anti_dan
1hr ago
Oct-7 showed that Hamas was pure evil. If Israel had decided to occupy Gaza and deny them the right to self-determination for a generation or two, I would have been fine with it. Instead, the IDF used bombs to go after Hamas with complete indifference to civilian casualties. Obviously they did not go for an Endloesung.
But apathy to civilian casualties is its own kind of evil, and they certainly had plenty of that. Killing 50 bystanders to get one commander might be acceptable if that immediately ends the conflict (e.g. the commander is Genghis Khan), but the IDF did accept that collateral damage ratios for minor victories which did not change the strategic landscape.
Likewise, we can debate if the IDF used hunger as a weapon in Gaza. I doubt that many Hamas members went hungry, and as you point out if their intent was genocide they did a terrible job of it.
However, I do believe that feeding hungry kids in Gaza -- whose government can not be trusted to do so because they very much prefer them killed by Israel to score propaganda points -- is a collective responsibility of the civilized world. I am sure that some food trucks were smuggling in weapons for Hamas. If the IDF wanted to sift through every pack of flour, I would understand that. But by simply stopping the trucks from entering Gaza altogether, Nethanyahu defected from civilization.
I just don't see how you can hold these positions at the same time. Heck, later on you say:
The path to Hamas victory is paved with the corpses of dead Gazan kids killed by the IDF, resulting in the loss of international support and isolation. Nethanyahu's government strode proudly along that path.
You are letting yourself be tricked! Just like dont be tricked? The kind of occupation you are talking about would involve more violence and more casualties than the post 10/7 campaign Israel conducted. It would require brutal authoritarian suppression operations to have a chance of working. We are talking decades of Tienaman square for the whole Gaza strip, monitoring of all internet and phone traffic. Checkpoints every 6 blocks with stop and frisk for bombs & guns. Again for decades, and even then it would have a low chance of working? Why? Because while you and I agree Hamas is an evil organization, you know who disagrees? Supermajorities of Gazans. Hamas won the only election they ever had by a big margin, and all reliable polling indicates they would win again if fair elections were held. Gazans want total war with Israel, the only reason they dont get it is because of Israeli self-restraint.
anti_dan
3d ago
It solves the issue if you want it to solve the issue, but that sidesteps the very important Indian exception. The Indian exception is really the tricky part for those who want a broad reading of birthright citizenship because it creates absurd results when applied. By way of example:
2 Indian Parents of the Cherokee Tribe, one set lives in northern North Dakota, one lives in Southern Manitoba. The manitobans they both have children in ND on 1/1/1900, both in North Dakota. The Canadian one gets US citizenship while the one whos parents live in ND does not? Why? No one knows, but it is what is insisted on being the truth under the expansive reading.
anti_dan
4d ago
I remember going back to work during Covid (courts, particularly criminal can't wait forever regardless of what is happening outside). And a female colleague broke down crying about "why we the one's who have to die" (or something similar Its been years at this point). Our boss (a lady, or this would probably not be the funny story it is) poured some whiskey into a disposable coffee cup and offered it to her saying something like "alcohol is a sanitizer" (or again something like that). I started laughing and said I was also sick. Got my own cup. There were only like 5 of us left at the office at the time. It was certainly a time.
anti_dan
4d ago
It cant work! The Master's tools and whatnot!
But more seriously, I don't think it can work. Real communism is too boring and stale at this point for $250 million to be enough to get the movement sparked. Netflix's annual revenue is $45 billion, youtube's is $50 billion. You are talking a drop in the bucket next to a lake when it comes to media influence and the like. That could work if it was something new and compelling that could meme itself into mainstream, like Looksmaxxing or Fursexuality (a hypothetical new thing), but with boring Marxism? Meh.
In any case, all the smart commies already moved on. They realized Facism is better anyways, you get 99% of the control over things that you would have had under socialism/communism, but still get to blame the capitalists when things go wrong.
anti_dan
6d ago
This wasn't a civil asset forfeiture thing. It was a poorly issued criminal search warrant thing. Every jurisdiction has their own regulations, but disabling cameras might be standard. Seizing all cash in drug/prostitution operations certainly is standard for most jurisdictions.
The officers carrying out the search warrant weren't like NAZIs "just carrying out orders" they were literally executing a search warrant, not only approved by their superiors, but signed by a judge, and in a way that was indistinguishable from the dozens or hundreds of search warrants they had conducted in the past that looked (to them) the exact same. The petty cash tallying problem is a problem. But also they are not the smartest folks.
The real problem is this alleged source and the detective (and his Sergeant/Lieutenant) that believed it. They are the ones that created the situation and then lied to or misrepresented the facts to the judge. And not to let the judge who signed the warrant off the hook. Obviously, they are supposed to swear detectives to their search warrants. If you see something like this, its your judicial duty to bring down your weight on the department and detective. Perhaps through a contempt action, or simply refusing to sign all future warrants.
anti_dan
6d ago
As far as I could ever tell, the Mueller report was, basically the actual coverup of the crimes. Mueller himself was a doddering figurehead who knew little about what was happening (selected because he was ostensibly a Republican, but his team was staffed with partisan Democrats), and clearly was at Joe Biden 2024 levels at the end. The report meticulously avoided investigating FBI wrongdoing, such as the dozens of leaks to partisan news organizations of half-truths, and the fabrication of evidence put into FISA applications, and instead focused on process crimes, often ones the investigation itself generated by doing things like not videotaping interviews, so agent memorializations could put interviewee's "statements" in the least favorable light when seeking indictments under $1001.
While some of the Trump conduct did seem at the time, obstructionist, with hindsight, we see it was perfectly justified. Trump's campaign advisors were illegally wiretapped. Comey himself attempted to blackmail Trump during the transition with the fake Steele Dossier (then leaked the fact that Trump was briefed on it so people could treat it like it was a serious FBI piece of work product). The Michael Flynn prosecution was an ongoing demonstration of the venality of the prosecutors, essentially bankrupting a man, and then the judge frustrating efforts to undue the ridiculous results.
All in all it was a big production to distract from what really happened which was a lot of illegal things at the FBI, wherein the Mueller report succeeded in its goals of hindering the Trump adminstration's agenda and running out the clock on those criminal and civil claims (and also fouling evidence by way of time).
anti_dan
6d ago
I get your point and entirely reject it.
Thats kinda silly. The people executing the search warrant dont know what the PC was. Thats on the detective and the judge.
anti_dan
8d ago
If a society believes that Black people are less intelligent and more criminal, and they are wrong, millions of innocent people go through their lives with a boot stamping on their faces.
Only if you subscribe to modern liberalism. Its perfectly fine to accept race differences without being compelled to subjugate people under classical liberalism. Lincoln, an abolitionist, fiercely believed in black inferiority. He had some creative solutions, such as deportation of many back to Africa, which probably would have worked decently for mainland America.
But there need not be drastic measures. American blacks could merely be treated equally, with the same expectations as everyone else, and it would dramatically improve things here. Of course, the backlash would be immense, as blacks treat equal treatment as oppression.
anti_dan
10d ago
The set of people who had control of the situation are the ones who have the burden of proof to demonstrate they were on the up and up. If someone comes to your house to set up a roach fumigating tent and then a meth lab explodes in your house...
anti_dan
10d ago
I think the adoption rate of real ID is a decent stand in for approximating how many people have their birth certificate, original SSN card, and a tax return available at the ready.
Nah. Its people who have those things + 5 hours to waste at the DMV.
anti_dan
10d ago
They would have IDs, even if they don’t always carry them. I would think the only people who really don’t have a government ID today are going to be dysfunctional hobos/junkies, and extremely “off the grid” types
One of my more favorite stories from being a new lawyer is how many female states attorneys (who always start in misdemeanors and traffic) admitted they had expired DLs or out of state DLs (despite living in and working in the state, which is against the law). Its like, your job is to prosecute yourself. Get with it!
anti_dan
11d ago
Back circa 2011-12 I speculated that if Obama wanted to win in such an incredible landslide that Dems could get back to close to their 2008 landslide would be to basically go away. The theory was that, in my opinion, "Fake Obama" aka the person who didn't really have policy positions and just had really good posters saying "Hope and Change" was much more popular than the real Obama. This is obviously true for Israel. Netanyahu is reviled by Europeans, so much that they have brought a bunch of pseudo-real criminal prosecutions against him for warcrimes of dubious veracity. If, instead, generic Israel is seen as a second tier actor in this war, they can default back to something like being 20% underwater instead of 30-40% in those areas.
anti_dan
11d ago
If we go in with no priors, then the situations can seem somewhat similar.
However that is not the case. In real life, we know Mossad knows where and when substantial portions of Iranian leadership takes a piss. On the other hand, we also know that Iran and the IRGC's best plan is typically to try and shoot as much shit as they can in the general direction of an Israeli airbase to hopefully kill a few pilots and temporarily take a runway offline.
anti_dan
14d ago
Because its in serious. Even vulgar Pete Hegseths critiques of the rules of engagement have not been seriously addressed in public, because everyone knows the dial was turned so far in one direction that, even going 10 steps in the other direction, you'd still be sacrificing combat effectiveness for dubious gains in civilian well being.
In addition, whatever you believe the war's goals are, regime change, fomenting rebellion, simply degrading military capabilities to a little baby turtle, full on ground invasion, etc. For any of those goals, the reality is that many civilians will die. In fact, they must die, we don't have some chemical agent we can sprinkle on Iran that targets only regime members, soldiers, and financial backers. We have actual real life bombs, shells, and bullets. Not magic.
I'll note, the same pearl clutching faced America in Iraq and Afghanistan when Bush was in charge, and recently Israel. Even though all those factions obviously used human shield as SOP. It seems more likely to me ROE objections are meant to prevent victory, rather than protect innocents.
anti_dan
15d ago
The problem is not incorrigibly brutal instincts, but the opposite: Tolerating crybullies who utilize their own citizens as human shields.
anti_dan
16d ago
My worry is that at this point, the surviving leadership decides that a bomb is the only path to security.
They have long concluded this. I suspect they would have broken out during the Obama Admin if not for Stuxnet. Post-Obama a series of US and Israeli bombings are the only reason they haven't broken out, as the timeline if unimpeded is probably about 1 year.
anti_dan
16d ago
Every time I get to this question, my mind tends to focus on the Indian Naturalization act of 1924. If the birthright citizenship people are correct, the act was wholly unnecessary, and people were just wrong for half a century following the Civil War. If it was necessary, but illegal aliens and people here temporarily are "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" for purposes of birthright citizenship, we get absurd results. For instance, in 1900, a Member of the Cherokee nation whos parents lived in Montana at birth would not be a US citizen, but if they were a Canadian, even a Canadian member of the Cherokee nation, and those parents were visiting in Fargo at birth, that child would be a citizen. An insane result!
Unfortunately I don't think this or past iterations of SCOTUS cares particularly much if their ruling result in absurd outcomes. After all, I pay like 80% of the health insurance premium for every unemployed or poorly employed person in the state, and that is most certainly NOT A FINE.
anti_dan
19d ago
They proceeded to burn all that good will and more with their conduct afterwards (not helped by Netanyahu being an extraordinarily repellent figure to all but the far right)
This really cant be true IMO. Unless something like 99.9% of people who have allegedly "soured" on Israel post 10/7 are just too stupid to understand what the response was always going to be. You can't have a neighbor that launches hundred + man raiding bands into your territory where 1000+ of your people are killed, 200+ are taken hostage, and thousands of others injured, maimed, raped, not to mention the property damage. The only reasonable response to that is the maximum response.
If a Mexican cartel did that with the support (even tacit) support of the Mexican government and a hostile foriegn nation there would be no more Mexico. Everyone involved would obviously be killed, the government deposed, a gigantic DMZ imposed on their norther border, the country would be divided up into a bunch of territories administered by our local generals at first, later we'd let some local puppet have some semblance of authority. And the country would simply be broken up as well. Baja would be one protectorate, for maximum humiliation we'd call 3 of the new territories we create, "South New Mexico", "South Arizona", and "South Texas". No amount of civilian casualties would set us off of carrying out our goals, and no amount of dissent to our administration would be tolerated, up to and possibly including forcing them all to switch to English as an official language.
And if you asked any American President or Speaker of the House 1865-2000, "well isn't this proposal by some anon anti_dan a little extreme?" They'd first laugh at you, then tell you the US has a rich history of pseudonymous political writers, then tell you I'm a moderate, and a few would say something like, "thats a good idea, do we have to wait for the Mexicans to attack?"
anti_dan
19d ago
The reason that I would speculate there may be some actual treason or sedition cases during this war, in particular, is because of the huge network of Arab/Islamic "Advocacy" organizations in the US, many of which already stand credibly accused of funneling money and materials to Hezbollah and Hamas, which are Iranian proxies. I would not be surprised to learn many of them are sending cash or intel to the IRGC.
anti_dan
20d ago
It is trivial, with the current "very online right" and with the benefit of a (relatively recent) era that didn’t require "diversity", to impose a reactionary reading on the movie trilogy the Lord of the Rings. Having just finished watching the (otherwise pedestrian, at least in relation to the sublime Fellowship of the Ring) Two Towers, the analogies are almost too on the nose. We have a technocratic leader ("a mind of metal and wheels") who leads a rabid horde of third-worlders in a takeover of a 100% white, peaceful, free nation. In the books, the technocratic leader’s "new" cloak is literally rainbow hued. The free nation just wants to be left alone, but is eventually forced into battle. The leaders pine for a simpler, easier time; where valor, honor, and renown were attainable.
I would dispute calling Two Towers pedestrian. It contains, by my estimation and experience, the greatest fantasy battle ever put to film with the Battle of the Hornberg. I can quibble with some of Peter Jacksons deviations from the book telling, but it is still a masterpiece in building tension, demonstrating the overwhelming odds of the army set against the defenders, demonstrating the heroic feats of our heroes, etc.
anti_dan
21d ago
But its not silly because its the rhetorical usage most commonly applied.
Well they aren't very productive citizens.
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