ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
No bio...
User ID: 626
By various European countries denying them airspace to support thr Iran operation. No matter what you think of the decision, from the American perspective, this means if they want to ensure that they can use a base, they have to control the land it sits on.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
11hr ago
Yeah, and when the same people who tell me Hiroshima is Japan's fault are telling me blaming the Iranian response is somehow """American hyperagency""", that's also dispositive.
of a country it was at total war with, who vowed to fight to the end, and who started the conflict with a surprise attack
You're saying that like it's a bad thing. Kinda odd given your country's recent behavior.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
18hr ago
I don't know about "most", it always felt like a 50/50 issue to me, and "Japan shouldn't have started shit" was always a respectable position.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
20hr ago
No? I said I'd blame China.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
20hr ago
Believe what you like, but I believe we'd do what we could in good faith.
Nah, let's be real, there's no way.
If China bombed Pearl Harbor, and in response the US bombed the merchant ships of every nation in the Pacific regardless of where they were going or who they were selling to, you would say, "The US is not our friends here. The US is our enemy now." And act accordingly. You wouldn't blame China for the US's actions, especially if they had a half-decent reason to bomb Pearl Harbor (say we were in a fight over Taiwan or take-your-pick.)
If China bombed Pearl Habor (...and the White House, and wherever else half of the command chain went, and your key industries...), and the US decided to block... uh the Panama Channel? (I know it doesn't make sense, but let's pretend it screws up the world economy), and proceeds to bomb Chinese-aligned countries, and their ships attempting to go through the channel, I would absolutely blame the American response on China.
Iran is telling you , "I am your enemy! I will do whatever is in my power to cause you pain!"
It's so weird then that they didn't do that until you bombed them.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
Doesn't matter much politically since Trump can just emphasize how much destruction was wrought on Iran and MAGA will buy it while the Dems would never buy any explanation he would ever give anyways. MAGA has been very accommodating to Trump in this war, and the isolationist excuse of "we're not the world police any more" is right there.
It's not the MAGA that's the issue, it's the neocon elites that would be cause trouble here. We'd probably see the home front revert into Trump-I state, possibly worse.
Maybe I'm underestimating you guys, but Kharg seems a bit dangerous. Even the strait Islands feel risky. I've seen someone make the argument they're likely to go for the coast just before the strait. It apparently is inhabited mostly by some Persian-unfriendly ethnic minority, so should be easier to hold.
US elite consider us suckers, taking ideology/propaganda seriously, satisfied with an army unfit for operation outside US framework, weak internally, transparent.
If you spent a lot of time mingling with the American elites, and that's your honest assessment of them, fair enough. I can't say I've talked to them all that much.
I resent this, you don't know what you're talking about. There is not a shred of inferiority complex in a typical Pole; he is cynical, a pessimist. Appearance of strength is enough for outsiders, not for people invested in the outcome.
Oh, I know quite a fair bit, actually. #NotAll, but if you've ran into someone who not only complains about his country, but goes out of their way to convince you that his country is shit, and does so over your explicit expression of genuine admiration, you're almost certainly talking to a Pole. Cynicism and pessimism? There's a difference between lack of trust and expecting the worst, and self-abasing yourself in front of others with expressions like "retarded puppy" and "unserious country". Yes, appearance of strength is for outsiders. In private there's nothing wrong with a sergeant screaming profanities at his men to whip them into shape, but there are also things that are not for outsiders' eyes, and performative self-flagellation is one of them. Even with all this, I could write it down to peculiarities of culture, and go with your explanation, if it wasn't for the tendency to put some foreign country on a pedestal, and chase them down every retarded suicidal trend they come up with. Which one it's going to be depends on one's political views, but if it's not the US, it's usually Germany or the nordics.
Maybe there's a better term for this than "inferiority complex" but it sure as hell is more than just cynicism and pessimism.
A country in our position should have domestic arms industry fit for modern war, own satellite recon, civil defence and reserve at Finnish level, elite loyal and capable of running a nuclear program without someone instantly running to snitch to the US. We don't have any of this due to a combination of skill issues, bad historical luck, and meddling.
You've pulled yourself out of a literal gutter within a single generation. It's good you don't want to rest on your laurels, but none of the countries around you are particularly serious by this standard.
I reject this framing, by the way. In fact, with the inability to keep trade routes open under even slight pressure, and the benefits of European integration into the NATO, the US is the freeloading party.
I've seen 3 views put forward about the US' relationship with Europe:
-
Americans are the good guys, ensuring the world's stability purely out of the kindness of their hearts, and doing so despite the ingratitude of the parties they're helping
-
America and Europe voluntarily entered into an agreement, where Europe gets security in return for strategic deference.
-
The post-WW2 order is an American scheme to keep Europe down and ensure it will never be able to rival. or even be independent of, the US.
My personal view falls somewhere between #2 and #3. I've never heard of your view #4 "America is getting so much out of """European integration into NATO""" that they're the freeloaders, actually", and it feels about as naive as view #1 to me.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
That doesn't seem right to me, because even though I agree with this specific criticism of Trump, and have called the decision to start the war a disaster, it still looks like blatant TDS to me. Neocons don't get to play doves.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
The Atlantic wasn't good enough for you, huh?
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
That's the one! Was at the tip of my tongue, thanks!
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
It was wrong when Obama tried to do it with the Dear Colleague letter, and it is wrong when Trump tried to do it with the Harvard letter.
The problem is that Obama didn't just try, he actually did it, so it's just a normal part of business now, even if you or I are against it in principle.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
But a single individual unilaterally twisting an existing law in order to interfere with hiring and firing decisions of a university in a way that interferes with the basic educational mission of that university is a bridge too far for me
Is it? Isn't there some conservative college, who's name escapes me, that makes a point of not accepting any federal help so they aren't on the hook for Title IX, and all the other federal fuckery, and the Dems are still always looking for ways to force them to run it their way? Why is it so beyond the pale to put conditions on a university that does get federal money, then?
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
21% is less than a quarter...?
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
As for contempt in the US for Poland, among the elite, I'm positive it is there. They see us as an unserious country with weak elite core, and fair enough.
Doesn't Poland often get honorable mention as the non-freeloading part of NATO from the American elites? And what's with this "unserious country" nonsense? No one on the western side talks about it like that anymore, you gotta ditch that inferiority complex of yours.
They also sent tons of hardware (something to the tune of 400 tanks, IIRC), but the logic wasn't just "NATO will protect us" (which, again IIRC, is a gamble - isn't the official battle plan to start giving proper resistance at the Oder river?), it was also (if not more) "if they steamroll Ukraine, we'll be in a much worse position to defend ourselves".
Either way, none of it says anything about "seathing contempt".
but following that up with, "Oh, and you've got to hire who we tell you to, and give us control of your admissions process so you admit more conservative students" was cuckoo bananas.
How? Academics throughout the country openly admit they discriminate on political/idealogical grounds. What exactly is wrong with telling them to knock it off, if they want to keep getting federal goodies?
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
Poland doesn't have burning seathing contempt for the US, or vice versa, get real. What they do have is Russia next door to them.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2d ago
But the harm is, so far, smaller.
What is the evidence for that?
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2d ago
Doesn't sound like something I could recognize as good. Even the stability argument is falling flat on it's face, given how much pushback it's generating.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2d ago
Sometimes it feels like TheMotte is stuck in 2020. Woke is over. Trump is president. MAGA won. Where is the America that was promised ?
We're only one year in, and we're not even at a fraction of the measures put forward by the woke. Wake me up after a decade of progressives getting booted from their jobs for expressing their opinions off the clock.
Maybe woke wasn't so bad after all.
So contrarian. Much shock. How about you elaborate on what you find good about it, if you actually believe it?
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2d ago
That said, wasn't the whole HR-mandated woke stuff kind of exaggerated to begin with?
No, it's not. Thr claim was never particularly believable even at the start of the SocJus trend, and it's even less believable after years of every major company draping itself in rainbow flags every June.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2d ago
Normally I would too, but...
- Remember son, never trust the Jews!
- You know nothing, father! I've made lots of Jewish friends this year, they're nothing like you say.
- Oh god, Donny, what have you done?!
- My name is Adrianna now!
Is not the most fortunate look.
You already tried regime-changing them when they weren't blocking the strait! What do they have to lose at this point? Please, try having some theory of mind.
Can you give an example of that?
What if they don't go on a nuclear rampage, just use it as a deterrent the way North Korea does, and all your little intervention accomplishes is more refugees and higher gas prices?
It would be nice if your president could follow the foreign policy that he campaigned on during the elections.
More options
Context Copy link