MartianNight
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User ID: 1244
MartianNight
1mo ago
Palestinians don't just want peace, they also want independence. We both know that if Palestinians turned Jew-loving overnight, released their hostages and laid down their arms, what happens next is not that Israel withdraws from the occupied Palestinian territories, but rather that Israel will conquer the entire country (as Netanyahu has already said he intends to), and Palestinians will live under Jewish rule forever.
All armed conflicts can be resolved peacefully if one side is willing to give up all of their claims. But would you suggest this in any other conflict? Should the Ukrainians hand their country to Putin for the sake of peace, at the cost of their freedom? Should Taiwan give their country to the CCP? Should America have accepted British rule instead of establishing their independence?
And let's be clear: the source of the conflict has nothing to do with whether Palestinians love or hate Jews. The inhabitants of all surrounding countries hate the Jews just as much as the Palestinians do, but Israel is not occupying them, because Israel does not want their land.
The reason Israel is occupying territories like Jerusalem and the West Bank is that the Jews consider those part of their God-given holy land. It doesn't matter whether the citizens living in that land love or hate the Jews; the Jews want to conquer that land either way.
MartianNight
1mo ago
If Hamas agreed to release the hostages, then there would have been a ceasefire for at least six weeks, possibly forever.
Again, how is that supposed to be an enticing offer? “Hey Hamas, we want to murder all of you, but we can't do it while you have hostages! So we propose that you release the hostages, and in return we promise to wait six weeks before we murder you.”
MartianNight
1yr ago
Sure, but now assume the big dog illegally occupies the little dogs territory, what's the little dog supposed to do? Slink off without without fighting back?
Would you give the same advice to Ukrainians currently fighting against Russian invasion? Russia being the big dog, it would be improper for the little dog Ukraine to bite back; they should just give up their country to the bigger invader.
The entire justification of Palestinian violence is that Israel is illegally occupying their land, which is true by pretty much any standard except “land belongs to whoever is strongest enough to hold on to it” but if that's your philosophy, you'd better support the Russian annexation of Crimea too.
MartianNight
1yr ago
I think Ukraine has a much better chance at regaining their full sovereignty through military force than Palestine does
Sure, but that's mostly because the U.S. and the West heavily support Ukraine, while sanctioning Russia. If the U.S. and the West heavily supported Palestine and sanctioned Israel, Palestine would stand a much better chance of repelling the Israeli invaders too.
You realize this is kind of circular reasoning right? “We support whichever side has a chance to win” combined with “whichever side we support probably wins” means you can choose which side to support almost arbitrarily.
6 years is a lot less than 60 years.
Sure, but the attitude has been unchanged for the past 30 years or more. How many of the people condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine are on record stating that “I don't think Russia should have annexed Crimea but if they hold onto it for another 24 years they are allowed to keep it”? That certainly doesn't seem to be Zelenskyy's position, but I also don't hear Zelenskyy criticizing Israel for using effectively the same strategy in Palestine. It's self-interested hypocrisy.
The current war started from Russia pushing far further than Crimea, not by Ukraine refusing to acknowledge Russia's sovereignty over Crimea.
And Israel is literally raiding Nablus as we speak, a city deep within internationally recognized Palestinian territory. How is that any different?
Palestine went to war with Israel to try to expand their borders, and Palestine lost; there are consequences for losing wars like that.
Not to rehash the entire history of Israel, but there were no Israeli borders when Zionists declared a Jewish state in the middle of a predominantly Arab area. The surrounding Arab countries (Palestine did not exist as a nation when Israel was founded) didn't take kindly to that and invaded. Yes, they lost, but again: this is basically the same argument of “might makes right”. And to repeat my position: if that's your view, then you cannot moralize about Russia occupying Crimea or Donbas.
If the Mormons declared Utah a Mormon state and drove out all the non-Mormons, would you think it strange if the U.S. sent in troops to take back the land? And if the Mormons somehow managed to defeat the U.S. military (let's say, with help from Mexico and Canada) and captured Colorado, Arizona and Idaho in a counter-offensive, are they now justified in keeping that land because there must be consequences for losing a war?
I'm just asking for some consistency here; I feel like most of the arguments people use in favor of Israel illegally occupying Palestine wouldn't fly if it was any other country invading and occupying any other country, and especially not for Russia illegally occupying Ukraine. I still haven't heard an argument how the situation is fundamentally different.
MartianNight
1mo ago
The Oslo Accords ended because of suicide bombings and the start of the Oslo Accord.
Yes, Hamas tried to frustrate the peace process, but so did Orthodox Jews. You conveniently forget to mention that the PM of Israel was assassinated, not by Hamas, but by a Jewish extremist.
This was the moment where moderates on both sides should have stood their ground and enacted the two-state solution. But Israelis didn't want to do it. They reneged on their promise of withdrawing from Palestinian territories.
This of course completely destroyed the support Palestinian moderates had among the people, because it made it clear to the Palestinians that the Jews cannot be trusted and cannot be bargained with. Israel drove Palestinians into the arms of Hamas. And of course that's exactly how people like Netanyahu like it: the more extreme Palestinians are, and the more they support Hamas, the easier it is to justify killing Palestinians and annexing Palestinian lands.
Sorry you are just behaving in bad faith.
Don't throw baseless accusations around. I'm arguing in good faith, and if you are too, you should be able to support your position with arguments, instead of personal attacks.
MartianNight
1mo ago
The first paragraph is false, they have been offered numerous peace deals with self-rule. Turned them down.
Not true. In Oslo, the Palestinians agreed to recognize Israel and accepted only limited self-governance for Palestine, but it was Israel that reneged on the deal, once they realized that it would require actually withdrawing their occupation forces from Palestinian territories.
As long as Palestinians demand is the removal of Israel then Israel has a valid claim to fully evict Palestinians.
Again, see the Oslo accords, where the Palestinian leaders agreed to recognize Israel in exchange for partial autonomy in the Palestinian territories, but Israel reneged since they realized they can just keep occupying Palestinian land indefinitely without any repercussions.
So it's clearly not true that all Palestinians want total destruction of Israel, and aren't willing to compromise. That's just a lie spread by Zionists because it makes it easier to justify occupying Palestinian territories indefinitely.
You are really making it sound like they are just Nazis. Nazis too could have just had Germany but wanted other peoples land and more.
The comparison between Israel and Nazi Germany is a little awkward but there is some truth to what you say: just like Germany could thrive within its 1938 borders, Israel, too, could thrive within the 1947 borders, but just like Hitler felt the Germans were entitled to a larger country, Zionists believed that the Jews had a god-given right to rule Jerusalem and the West Bank, and since they had the military power to take them by force, they decided to just take Palestinian lands by force.
It was mostly uninhabited land. In 1922 a total of 757k people live in Palestine Mandate of which 78% were Muslim. Nobody living there today can claim ownership on what was essentially abandon land.
That's more than twice the number of people living in e.g. Iceland today, and I doubt anyone would call Iceland “uninhabited” or “abandoned”. And by your own admission: there was no significant Jewish presence in that area either (166k by your count) so it's not like the Jews have a better claim to the entire territory.
MartianNight
1yr ago
We support Israel for other reasons. Similarly for Ukraine.
It would be nice to hear those reasons rather than the usual “of course invading another country is bad!” which is clearly not an issue when it concerns Israel, so it cannot be the true reason for opposing Russia. (That's assuming a lot of the Ukraine supporters are also Israel supporters.)
I think time changes things.
I don't disagree; at some point it's better to bury the hatchet.
But Israel is unique in that it's probably the only country in the world that has been flagrantly violating international law virtually non-stop since its inception. It's one thing to forgive someone who mistreated you 60 years ago, but quite something else to forgive someone that has been mistreating you continuously for the past 60 years and shows no willingness to do better in the future.
What are your opinions about what should be US policy regarding Israel/Palestine and Ukraine/Russia?
The U.S. should support Ukraine to defend against the Russian invasion, and stop supporting Israel until they withdraw within their internationally recognized borders. Opposing one invader and supporting another is a morally bankrupt strategy (I know, it's unreasonable to expect moral principle from any government, but you asked for my opinion, so I gave it to you).
MartianNight
11mo ago
The truth is that females just don't care about computer programming at all. Yes, there are some female engineers at woke companies like Facebook and Google, but none of them do software development in their free time: working as a software engineer is just an easy way to make a lot of money to them (which is easy for them because the hiring policy greatly benefits them, and they are practically immune from being fired). Consequently, all open source software is developed by males, and anyone presenting as a woman is actually a trans-identifying male, especially the people who are into a super-niche field that women wouldn't give a fuck about because it won't help them get a job, like developing game console emulators and stuff like that.
It's not about discrimination either. It costs you nothing to create a github account, or to sign up for a competitive programming contest. But females will absolutely refuse to do any of that stuff. So yes: all the CS-related blogs are written by males. I'm not even being facetious: there is not a single worthwhile CS blog written by a biological female. If the above comments sound sexist to you, please prove me wrong by citing counter-examples.
MartianNight
1yr ago
According to Wikipedia there were 52 school shootings in the US in 2022 alone, and that's not even an outlier. Seems like if you could cut if down by 50% that would be pretty noticeable, though it would be tricky to prove a causal relationship.
MartianNight
1mo ago
He is talking about the women, elderly and wounded among Israeli citizens being held hostage by Hamas, right? Or so I hope?
Because if he is talking about Palestinian civilians, that's absolutely insane. The women and children living in the Gaza strip live there. Why should Hamas kick them out of their own country, just to make it easier for Israel to massacre the remaining adult male Palestinians (regardless of Hamas affiliation) without looking like the bad guy?
Even talking about hostages it seems like a frankly insane demand to make: “Hey, we want to murder all of you, but if we kill a few hostages in the process, that would make us look like the bad guys. Crazy, right? So can you do us a big favor and release your hostages so we can go ahead and kill you all without any repercussions? Thanks, Hamas! ... Oh, you refuse? How unreasonable of you!”
MartianNight
4mo ago
(not really because... well you know)
Speak plainly please.
only Christianity is targeted. Would Atheists ever put up depictions of Muhammad (peace be upon him)?
That's just not true. Maybe in America, where Muslims make up a tiny minority of the population, but in Europe Islam is often criticized and even ridiculed, mostly by atheists. What did you think caused the assassination of Theo van Gogh, the Charlie Hebdo massacre, the bombing of the Danish embassy in Pakistan, the attack on the Swedish embassy in Iraq, the 2023 terrorist attacks in Belgium, Türkiye soft-blocking Sweden's ascension to NATO, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.?
The claim “I didn’t realize a fire alarm would set off an alarm” is pretty weak.
That's not what he said. He said: “I was trying to get to a door. I thought the alarm would open the door, and I pulled the fire alarm to open the door by accident.”
That's also questionable (if you pulled the alarm because you thought that would open the door then you didn't do it by accident) but the point is: he doesn't deny intentionally triggering the fire alarm, but he claims his intent was to open the door, not to prevent the vote. And that seems at least possible. On twitter I saw this image of the location with a sign that reads:
EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY
PUSH UNTIL ALARM SOUNDS (3 seconds)
DOOR WILL UNLOCK IN 30 SECONDS
(But note that in the still of Bowman pulling the alarm that sign seems to be missing! Which maybe explains why he pulled the fire alarm lever on the wall instead of pushing the exit bars as the instructions by the door suggest.)
This does make it sound like you can open the door by setting of the fire alarm (which also makes logical sense), though it's pretty clear you're only supposed to do that in case of an emergency. Maybe Bowman thought that the alarm would be local and he could just shut it off after opening the door, or maybe he knew the building would be evacuated but thought nobody would know he was the one that triggered the alarm. Either way, it doesn't show that he pulled the alarm in order to delay the vote happening at the Capitol.
The evidence against an intentional action is this:
- The building that was evacuated was the Canon Hill building across the street, not the Capitol building where the vote occurred. If he wanted to prevent a vote wouldn't it make more sense to pull the alarm in the Capitol building itself?
- The bill was passed with near-unanimous Democrat support, including from Bowman. Not to mention that Democrats have absolutely no interest in a government shutdown with a Democratic president in charge. Why would a Democratic congressman want to obstruct the voting on a bill he is in favor of?
MartianNight
6mo ago
You can also see the fire alarm in that image. It's bright red and says "FIRE".
The discussion isn't about whether or not he set off the fire alarm (he clearly did) but whether he did it with the intent to prevent/delay the vote on the funding bill happening in the nearby Capitol building. That's not so clear.
Maybe Bowman will eventually admit something along the lines of “I set off the fire alarm because I was in a rush to leave the building” which is pretty bad (and probably against some law or other) but it's an order of magnitude better than “I set off the fire alarm because I wanted to stop congress from voting on a bill”, which makes him guilty of a felony that carries up to 20 years in prison as a penalty.
I read somewhere (I don't remember where), that the motive could have been to buy time to actually read the bill. Which, honestly, is a great motive.
For Bowman this doesn't strike me as a great reason to risk 20 years imprisonment, which honestly makes me think it's more likely the “I was in a hurry to leave the building” excuse is genuine.
MartianNight
1yr ago
Thanks for posting this. I had been curious what Mottizens thought about this. I pretty much concluded that the US did it, because they're the only party that has both the capabilities to do it, a good reason to do it, and doesn't suffer serious negative consequences from it.
For the "US" argument, I was surprised you didn't mention this video where Joe Biden threatened to shut down Nord Stream 2 if Russia invaded Ukraine.
I think people here understand the importance of following through on threats. If you don't, your future threats are no longer credible. That's important to the US, not just in regards to the recent nuclear threats made by Russia, but also in regards to the threat of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, with Biden promising military support. The US needs to demonstrate that it's willing to follow through on its promises, and the US sabotaging Nord Stream is just following through on a threat Biden made earlier.
Honestly nothing else makes sense to me, but I'm willing to hear other sides to the argument.
By the way: I think you should split up point 6 between Poland and the Baltic countries. Poland is different from the Baltic countries in that Poland, like Russia, but unlike Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, has a gas pipeline from Russia, so it has a direct economic interest in sabotaging Nord Stream, which was created by Russia specifically to bypass countries like Ukraine and Poland. I also feel like Poland is a little bit better equipped in the military sense, so if any of those countries would have done it, it would have been Poland.
MartianNight
23d ago
Do you feel more pride over gaining a PhD, or gaining a bronze swimming certificate? Why?
This is the wrong comparison. You can feel pride in getting a doctorate degree, but does that mean nobody should be able to get a master's or bachelor's degree?
Saying “there should only be hard mode” is akin to saying “nobody should be allowed to get a bachelor's degree, so I can take pride in my doctorate degree” which is obviously (hopefully) nonsense. The fact that people can get bachelor's degrees doesn't invalidate your doctorate degree at all. Everyone understands that getting a doctorate degree is a bigger accomplishment than getting a master's or bachelor's degree. Why deny others the opportunity to get a lesser degree?
MartianNight
1yr ago
I gave those reasons, Israel is an important ally against Iran(and other actors in the middle east), and Ukraine is an important ally against Russia.
Right, and I respect your position; it seems consistent. It does mean you make strategic considerations take precedence over moral principles like “internationally recognized borders must be respected”. It's fine if you think that way, but at that point, you no longer have the moral high ground: it's clear you're okay with violating borders when it's in your interest.
My complaint was that most people, including most world leaders, limit themselves to the moral argument: they support Ukraine because Russia illegally violated its borders. But their simultaneous support of Israel shows that it's a lie: apparently invading foreign territory is fine when an ally does it.
Palestine has been also attacking Israel non-stop for the past 60 years.
Because Israel has been occupying Palestine territory for more than 60 years! Why is it surprising that people try to fight off an invader? That's literally with Ukraine is doing right now. I'll grant you that a difference is that Ukraine so far has not attacked within (pre-2014) Russian borders, but the situation isn't quite comparable, in that the Palestinian claim to Israelian territory is much stronger while Ukraine has no claim to Russian territory beyond the recently-annexed territories.
The comment I originally replied to likened Israel to a big dog that snaps back at a little dog that has been harassing it for no reason. Again, this was an analogy based on a moral argument (it's acceptable to snap back after being bullied/harassed), but that analogy falls apart when you realize it's the big dog that was the aggressor in the first place.
Anyway, I think we've covered a lot of common arguments here, and I probably want to stop discussing this further. If you choose to reply I will definitely take the time to read what you wrote, but I may not respond to it.
MartianNight
1yr ago
So put your cards on the table. Ukraine should concede Crimea to Russia, yes? It's unreasonable of Ukraine to insist on restoration of their original borders when Russia has historical ties to Crimea as well has having effective control over it for more than 6 years at this point. So by your own logic, it's Ukraine's fault that they're at war with Russia, because they don't want to negotiate peace by sacrificing their territory to the invader, which is an unreasonably inflexible position for a country that is being invaded. Did I understand your position correctly?
But for sake of argument, let's assume Palestina is willing to compromise. Do you think Israel would accept the original 1947 borders assigned by the UN? Or the 1949 green line which assigned the Golan heights, the Gaza strip, East Jerusalem and the West Bank to Palestina? I think there is no chance they would. This makes it obvious that Israel is just as guilty, if not more so, of obstructing a peaceful solution.
MartianNight
10mo ago
You tell me. You told me that transwomen never pretend to be ciswomen. I mentioned Semenya because she is a male (or at least nonfemale, if you think her disorder disqualifies her from being a regular male) who against all objective facts insists she's the same as ciswomen. Objectively, Semenya should be competing with other males, because she is genetically and phenotypically male. She isn't female in any way except the fact that she was incorrectly assigned female sex at birth, and these are facts she continues to deny to this day.
The trans activist motte is that “womanhood” is separate from being male or female. But then the bailey is that all privileges that have been granted to ciswomen based on their female biology must also be extended to transwomen because “transwomen are women” and distinguishing between ciswomen and transwomen based on their biological sex is bigotry.
This doesn't make sense in any of the main debates around gender. We have women's sports divisions because males are stronger than females because of biological differences; therefore it makes no sense to include trans-identified males in the women's division. If we did, males would win both divisions and biological females wouldn't be able to compete, which was the whole purpose of introducing a women's division in the first place.
MartianNight
1yr ago
Is this specifically about the Netherlands or are all countries like this now?
MartianNight
2mo ago
See also this thread in the culture war roundup by @SaltCheck.
MartianNight
5mo ago
This sounds unsurprising so I'm willing to assume it's broadly correct, but if you're going to cite specific statistics like “5 years after conviction, 14% of offenders have been charged with or convicted of a new sexual offense” could you please explicitly cite the sources behind your claims?
Numbers that are so specific must come from one specific source. There is no way that there are multiple independent sources that investigated this and they all agreed the number was exactly 14%, not 13% or 15%.
MartianNight
10mo ago
I'm not here to tell you what to care about, but you were arguing with @arjin_ferman, who made a claim about what leftists actually believe; you cannot refute that by talking about their stated beliefs. That way you're just talking past each other.
Apart from that, I would still recommend that you try to distinguish between expressed beliefs and true beliefs. It's quite common for these to differ, and the difference is important. What's the point of quibbling about the letter of the law, when the judgment is not based on the letter of the law?
MartianNight
1yr ago
But if it was sabotage, would you agree the US is the most likely culprit?
MartianNight
1yr ago
What evidence is there that they thought a black actor was the best fit for the part?
What does “best fit” even mean in this context? Most faithful depiction of the original character? (Clearly not.) Most likely to win an Oscar? (Considering their progressively racist policies, probably yes.) Most likely to appeal to the fans of the original movie? (Probably not.) Most likely to gain media attention? (Probably yes.)
I'm starting to think you're trolling me, but in the interest of assuming good faith, I'll say for the third and final time: the question isn't whether he had the intent to set off the fire alarm but whether he set off the fire alarm with the intent to stop the vote.
It only speaks to an intent to set off the fire alarm, not an intent to disrupt an official proceeding. The question is: why did he set off the fire alarm? Three options:
You can say the obviousness of the fire alarm makes option 1 unlikely (and I mostly agree) but it does not prove option 3 over 2.
Yes, that's a problem, but that doesn't prove the intent of Bowman.
Maybe it makes sense for the Republicans to assume the worst because when it came to the January 6th protesters the Democrats assumed the worst, but here on this forum we are not active participants in the culture war, we're only discussing it. I think the Jan 6 protesters were judged much too harshly, but I'm also willing to entertain the notion that Bowman is just a dumbass who was in a rush (option 2), rather than a man intent on undermining American democracy (option 3).
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