Posts
On April 19 2024 14:28 Acrofales wrote: We don't have to defend China's shitty business practices to say America has shitty business practices. We don't even have to enter into a pointless comparison about who's worse. I don't think it's about "who's worse" or "defending China". It's about the absurdity of the US government unabashedly using constitutionally enshrined domestic slave labor while peacocking about their deep concern for the human rights of Uighurs at risk of being forced laborers. We don't have to speculate why they do that to know that it isn't about opposition to forced labor on principle. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Salazarz
Korea (South)2572 Posts
On April 19 2024 15:58 JimmiC wrote: None of this is remotely true, yikes on it. Really scary if you believe almost any of it to be true. I mean US is a bunch of proud capitalists it makes sense they have a bunch of billionaires. They proudly believe in the trickle down effect. China is “communist”… But I think the bigger question is Kwark also responded to you and far harsher than I, so why not respond to him? Which part of my post is 'not remotely true'? Is it not true that slavery is legalized in the US constitution? Is it not true that the US has greater wealth inequality than China? I'm not sure where the 'yikes' are at, but feel free to actually respond with something of substance and clear it up. Also, you seem to be missing the point of my posts entirely, as you usually do. It's not a competition of who is better -- or who is more shitty. It's that your ridiculous retorts of 'if u arent just virtue signaling about whatever issue then WHAT ABOUT CHINA' is fucking tedious and obnoxious. Yes, China could absolutely do better in terms of human rights and freedoms and whatever other things. But that doesn't mean that someone who is concerned about the millions of starving Gazans is 'just virtue signaling' and it doesn't take away from the criminality of Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestine. People who live in the USA have, or at least 'should' have (given that it's a democratic nation) at least some input on what their state does; people of USA have, or at least 'should' have some say in whether the US continues to support Israel's activities in Palestine or not. They do not have such an influence on China's internal policies. The idea of boycotting Chinese goods is cute but in my opinion entirely misplaced. I firmly believe that double standards are a scourge of modern politics, and that any state that wishes to lecture others on how to behave must make sure they aren't themselves guilty of the crimes that they supposedly stand against. Thus, any Americans preaching about human rights abuses in China are, in my opinion, misplacing their efforts. Until the US stops their own forced labor practices, their calls to boycott / sanction / whatever any Chinese (or African, Bangladeshi, whatever) products are, for the lack of a better word, utterly bullshit. It would be like Russia demanding some other state stop their illegal invasion of a neighbor -- laughable, ridiculous, and entirely lacking credibility. As for why I didn't respond to Kwark's post -- I already explained multiple times in the Palestine thread why I find the whole 'Hamas is to blame for this!' reductionist and missing nuance; just like attributing deaths in WW2 squarely to Nazis is. I don't think it's a particularly interesting discussion to have, though, and I know neither Kwark nor I are going to change our views on the topic so there's not much to discuss. It's not that I have any expectation of you changing your views on the issues above, either, but I find your tendency to label everyone who disagrees with you as 'just virtue signaling' or 'supporting terrorism' or 'antisemitic' rather obnoxious and it's sometimes fun to watch you try and bullshit your way out of idiotic claims like 'everyone in China is a slave' so there's that. | ||
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Acrofales
Spain17737 Posts
On April 19 2024 15:22 GreenHorizons wrote: I don't think it's about "who's worse" or "defending China". It's about the absurdity of the US government unabashedly using constitutionally enshrined domestic slave labor while peacocking about their deep concern for the human rights of Uighurs at risk of being forced laborers. We don't have to speculate why they do that to know that it isn't about opposition to forced labor on principle. I think that's a fair point. The US government clearly has an ulterior motive in pointing at Uyghur slave labor while encouraging it in their own prisons. That said, there is also a point that just like vegans don't wear leather products as a statement against cruelty to animals, anybody feeling strongly enough can protest slavery by not buying Chinese cotton products and also not eat food processed in US prisons. That all said and done, there's no point arguing with Jimmy about it. Uyghurs are his favourite whataboutism. Do you think Jimmy wears cotton clothes? I do. So why waste words in that argument? | ||
KwarK
United States41652 Posts
On April 19 2024 16:27 Salazarz wrote: I find the whole 'Hamas is to blame for this!' reductionist and missing nuance; just like attributing deaths in WW2 squarely to Nazis is. Wait, sorry, is WW2 not the fault of the Nazis now? What? | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States43548 Posts
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Dan HH
Romania8976 Posts
On April 19 2024 16:47 KwarK wrote: Wait, sorry, is WW2 not the fault of the Nazis now? What? That's not how I read it. Nazis starting the war doesn't absolve everyone else of every action. Sure, you can say the Katyn massacre wouldn't have happened without Nazis starting the war, but they didn't do the act itself. Might as well blame the first formed hydrogen atom for everyone's actions if we go that route. | ||
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Elroi
Sweden5570 Posts
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Jockmcplop
United Kingdom9197 Posts
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micronesia
United States24497 Posts
On June 22 2023 07:20 micronesia wrote: I've been following this news item for a while: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/plan-to-discharge-water-into-hudson-river-from-closed-indian-point-nuclear-plant-sparks-uproar (URL is pretty decent summary) I thought about it when the thread mentioned earlier how academia tends to lean left. For this issue, it's the republicans who care at all about science... or they are just pretending. Probably a combination. edit: To meet the minimum threshold: Company wants to process and discharge water from commercial nuclear power plant in accordance with applicable regulations as has occurred in the past. Public decides they suddenly have no appetite and NYS attempts to block it using a new law. To bring up a topic from last year, NY banned Indian Point from routine discharges for silly reasons, and finally Holtec, the company, is suing: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/indian-point-nuclear-lawsuit_n_661eee27e4b046441aa34a50 It will be interesting to see how this gets handled. The new state law is kinda ridiculous. | ||
Liquid`Drone
Norway28525 Posts
On April 19 2024 20:05 Elroi wrote: Sure, not all the deaths in WWII were because of the Nazis. Similarly, not all the death in Palestine is because of the murderous terror sect in charge in Gaza - but most of them are. Now we have a situation where we are facing the battle of Berlin, but all the leftists in Europe are waving Nazi flags. No, we have a situation where the leftists are saying don't firebomb Dresden. Edit: to back this up, here are pictures from pro-palestine marches in Europe. These are just the top from my google search, no selection happening. (well I avoided picking a 3k x 2k pixel image but it was no different from the others) + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](https://gdb.voanews.com/01000000-0a00-0242-4917-08dbe89ca009_cx0_cy9_cw0_w1080_h608_s.jpg) ![[image loading]](https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2023/11/34433WX-Preview.jpg) ![[image loading]](https://static.euronews.com/articles/stories/07/96/81/00/1200x675_cmsv2_98ca8b2d-9e87-5f7f-814d-573a01dc9acf-7968100.jpg) Note the absense of: ![[image loading]](https://as1.ftcdn.net/v2/jpg/02/22/71/44/1000_F_222714476_sxLJuU1tGK6RRL3shFFCERlUnD818azq.jpg) I guess to be fair I don't know the meaning of the arab letters in the third picture. But these demonstrations are not 'pro-hamas' and leftists who protest Israel's actions have fairly consistently also avoided giving any support to Hamas. (Obviously not saying those voices do not exist, but they're most certainly not at the vocal forefront of the 'ceasefire now'-movement.) | ||
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Rudraige
2 Posts
If today you think Dresden and Tokyo firebombings were ok 'because it was WW2 and we were stopping the Nazi's', you are morally bankrupt. BTW, Hamas didn't start this conflict. So comparing it to Germany starting WW2 isn't a good analogy. | ||
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Jockmcplop
United Kingdom9197 Posts
On April 19 2024 22:29 Liquid`Drone wrote: No, we have a situation where the leftists are saying don't firebomb Dresden. Edit: to back this up, here are pictures from pro-palestine marches in Europe. These are just the top from my google search, no selection happening. (well I avoided picking a 3k x 2k pixel image but it was no different from the others) + Show Spoiler + Note the absense of: I guess to be fair I don't know the meaning of the arab letters in the third picture. But these demonstrations are not 'pro-hamas' and leftists who protest Israel's actions have fairly consistently also avoided giving any support to Hamas. (Obviously not saying those voices do not exist, but they're most certainly not at the vocal forefront of the 'ceasefire now'-movement.) Its very beneficial to Israel and its supporters for Palestine and Palestinians in general to be seen as the same thing as Hamas. If you see any discussion shows on Israel's state owned TV channels they are constantly trying to push this point. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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KwarK
United States41652 Posts
On April 19 2024 22:54 Rudraige wrote: Even during WW2, plenty in the allied leadership realized how immoral fire-bombing Dresden and Tokyo was. They either had other reasons to support it anyway, or their opposition wasn't strong enough to affect change. It wasn't a bunch of leftists detached from reality saying it. If today you think Dresden and Tokyo firebombings were ok 'because it was WW2 and we were stopping the Nazi's', you are morally bankrupt. BTW, Hamas didn't start this conflict. So comparing it to Germany starting WW2 isn't a good analogy. War is fundamentally criminal. The idea that there is legal and illegal war is a doublethink that we come up with to allow us to reconcile that immorality with our sense of self. Burning a man alive with gasoline, legal, burning the same man with phosphorus, illegal. But we have to carve out this idea of a kind of special bad war which we don’t do so that we can keep the kind of war we do in a good box. Before someone deliberately takes this out of context, I’m not pro war crime, I’m anti all war and I don’t much see why the man being burned alive would care how we do it. Hamas absolutely started the current round of the conflict. There may have been an imperfect peace on October 6 but there was a peace. Then the unelected death cult “government” of what is essentially a giant refugee camp for children launched a series of rape and murder terror attacks on civilians in their nuclear armed neighbour. There is no world in which it can be argued that Hamas did so out of a desire to preserve Palestinian lives, nor out of any belief that it would lead to the restoration of a Palestinian state. I do not agree with Israel’s response but Hamas is absolutely to blame for it. It is exactly that, a response. Israel has been in the unenviable position of having to collaborate with a much weaker openly hostile state for the sake of civilians. Gaza’s vital aid passes through Israeli channels. Gaza’s economy relied upon worker passes to work in Israel. Hamas with one hand pledged death while the other was stretched out begging for aid. Israel ignored these contradictions for years because the fiction that they were not at war with Gaza allowed them to avoid the realities of that war. October 7 killed that fiction. War was upon them, whether they liked it or not. | ||
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Rudraige
2 Posts
On April 20 2024 00:06 KwarK wrote: War is fundamentally criminal. The idea that there is legal and illegal war is a doublethink that we come up with to allow us to reconcile that immorality with our sense of self. Burning a man alive with gasoline, legal, burning the same man with phosphorus, illegal. But we have to carve out this idea of a kind of special bad war which we don’t do so that we can keep the kind of war we do in a good box. Hamas absolutely started the current round of the conflict. There may have been an imperfect peace on October 6 but there was a peace. Then the unelected death cult “government” of what is essentially a giant refugee camp for children launched a series of rape and murder terror attacks on civilians in their nuclear armed neighbour. There is no world in which it can be argued that Hamas did so out of a desire to preserve Palestinian lives, nor out of any belief that it would lead to the restoration of a Palestinian state. I do not agree with Israel’s response but Hamas is absolutely to blame for it. It is exactly that, a response. Israel has been in the unenviable position of having to collaborate with a much weaker openly hostile state for the sake of civilians. Gaza’s vital aid passes through Israeli channels. Gaza’s economy relied upon worker passes to work in Israel. Hamas with one hand pledged death while the other was stretched out begging for aid. Israel ignored these contradictions for years because the fiction that they were not at war with Gaza allowed them to avoid the realities of that war. October 7 killed that fiction. War was upon them, whether they liked it or not. Honestly, this doesn't make a lot of sense. I agree that just war theory is a bit of a grasp. But in a classical case of a war, there are two countries. And while not in all cases, in many cases one country invades another. The idea that in that case the defending country is engaging in 'crime' by defending themselves is absurd. As for the Orwell part, I you shouldn't flaunt your lack of understanding of terms like 'doublethink'. Orwell had a very specific meaning for his usages of this word. It is a form if indoctrination that results in holding two contrary positions. I can't even fathom how my comment could be construed as 'doublethink'. So I'd accuse you of a gross crime against Orwell. But I am having a good day, so I'll let you off the hook. Yes, Hamas started the current round. True. But say Hamas had only killed IDF soldiers on October 7th. Hamas didn't. They massacred civilians. But this massacre of civilians by first Hamas and then the IDF didn't occur in a vacuum. Not sure why the dependence on Israel for their economy matters. There's a lot of things wrong in Israel and in Palestine. Israel easily could have had different military policies to fight Hamas and kill less civilians. In fact, Israel could have defended itself successfully on October 7th with minimal or even zero Palestinian civilian deaths. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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GreenHorizons
United States22398 Posts
On April 19 2024 16:47 KwarK wrote: Wait, sorry, is WW2 not the fault of the Nazis now? What? Thought this was a sarcastic meta joke considering you've made the other side of this point yourself. I think you were right when you said: There’s no option C where you drop the bomb on the wedding and claim responsibility for the bomb killing the terrorist while denying any responsibility for the bomb killing everyone else. Israel can rationalize or attempt to justify the tens of thousands of civilians they've killed, but they can't escape responsibility by blaming Hamas for "starting it". Nevermind the whole Israel being an illegal occupying force running an apartheid government executing a slow burn ethnic cleansing campaign part, or the "imperfect peace" as you call it. | ||
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Sadist
United States7095 Posts
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