Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
No bio...
User ID: 297
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
16hr ago
Cool. They're defeated, so we can stop spending blood and treasure on them, bask in a post-war victory, and reap the economic and political rewards you say are due imminently, without worrying what Iran or their proxies will do next year, or the year after that, or years from now. Right? That's what you're saying, right?
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
1d ago
This is not really an argument, you are just trying to point and laugh at me and use the approval of the audience to feel as though you have one.
This is quite tiresome. The easiest way for you to get updoots is to tell me off. "The audience" loves it. The last thing I expect when arguing with anyone here is applause from the crowd. If you are feeling piled on, consider why, in this place of all places, hardly a progressive or anti-Trump stronghold, you're having a hard time making a persuasive case.
This is especially puzzling because the progress from limited traffic in the straits to current levels is very good evidence in favor of my position.
Your position is that the war is good for us and is proceeding favorably, and your evidence is that things aren't quite as bad now as when the war began.
Making this argument while accusing me of having no argument makes me suspect your defensiveness is perhaps a little niggle of self-doubt?
I might be willing to respect the fact that your position is more complicated than just assessing how much Iran is capable of threatening the American position.
I have told you this repeatedly. Iran's ability to threaten the American position is not at all the most important consideration here.
But I don’t think you can repeat my own views to me in terms that I would understand. For that reason, I don’t think this conversation is worth continuing
That's fine, but when you drop in next week to declare triumphally again that Trump is right about everything, the war is going great, and it's totally been good for America, you will likely face the same skepticism and questions.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
1d ago
I'm an Old School Star Wars fan (I saw A New Hope in theaters when it was just a little SF flick starting to get buzz).
I think you're forgetting just how much fans loathed the prequels when they first came out. Well, loathed is a strong term. They still went to see them. Fans had been waiting for 16 years after Return of the Jedi, the hype was overwhelming, and while A Phantom Menace was of course a box office success, hardcore SW fans were trashing it and the rest of the prequels almost immediately. Today maybe the backlash against Jar Jar Binks and Jake Lloyd's acting seems overdone, but at the time those prequels felt like a huge let-down, as pretty as they were. The plot went in weird directions, the characters weren't what people were expecting, and of course over a decade of EU content and fan speculation got blown away. The prequels were really... not good, and the consensus was that George Lucas was a good visual director but hugely overrated as a writer.
Of course, then the sequels came out and made the prequels look like golden age SF by comparison.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
1d ago
“You people”? “Where do I get this stuff?” Do you have any argument beyond being rude and nasty?
I have posted complete arguments that you are responding to. "You people" are the ones who project things like "high dudgeon" and "angry" onto calm responses. You continuously accuse me of being angry, "rude and nasty" not because I have been rude and nasty, but because you're upset that someone is arguing with you and throwing personal attacks makes you feel as if you have a moral upper hand.
Strait traffic is 2/3rds of pre-war normal, I think this is substantial evidence that war critics were wrong. I think a lot of war critics are uninterested in the possibility. But Iran won’t ever control the Strait or acquire nuclear weapons. It was easy and cheap when everyone said it would be hard. And Trump was right to do it.
Yes, you keep asserting this, ignoring that "traffic at 2/3 pre-war levels" is not a victory condition. Critics who point this out are not uninterested in the possibility, they are asking you to justify your claims.
My argument is extremely consistent and instead of interacting with it you seem to just be looking for an excuse to act righteous.
I don't know what to do with this much itony and lack of self-awareness. I'll give you "consistent" in the sense that yes, you repeat the same thing over and over with increasing belligerence.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
2d ago
Man. "High dudgeon" now. Where do you people get this stuff?
No, you cannot say that the Iranian military threatening ships is fake news when ships are only passing through because of the presence of the US navy. Clearly we cannot pack up and go home yet, so nothing I said one month or four months ago is wrong, and you're doing that thing where, when pressed on a variety of assertions, you ignore all but one and change definitions.
I would, in fact, like us to "win", though I was and am against the war because I have yet to see how it's going to benefit us. You, like Trump, are promising many things, the best things, the most winning things, we will win so hard we'll be tired of it, and yet we're still spending and spending without an ROI, and you've redefined "Iran is defeated and no longer a threat" to "Iran can't do anything (except launch missiles at its neighbors) as long as we keep our carrier group in the area."
I don't care if Iran is broke and out of missiles if we're just doing this again in a few years. If you at least pointed to how this exercise will intimidate China or put us in a better position to counter China and Russia, I could see some value there, but the opposite seems to be true. So you may not be impressed by my demanding to know how this benefits me, but since I'm a taxpayer and I vote I think it's a fair question, that for all your insistence that "war makes us richer" you have not answered except with Trumpisms.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
2d ago
This is such an obviously mistaken idea of what I am saying that one of us has badly screwed up. I think it’s you, because I obviously included an accounting of why this specific war is a good deal and did not assert anything close to the position that all wars are good.
You said:
This is not an impressive question to me. The American military undergirds a global economic system that contributes to Americans being fabulously wealthy. War makes us rich.
And compared my asking why war with Iran is good for us with asking how bench pressing helps lose weight. That was not a nuanced explanation of how this particular war is good (I answered your arguments for Iran specifically), it's a blank assertion that war is good.
No my answer is that the fact that we can bomb them at will makes it impossible for them to even pursue nuclear weapons and they will long before this have to negotiate peace.
We have always been able to bomb them at will. Why did this not stop them from pursuing nuclear weapons before? If your answer is "No one before Trump was willing to do it," then what keeps them from just waiting out Trump? We're not going to invade, we're not going to unseat the regime. At worst, they spend a few hard years, which we know the regime does not care about, however much suffering that inflicts on the Iranian people. We have many examples of irrational and unreasonable regimes holding out much longer than we think we can because "Surely they can't take any more of this" turns out to be wrong. Irrational and unreasonable regimes can hold out longer than one belligerent American administration can remain in power and threaten to bomb them harder next time.
What else is there to say? I am laying out what I think is clear evidence that America is winning the war and that the war is good for America and you are accusing me of comic book rhetoric
I am. Understand, I am not saying that as a bit. I have read your narratives about Trump, comparing him to everyone from Washington to Naruto. I believe you believe the things you say about him. I am not exaggerating when I say I believe the things you believe about him are in the realm of comic book rhetoric. Yes, I realize you do not think what you believe is cartoonish, but the difference between us is that I could be persuaded that what Trump is doing is succeeding (your arguments so far are not persuasive, nor is what my lying eyes see on the global market), whereas you have demonstrated repeatedly that there is no plausible situation in which you will acknowledge that what Trump is doing is not succeeding, you will just change the win conditions.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
2d ago
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
2d ago
This is not an impressive question to me. The American military undergirds a global economic system that contributes to Americans being fabulously wealthy. War makes us rich.
I find your answer equally unimpressive.
So, we should just be starting wars right and left? Why not start a war with Russia? With China? With anyone who briefly inconveniences us? Come on. War has a cost and you are asserting without evidence that all wars are net profitable.
If by bombing Iran, we will achieve price stability and a permanent decrease in military opposition to America and terrorist activities in the Gulf, it is plausible (though hardly a given) that this will be net profitable in the long term, but I am not the only one to doubt this, and my doubt is not some reflexive abhorrence of military action or empire. Stopping Iran from developing nuclear weapons is, again, something you have repeatedly insisted is a mission accomplished, there is no world in which Iran will build nuclear weapons again. I would argue that Iran certainly can begin trying to build nuclear weapons again in a few years, and if your answer is "We'll keep bombing them," then the cost of having to bomb Iran every few years in perpetuity is something we kind of need to factor into our budget. (This is without even considering the human and political cost- you might not care at all about America becoming Rome, or just killing Iranians whenever we feel like it, but I do and I think these things should be put honestly to the electorate.)
All your other high speech about ending theocracy in the Gulf, autarky in Europe, and piracy in the Mediterranean, is just that: nice words flowing from your belief that God-Emperor Trump will stretch his hand forth over the waters and the seas themself shall obey his will. I am beginning to believe that you, unironically and unmetaphorically, believe literally that. I do not and remain skeptical that bombing Iran will make the entire world our bitch and treasure will flow into our coffers forevermore.
Cool story bro. I hate that you keep putting me on the same side as [the likes of ETA: self-edit, this was too antagonistic] @hanikrummihundursvin and @coffee_enjoyer (I don't buy the "We did this at the behest of our Zionist masters" narrative), but it looks to me like the situation is materially worse for the US than before the war started, and the fact that it's much worse for Iran does nothing for me. I will ask you again: what is the benefit to me, as an American taxpayer? In what way is America now richer and safer? "We won we won we won!" okay, cool, what did we win?
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
3d ago
It is not "consensus-building" in the way we apply that rule. Using rhetorical devices like "It's beyond debate" are, perhaps, a little questionable (because literally everything will be debated by someone) but it's not meant to prohibit an assumption of common knowledge. It's meant to prohibit making an argument from the assumption that your opinion is a settled matter.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
3d ago
MadMonzer is right, and I'd go further, the authors you're citing aren't one tradition.
Oh, absolutely not. My point wasn't that Austen and Tolstoy and Wodehouse were writing the same thing (I deliberately chose some very unlike authors) - my point was that SS is trying to gesture at a particular theme in fiction being a nefarious Jewish anti-white agenda (even if it's non-Jews doing it, they're only doing it because of Da Joos), and I'm saying it is none of those things. Even if you distinguish between "mocking from the inside" from "mocking from the outside," Jews are not the ones who began the trend of mocking from the outside, and outsiders throwing stones at a structure they consider illegitimate is not a uniquely Jewish (or woke, or anti-white) phenomenon.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
3d ago
No one would accuse me of "consensus-building" if I said it wasn't open for debate that JFK was assassinated in Dallas in November '63, or that two planes crashed into the Twin Towers in September '01.
Ah, never met a JFK conspiracist or a 9/11 Truther, have you?
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
3d ago
My argument is that country clubs are the modern representation of stuffy rich people. Ordinary folk have always loved making fun of stuffy rich people. The stereotype that rich people are assholes and stories about rich people being bested by pliebs is not a modern Jewish invention to subvert the white race. That you need this explained is my point about your Jew-obsession. If a Jew does anything, anywhere, it doesn't matter why he did it or that other people do it too, in your world he did it for nefarious Jew reasons. Story written by a Jew? There's an anti-white message somewhere. Film featuring a Jewish comedian? It's anti-white. No matter how tortured the interpretation, you'll find some anti-goy propaganda somewhere. In this case, there weren't even any Jews involved AFAIK, so you had to reach for a totally unrelated work that happened to have a Jew in it.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
4d ago
Point and sputter? Heh. Dude, you'd be more sufferable if you had some self-awareness and a sense of humor about it. If you can't put hands on keyboard without making it about Jews, just own it.
Making fun of WASP Country Club has been a thing for as long as there have been WASP Country Clubs (i.e., pretentious rich people to make fun of). Dickens did it. Austen did it. Freaking Tolstoy (one of the few people with less of a sense of humor than you who comes to mind) did it. Wodehouse definitely did it. It was not invented by Jews.
Amadan
Letting the hate flow through me
4d ago
Wait for it... wait for it....
Ah, there it is.
Well, I genuinely hope you are right, but "meaningfully" is doing a lot of work there and I look forward to seeing how this will turn our balance sheet black.
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