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I hope that this comment doesn't get me banned, because I'd like to talk about a very inflammatory subject, and no matter how impartially you discuss it people tend to get angry about stuff like this. I'm hoping that the culture war thread in the Motte is a place where we can talk about such difficult subjects from a purely intellectual strategic perspective without getting emotional.
I think one of the major failures of our democracy is that it easily allows foreign intelligence agencies to easily game the system. For example, it's obvious to anybody who examines the evidence that Epstein was a Mossad asset. Not only was Ghislaine Maxwell's dad Mossad, but on top of that all of Epstein's money came to him in suspicious ways. Supposedly he was a wealthy financier, but I'm currently trying to start a hedge fund myself and I can tell you all of these investment companies leave a long paper trail. If you have more than ten investors in a single state, you need to register with the Fed. And at the scale of money that Epstein had, he would need to register with the Fed anyway regardless of the De Minimus exemption.
Another example is George Soros. His influence on politics is undeniable, and he actively sabotages Western nations for profit. Unlike Epstein, it's much harder to prove that Soros works directly for Israel, but the web of influence he has spun is undeniable.
Here's where the controversial part comes in: I think the only actionable solution to this problem is to nuke Israel in a way that is plausibly deniable. Obviously we couldn't do this openly, since Israel undoubtedly has nukes hidden in some American cities in case Mossad blackmail ever fails disastrously (which is currently happening thanks to the preponderance of DeepFakes making all blackmail material irrelevant). I believe that Netanyahu had referred to this failsafe in the past as "the Samson doctrine" (which is very poetic, I have to admit). This is why the nukes would need to be deniable. Some of Russia's old cold-war era suitcase nukes would do the trick. Maybe one planted in Jerusalem, and another in Tel Aviv. Is this an atrocity? Sure. But I would argue that by supporting a government which allows its intelligence agency to use pedophile rings like Epstein to blackmail their "closest ally," the Israeli people are themselves committing an atrocity, and they should be held responsible for the actions of their government, which they themselves elected. Just like the German people elected Hitler - and paid a price for it - the Israeli people elected Netanyahu, and so they should be held accountable for any crimes his government commits. It's pure game theory, that's all. If you don't punish tribes that cross ethical lines like this, their behavior will replicate, whereas if you punish them with extreme prejudice, other nations will learn that this kind of behavior is absolutely not tolerated. (I don't want to get into the subject of Gaza - that's WAY too controversial a topic to even touch. I am purely talking about the crimes the Mossad committed by using Epstein as an intelligence asset, which I feel is easily provable and fairly defensible.)
Anyway, despite their low yield (probably a mile in diameter) the suitcase nukes will work because they don't need to blow up the whole city, they just need to cause enough infrastructure damage to cripple Israel, and the secondary blast radius will force most of these cities to be evacuated and unusable. At that point, the surrounding Muslim countries (most of which are hostile to Israel) will sweep in and finish the job. Even if their governments hold back, the armed extremist groups who hate the Jews will definitely act. Then the remainder of the Epstein files can be leaked, revealing Mossad involvement. While Israel is crippled, the general public population of their "greatest ally" will be calling for revenge against them.
Netanyahu is unlikely to activate the Samson doctrine because he will need American support to deal with the exodus of Jewish refugees fleeing the now shattered nation. If he activated the Samson doctrine, then every Jewish person outside Israel's borders would undoubtedly be seen as a potential Israeli agent, and in that kind of environment, what started as the destruction of Israel would undoubtedly end up as the extermination of the entire Jewish race. After all, what government would tolerate the existence of a Fifth Column religious group that smuggled nukes into their own cities at the behest of a hostile foreign power? Anyway, Game Theory suggests that even if Israel IS stupid enough to activate the Samson doctrine, it's worth taking the hit in order to eradicate them and teach all other countries that sponsorship of Epstein-style assets is a red line that they absolutely should not cross. If we lose L.A. or D.C., frankly I don't think that would be such a great loss from a societal perspective. Obviously it would be a tragedy in terms of the lives lost, but in terms of the "Greater Good" I think it's affordable.
However, for such a plan to work, we need a good smokescreen, so that our nukes have plausible deniability. This means that Israel needs to be at war, big time. If Iran gets nuked, it's highly likely that any suitcase nukes that hit Israel would be attributed to extremist groups in the Middle East doing a revenge bombing. This is why I supported the U.S. getting involved in the war with Iran on behalf of Israel. It's not because I'm a fan of Israel, it's just that the more the situation in the Middle East escalates the more likely it is that any suitcase nukes that hit Jerusalem and Tel Aviv will be attributed to Muslim extremists rather than us.
Anyway, that's my Ted Talk. I'm curious about what the rest of you think. I'm not interested in debating the morality of this, just the logistics. If this is too controversial a topic even for the Culture War roundup, please let me know and I'm happy to delete this comment.
I think this whole post is a troll, but it does give me the opportunity to bring this up: why are right-wingers so obsessed with George Soros in particular? He's not the only billionaire making big political contributions by a long shot. He's not even the only liberal Jewish billionaire making big political contributions. It's not a huge mystery why they're not worked up about wealthy foreign-born figures like Murdoch or Musk, but why not express similar concerns about numerous other wealthy Democratic donors? Is it just that he looks like Palpatine?
I would reverse this. Soros is a big supporter of progressive causes and candidates. Conservatives correctly point that out and are treated like crazed conspiracy theorists for doing so.
They aren't worked up about Murdock and Musk because they're allies. The American colonists bitterly resented the Hessian mercenaries sent to battle them. At the same time they liked Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben and made him a high ranking officer and followed his advice on professionalizing the continental army. Foreign mercenaries who are your allies are of course welcome.
I'd also point out that the Koch brothers were the equivalent for the other side. People notice motivated billionaires like them or Bloomberg funding ideological groups to influence American politics. Soros isn't special in this regard.
I'm going to roll my response into @porkpiehat here, since the thrust is largely the same.
I'm sorry, but no. A perennial problem with cranks is that they find something that is true, conflate it with something that looks kind of like the thing that is true, and then run wild with tenuous inferences from the factoid. Right-wingers don't merely claim that George Soros gives lots of money to progressive causes. There is a whole raft of Soros-related crank theories which go well beyond "Soros gives lots of money to progressive candidates" or even "Soros is the architect behind the American progressive movements" (untrue, but at least not totally absurd) and into "Soros is a global puppetmaster orchestrating civil unrest around the world."
I disagree. Yes, people get worked up about wealthy donors that oppose them and don't get worked up about the ones that support them, but Soros is not treated in a manner equivalent to Koch or Bloomberg.
-- porkpiehat
I don't really buy the argument that it's because he's a foreigner getting involved in local elections. At the very least, I don't think that's anywhere near sufficient to explain the level of paranoia around Soros specifically, which are too wide-ranging and too enduring (my friends were making jokes about Sorosbux like ten years ago, for example) to be explained by something as simple as "Soros DAs". Soros is an American citizen, so compare/contrast RW reactions to other foreign-born billionaires like Rupert Murdoch or Elon Musk or Miriam Adelson. He's not the only billionaire donor quietly putting significant money into state/local elections.
I get that a lot of it is just "It's okay when Our Guy does it, but Soros isn't Our Guy," but as mentioned, he's not even the only lib doing it. No one seems to think Mike Bloomberg is hiring crisis actors.
I agree Bloomberg gets too little heat given what he does. He is distorting all of American politics through his large donations. "Why doesn't this Democratic candidate pump the brakes on the gun grabbing talk in order to win in their purple or purple-red district? Why are they literally shouting that they're coming for my AR15?" Because Bloomberg.
In my personal experience someone rightfully points out that Soros is funding something and then they get smeared as a Jew-hating conspiritard. Neutral and correct statements about his donations and their impact are lumped in with the crank theories. I don't engage with the cranks. I just notice normie correct complaints about Soros smeared as crankery.
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My sense is that Soros is really in the weeds. For example, his organization apparently came up with a strategy of getting progressives elected to DA positions in liberal-leaning jurisdictions. Apparently he correctly realized that you can really have a huge impact on policy (and cause a lot of grief for your outgroup) by getting hard-core true believers into DA positions.
I'm trying to resist the urge to respond to the OP (it seems like trolling/parody to me) but I will also note that Soros supports a lot of anti-Israel organizations. Which kind of undercuts the idea that he's a Mossad agent.
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Probably because of the "Soros DA's", the phenomenon where he is said to have supported radical left district attorneys that stopped prosecuting crime.
When these DA's gained power, homelessness and crime soared almost immediately. It directly impacted people's lives much more than say a 1% increase in marginal tax rates. And the change was obvious.
And it's like, "why is Soros wrecking our cities, why is he meddling in local elections". It is certainly bizarre. As if I were funding random communists in Lyons, France just to see the world burn.
I'll admit that I haven't researched it so I don't know how much Soros is to blame for getting these DA's elected.
Well the most charitable interpretation is that Soros and his ilk sincerely believe that criminals are that way because the system treats them like criminals. That they are otherwise honest decent people, who make a small mistake and get caught up in a system that turns them into hardened career criminals. So that if only the system were more lenient and understanding, there would ultimately be less crime.
For what it may be worth, I don't think that Soros types really believe this. They may believe that they believe it, but what gives the game away is when members of their out-group misbehave (or are accused of misbehaving) there is no push for leniency or compassion or understanding. Rather, the full hammer of the law must be brought down on such people.
It's just conflict-theory, virtue-signalling and who/whom IMO.
“For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.”
I get the "Republicans are my enemies" part. Why "fentanyl zombies who occupy public parks" are the dearest of friends who must be protected and enabled by endless lawfare and progressive DAs is more mysterious.
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I think his public history with negative-sum investment antics against whole nations seems relevant (see Black Wednesday and others). I can see how it makes skepticism of his political donations easier: does someone willing to tank the UK economy for personal gain really have citizens' best interests at heart? Gates is at least easier to find earnest.
Although largely I think he's just the best foil to Koch, and now Musk.
Also it probably doesn't help that he was a Nazi collaborator.
George Soros was a literal child when the Nazis occupied Hungary.
He was ghetto police.
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If I'm not mistaken, he was 14 or 15 when he collaborated with the Nazis.
Do you have a source? I can't find anything about that, and given all the other dumb bullshit that gets made up about him, my priors are extremely low on a 13 year old being an active collaborator.
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