OracleOutlook
πΊπΈ Fiat justitia ruat caelum
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User ID: 359
You may not like the US, but I would rather be arrested in the US for suspicion of killing my father than arrested in Iran for suspicion of not wearing a head covering.
I would rather be an enemy of the US than an ally of Iran. Iran has responded to attacks by bombing civilian infrastructure of previously friendly countries. Meanwhile, the US is very precisely (as far as these things go) targeting enemy combatants and the infrastructure of war.
There is a huge moral difference between the two regimes which cannot be conflated and it really does color the rest of the analysis.
You said Iran was stockpiling conventional weapons to take Israel hostage to buy time for themselves to make a nuclear weapon.
I mean yes, it is clearly a purpose of Iran to stockpile conventional weapons until the point where attacking them would be too costly to consider. You do not dispute that their long term goal is to make a nuclear weapon.
You do not have to be a conspiracy theorist to just think, if the first objective was achieved, how would it impact the second? It's not a conspiracy, even if absolutely no one in the regime was thinking on these terms it would still be true. If Iran had enough weapons they could hold the whole Middle East hostage and we would have no ability to intervene in their Nuclear ambitions.
And they are willing to do so as we can see with their present actions. It seems that the only fallacious thinking on my part is that they would be content to hold Israel hostage, when clearly they would also turn on the Gulf Coast as well.
[Cardinal Pierre][https://x.com/BrianBurchUSA/status/2042307511504519366] also denies it.
Don't launch or abet wars of aggression (extermination?) against Iranians, and you're good.
Which is why Iran armed and trained Hamas and Hezbollah to attack Israel. Israel, which was on Iran's side during the Iraq-Iran war.
They also kill civilians en masse along with rape, torture and executions of prisoners.
When is the last time the United States of America shot over ten thousand of its own unarmed citizens for protesting? When is the last time the United States of America had as part of it's legal code a requirement to rape female prisoners before execution to prevent them from having a good afterlife? In what jurisdiction can you receive torture as a sentence in the United States of America?
Execution is fine and just but only for murder and only after a fair trial.
Is Iran intending on nuking eastern Europe?
No, that is to demonstrate how far their current delivery systems have been proven to reach, since most people don't know how far Diego Garcia is from Iran. They have been working on delivery systems to reach the US. That is the direction they are heading.
And yeah, I feel comfortable saying I want the US to be able to attack wherever it needs to, and I do not want Iran to attack me. This is only hypocrisy if you view the US government and the IRGC on equal moral footing. You seem to. I don't.
It's not a conspiracy theory that Iran has nuclear material and is working towards making nukes. This is something everyone has known and the framework everyone has been operating under for the past 20+ years.
Well yeah. The IRGC literally talks like Saturday Morning Cartoon Villains out of GI Joe. They are behind October 7th, the Houthi's, Hezbollah, etc. They are a major source of instability and terrorism in the region (not the sole source, but one of the two big ones.)
A year ago 85% of Iranians did not support the IRGC and that was before the Basaji killed 45,000 protestors. Presumably the number is higher now. You are conflating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps with the people of Iran, who largely want their 2,500-year-old monarchy back and permission to do TikTok dances without getting raped then executed.
What are the priorities of the "Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp?" You might be able to guess it, given that the I doesn't stand for Iran but for Islam. The Iranian people, the country of Iran, is not their priority. Instead, they see it as their primary purpose, "to prepare the world for the emergence of Imam of the Age.β Mahdism is their stated purpose, and Mahdism requires that they destroy the US and Israel to bring about the return of Mahdi.
If you doubt me, why do you think the Iranian internet has been mostly shut off except for members of the regime for the duration of the protests and war? The people of Iran do not support the IRGC, the IRGC does not exist for the benefit of the people of Iran.
Iran even before the war was on the verge of collapse. Even before the war, Iran was looking to relocate the capital because they mismanaged their water supply so badly. "Iran is looking to relocate the nationβs capital because of severe water shortages that make Tehran unsustainable. Experts say the crisis was caused by years of ill-conceived dam projects and overpumping that destroyed a centuries-old system for tapping underground reserves."
Droughts lead to food shortages, food shortages lead to famine, famine leads to millions of dead people. Yes, even in the 21st century.
As far as the actions the US took during the Cold War, people forget that the Soviet Union and Communism were legitimately bad and that communists were and still are existential threats. Sure, if you take all the actions the US did during the Cold War out of context of the Cold War, remove the enemy from the descriptions of events, they sound bad. You can do that for any conflict. "Did you know in the 1940s, the US and Britain invaded Normandy Beach in France and killed 10,000 people. Can you believe it? What did Vichy France do to the US to justify that treatment?"
Meanwhile, the IRGC has enough enriched uranium to make several nukes and had delivery systems that could reach Eastern Europe (as shown by that they were able to target Diego Garcia recently.) They were working rapidly on stockpiling conventional weapons to overwhelm Israel and hold them hostage the same way North Korea is able to hold Seoul hostage. Once that was complete, they could complete their nukes in peace, just like North Korea. They aren't doing this for the love of science! There's only one reason to have these expensive and risky programs and to keep increasing the range.
I was around five years old when my mom first told me, "I love your father, I just don't like him very much." I wasn't really great at setting firm boundaries at the time.
Just War is so interesting, because we have the historical record where it is interpreted as, "My clerics say the throne is rightfully mine by both our laws, therefore I will wage war to press my claim," as just, but now we quibble about, "Sure they are destroying the weapons and weapon factories of a regime that is hellbent on killing us/our allies and executing their own citizens, but do we understand and believe our leaders' justification for doing so?"
New Polity did a podcast on the Iranian war and although they were very harsh on the war I came away believing that the war was not only just but that not prosecuting it would have been a wrong. Because they were just ignorant on the basic details of the whole matter, and when you substitute in the facts the argument goes the other way.
how we like to interact in social settings
I think this is something where it is good to have differences. One partner more gregarious, one partner more reserved. The reserved partner makes sure the gregarious partner gets rest and gives them an excuse to bow out of social gatherings. The gregarious partner makes sure the reserved partner gets to escape their own head from time to time.
How men and women communicate will always be different. The question isn't if you can learn to communicate the same way. The question is can you learn how to understand and respect each other even when you communicate your feelings differently.
But of course, I'm just a stranger on the internet spitballing based on key phrases you throw my way. I don't really know what you and your partner are like. My sole credentials are that I'm happily married after ten years and four kids, and my parents were miserably married and I got to see that up front and personal because my mom saw me as her confidante.
The capstone marriage vs. the cornerstone marriage, as I have heard it. Do you only get into relationships as a reward for putting in the hard work of becoming a person worthy of a relationship, or is the relationship the firm foundation the rest of your life is built on?
If you both view the relationship as "the firm foundation the rest of your life is built on" and you are both committed to giving 100% to each other regardless of if it feels like you are getting 100% back (because sometimes one person's 100% only feels like 50% to the other person), then you will be fine. If that level of commitment is the thing you are hoping changes, then run away screaming.
Oftentimes when people say scores they mean thousands instead of the actual number of 20.
Does a ceasefire reset the clock on getting congressional approval to continue the "Military operations?"
I give even odds that missiles are flying within a week. Largely because I think the US accepted thinking Iran would let all ships cross the strait unhindered, and Iran thinks they get to still control the strait. US will say Iran violated the ceasefire and there will be another ultimatum to the poor unfortunate power plants.
Being Indian was one of the known and accepted "exceptions" of the 14th Amendment. To figure out if new exceptions apply, we need to suss out an underlying logic to the exceptions everyone already agrees on. I think answering this question incorrectly would seem to indicate that the internal logic you took to get there must not be right.
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I'd rather be Spain or France than Qatar, so that's still pretty true.
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