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Notes -
To anyone who has discussed the issue with pro-Ukraine people.
Why do people support Ukraine fighting against Russia, with a strange militaristic fervor, instead of supporting surrendering / negotiating peace?
Anglin makes the points that:
-the war is severely impoverishing Europe due to high energy costs
-the war is destroying Ukraine ( population + territory / infrastructures / institutions)
-continuing the war increases the chances of a world war
Is it cheering for the possible destruction of Russia?
Something to do with the current leadership of Russia, anti-LGBTQ, pro-family policies?
Is it about the 1991 borders of Ukraine, issues with post-Soviet Union border disputes?
Notion that 'if we don't stop Putin now he will never stop no matter what'? Is it something about broadly standing up against aggression of one state vs another, supporting the 'underdog'?
The issue with that one which seems to be central to Alexander's March 22 post is that there isn't much that seems capable of stopping Russia.
Sending another 100k Ukrainians to the meatgrinder for that end seems a little bit harsh coming from people with very little skin in the game.
Just signaling what they are told is the correct opinion?
Is it about saving face, sunk cost at this point?
What would be the best case scenario for a Ukraine/State Department victory?
To my understanding, Putin is not the most radical or dangerous politician in Russia, and an implosion into ethnicity-based sub-regions would cause similar problems to the 'Arab Spring'. Chechens for example would not appear very West-friendly once 'liberated' from Russia.
Not only that, but economic crisis in Europe could generate additional security risks.
Why would the Ukrainians surrender or seek peace terms when they're winning? Typically, belligerents only seek peace when war has settled into a stalemate or when the risks of continuing the war become very large. Neither of this is true for Ukraine. In addition, Russia still controls territory the Ukrainians regard as theirs.
European politicians support the war because Eastern Europeans are still afraid of the Russian bogeyman, despite barely being able to project power on it's own front step. American politicians support the war because they're making bank off energy exports to Europe. British politicians support the war because they are stupid.
How's that win?
If they're winning, why are they still begging for money?
They are winning, not they have won. It's a process.
If they started negotiating today, they'd get some sort of a deal. If they kept up the war effort for another month then started negotiating, they'd probably get a better deal (even including a month worth of damage) because they would be in better position. That has held true from the first day of the invasion to today, and will likely continue on into the future.
They're begging for money and arms because it works.
Plus, also, even if they straight-up won tomorrow, they'd probably still need money to rebuild and to compensate families who've lost children or adults to the war.
???
Dead people don't need houses. Ukrainian casualties mean they need money less, not more.
And that's before we even get to the question of why my tax money should be the money that Ukraine gets.
Perhaps not, but the ones who are still alive might like to have an intact train station again, for example.
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What makes you think it's your tax money that's the money that Ukraine gets, as opposed to your pro-war fellow citizenry's money?
Your money tax money could be the tax money covering the roads and services that directly and indirectly support you. There's more than enough government expenditures to go around.
Complete and utter sophistry.
Money is fungible. Tax dollars (and the future taxes on which the us government borrows) fund the entire budget. You can’t say tax dollar X funds project A and tax dollar Y funds project B. Fungibility means tax dollar X and Y funds projects A and B.
If the government budget was smaller, there would be less tax (or less inflation). Or alternatively if project B is cancelled, then project C can occur.
The initial argument was stating that the government spending on Ukraine was unjustified because it is effectively ultra vires. Responding that some citizens like the spending thereby justifying the spending means no government spending can be ultra vires as some citizens will always support some government spending (see lizardman constant).
No, I don’t think that is a winning argument, especially for a government of supposedly limited powers.
The response to “but some citizens want X and X is outside the scope of government power so we should ignore that limit” is “some citizens should form a group that funds X. This happens all of the time. Why is Ukraine unique in that regard?
If it's sophistry in one direction, it's for the same reason it's sophistry in the other. It is precisely because money is fungible that the argument that one's personal money is going to unacceptable cause X ('why should my money be going to Ukraine') is as valid as the refutation that you might as well say it's to a preferable cause Y ('no, your money is going to services you use'). Money doesn't start as fungible for government services, but stop being fungible and start being individual onus for other causes.
Nor does the American (or any other modern) taxation system work on the principle of 'figure out what the fiscal year's requirements are, then decide tax rates for the year,' so arguments that if Expenditure A was absent a person's taxes would be correspondingly doesn't hold water. No modern government works on the principle of 'only citizens who want to support X have to pay taxes to support it,' and that's a pretty basic misunderstanding of how governments works to confuse government taxation and expenditure systems with the structure of a purpose-structured non-government organization. This doesn't even touch on how much of the aid to Ukraine is actually conveyed, ie in the form of government inventories not seeing use and often slated for destruction without use.
Of course, this diversion too is all sophistry to avoid the pretty blatant and obvious answer as to why Citizen Whomever's tax money should go to Ukraine: because the representatives elected by Citizen's fellow Citizens voted so in accordance with the laws and established legitimate processes of the land, to the general support of Citizen's fellow Citizens, and Ukraine is not unique in this respect. Citizen Whomever's money is also going to water treatment, electrical infrastructure, schools, hospitals, police, tax incentives, procurement, government worker salaries, and so on. This is fundamentally the same complaint for all government expenditures for things an individual tax payer doesn't like. Not liking what the government spends taxpayer money on is not the same as taxpayer being spent unjustly.
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