Botond173
1d ago
Reagan of course was speaking against the idea that criminals shouldn't be held responsible for their actions because "society" but the logic works the other way around too, society should not be held responsible for the criminal.
I don't know what the context of this was but I'm assuming his political message was against the general leftist notion that violent criminals are mostly just misguided, demoralized, oppressed etc. members of the proletariat who first and foremost need to be rehabilitated and reeducated by an army of social workers, therapists, counselors etc., all paid for with large sums of tax money, instead of getting heartlessly imprisoned etc.
Botond173
1d ago
I'm assuming his larger point is that Ukrainian women, unlike men, are not being drafted, either for military service or labour (I guess) and are generally not prevented from leaving the country.
Botond173
4d ago
I remember the times when neocon shills were insisting that Ahmadinejad's actions warrant a preemptive Israeli-American air war. Strange times we are in.
Botond173
4d ago
t's also worth pointing out that IGI-111 was claiming that Ukrainian soldiers were being blown up by the Ukrainian government.
Why are you hung up on this, I wonder. Very obviously he(?) was just making a somewhat cynical, snarky statement, that's all. I'm pretty sure he isn't literally claiming that the Ukrainian army is blowing up its own conscript soldiers with sticks of dynamite or something. If men are conscripted into an army to fight in a war the end of which nobody sees and the chances of victory are rather murky, with many of them getting blown up by drones, mines etc., then yes, in the everyday sense of the word, in layman's terms, it's sending them to get blown up. Just let it go please.
My view is that continued Ukrainian resistance is not futile as long as a string of miracles takes place which hands them victory in the end. This is rather unlikely though.
Botond173
4d ago
'some', not 'same'; it was a typo. Yes, it's plain observable fact that the Ukrainian army has engaged in futile operations like the Kursk incursion, plus counterattacks and defensive operations with no chance of success (trying to establish a Dniepr bridgehead etc). And yes, nameless conscripts get sacrificed. All of this then gets conveniently forgotten in Western mainstream media.
(Also I find it curious that you responded to just one half-sentence.)
Who actually believes unironically in the universality of such norms anyway? Do the same people oppose Israel as well, as an expansionist regime with genocidal aspirations? Or Azerbaijan? I doubt.
Botond173
4d ago
Again, have you considered the possibility that to the extent Ukrainian soldiers keep defending their positions – which in itself is not sufficient to win the war, to be sure –, they are largely doing so under the assumption that not only will NATO keep supporting them but will in fact escalate the war should the defense positions collapse?
Even if we assume that asylum applicants claiming to be in fatal danger at home in the Third World due to being gay are actually gay, we can safely assume that the level of discrimination they do suffer as a result is usually not fatal or even significant. Severe persecution of homosexuality is more of an exception than the norm even in these areas, as far as I know. And yet the EU authorities generally accept these claims or at least do not expel such applicants.
When applying the same loose standards to Ukrainian male refugees who would be conscripted at home were they repatriated, then yes, we can safely assume that, in the circumstances the government will be putting them in, they will not be leaving the army until they die or get crippled. They will be, in effect, sent to be blown up in some futile operation. This NAFO notion that meat grinder tactics are totally alien from noble Westernized Ukrainians who share zero cultural similarities with the Moskal is frankly laughable and cringe.
Botond173
4d ago
All those great speeches about liberalism and the banality of evil just to end up here again.
This sort of BS was already on display when the EU banned Russian tourists from its territory. Some Baltic or Finnish girlboss politician declared that visiting Europe is a privilege, not a right - and this was coming from the same ruling clique that engineered the refugee crisis in 2015.
Botond173
4d ago
I think it's as reasonable a take as the claims of the asylum seekers about being gay etc. usually are.
Botond173
4d ago
On the one hand, I am all for my taxes paying for Ukrainian weapons for as long as Ukraine cares to fight Russia.
I see various commenters repeating this claim. Have they considered the high probability that the causality is the other way around?
Botond173
5d ago
The feminist Kafka trap in this context means to me that an entire cluster of feminist narratives is preconstructed in a way to ensure that if a non-feminist man decides to engage in discussion with them there can be no possible outcome other than him being at fault or him being wrong or him being part of the problem.
Another concept similar in effect and purpose is the narrative of white fragility, for example.
Botond173
5d ago
I think it's fair to say that the AIDS crisis has long disappeared as a culture war issue.
Botond173
5d ago
I should mention that we had a discussion on it about a year ago. Fun times.
https://www.themotte.org/post/1121/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/240829?context=8#context
Botond173
5d ago
I’d argue the overall situation is even worse because a) the leftist promoters of said social changes either denied that such negative consequences will take place or simple remained silent on this matter because they were aware that the majority will be either hostile or ambivalent towards these changes b) the long-term negative consequences that social conservatives predicted were in fact worse than this commie blogger makes it out to be and were still right in the end.
Botond173
7d ago
Their entire narrative on this is constructed to act as a Kafka trap. If you as a man try following their advice, you already lost.
Botond173
7d ago
So I’ve read the discussion. Maybe I just wasn’t paying enough attention but it seems to me that nobody mentioned the obvious elephant in the room. The old farts in leadership positions in either mentioned party obviously seem hesitant to recruit or select 40-somethings or 50-somethings as candidates for higher positions because they’re afraid of them turning out to be rabid ideologues of various stripes incapable and/or unable to make compromises, and/or weirdoes that are not presentable to normies and are prone to cause scandals, and if there are actually not such people themselves then they’re likely to be surrounded by such staffers and advisors etc.
Botond173
10d ago
I've heard about Italian examples though.
The assassination of Sergio Ramelli, which also includes a redemption arc (sort of)
Botond173
10d ago
It's undoubtedly more accurate to say that he was a victim of a self-radicalizing cultural milieu that normalizes leftist political executions.
Botond173
10d ago
The leftist pantheon has long included fake-ass martyrs.
the hero pioneer Pavlik Morozov
the Red Army peace envoys under white flags supposedly gunned down by fascist monsters in 1944
Botond173
10d ago
Are you specifically talking about the current American (Republican) Right?
Botond173
10d ago
Is your argument that violence-promoters on the Right are successfully rooted out by strictly enforcing laws against them, so if the same is done with the violence-promoters on the Left then the same result can be achieved?
Botond173
10d ago
I think it’s a lot more ‘cringy’ to make memes about a widow trying to carry on in public life after her husband gets murdered in plain view.
I'd also mention that in other similar situations the normie woke-adjacent line of thought is usually that people mourn in all sorts of different ways, you don't know what they're going through, it's petty and cruel to openly mock and criticize their attitude etc.
As far as I know, the reason multiple leftist subreddits either got banned or decided to go private themselves was that the grossly partial mods absolutely refused to moderate commenters calling for mass murder, political assassinations, gulaging, doxxing, violence, wishing for the suicide of political enemies etc even after multiple warnings from above, and the central leadership of Reddit (whatever the heck they are called) eventually decided to act even though they are mostly leftists themselves because it was clear to anyone what a big liability the entire situation is.
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