domain:cafeamericainmag.com
ThenElection
21hr ago
The risk is that this escalates to a broader conflict. Not Iran vs whoever--Iran is a paper tiger, and all other factors being equal it's good that it's now further from getting nukes than it was (one hopes). But I'm worried this triggers a series of international incidents that leads to a Taiwan war. Although it seems far-fetched, it also seemed far-fetched that an assassination of an archduke could spiral to a world wide conflagration.
Iran needs to respond somehow, for domestic political reasons if nothing else. And, one thing leads to another, and Hormuz ends up mined, and China decides, well, the world is going to suck for a couple years and the US is otherwise occupied, might as well take advantage of the moment.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
21hr ago
If the context was unimportant, why not include it yourself? Even if we assume that you didn't mean to imply what people think that you were implying, at least you surely understand that your post could easily be read in such a way without that context?
The pro-Ukraine, anti-Israel crowd is not small. It's the default position of the western left.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
21hr ago
I've long been interested in how people, when talking about Ukraine, use generic terms with little meaning like "increasing escalation" to make comparisons of things that obviously aren't comparable - in this case, the direct use of the American bomber fleet, which obviously hasn't been happening in Ukraine and does not seem like something that is happening.
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
21hr ago
I mean the objection is that no one could remain a public figure after suggesting I want to “end” any group other than whites. If he’d been talking about “ending Jewishness” or “ending blackness” or “ending femininity” he’d have been fired rather publicly. In fact, reading his statement he doesn’t say “I object to Jewishness, like other forms of bigotry.” He said “I object to antisemitism, like all forms of bigotry.”
If he’d worked with a group that suggested that treason to blackness is service to humanity, he would never be in a position to have anything else he said taken seriously. He’d probably be banned even on Twitter.
In the end, Iran will have nukes. They’re too large, too developed and have a relatively good academic pipeline in the hard sciences such that it’s inevitable. It might be a year, three years, five years, but they will have them.
A ground invasion of Iran by the US is impossible. The only hope for regime change is either that there’s some mass minority uprising against the Persians (very unlikely, they’re not staunch ethnic nationalists and have mollified most of the minorities quite well) or that there’s a middle-class ‘color revolution’ in Tehran and the mullahs and IRGC just kind of give up in that late stage GDR type way and melt away into the crowds (which is also extremely unlikely because they know what they have to lose).
At the same time, Iran’s near term options for retaliation are limited. They can’t shut down the strait because the Chinese will hit the roof and selectively bombing ships is a bad idea (the true shutdown scenario, as I understand it, would be mining the strait, and that’s not going to distinguish between Chinese ships and Western ones). If they bomb Saudi oilfields it will only hasten the return of Abraham Accord type stuff just when they’d achieved some diplomatic successes with the Gulf Arabs.
aardvark2
22hr ago
so Russia's favorite strategy of sending 10x people in and having 5x killed but still coming ahead on the numbers
what?
aardvark2
22hr ago
I get rejected a lot, who cares?
You get rejected at 50% rate, average man get rejected at 99% rate.
Crowstep
22hr ago
Holocaust denial censorship is best understood as part and parcel of bans on Nazi symbols. Holocaust deniers aren't disinterested historians searching for truth. They're Jew-haters who are threatened by the idea of a genocide of Jews because it undermines their beliefs that Jews rule the world.
Fortunately, I live in a country which bans neither Holocaust denial (our vibrant Muslim underclass are very grateful) nor Nazi symbolism. The Holocaust deniers have failed to win in the free marketplace of ideas because they are wrong (and motivated by transparent ethnic animosity), not because the government won't let them post on the internet.
aardvark2
22hr ago
In other instances, (gynephile) trans men reported that they found dating as a man was a lot harder.
without having to worry if they’re in the <5% that’s attracted to you
do you realize that this is exactly how women see average man? median woman considers median man repulsive. This is only advantage for cishet males who are in top 5-10% and/or in low population density. Homosexuals have had their solutions to dating which serve average gay in big cities better than average heterosexual.
you can just follow a preset script
"script" used to be, now it's gone along with arranged marriages.
Crowstep
22hr ago
I have literally personally spoken to a Holocaust survivor who was in a death camp as a girl. I believe her (and the entirety of the historical field) over internet jew-haters.
2rafa
22hr ago
The Israelis are still a big part of the western internet it would be impossible to hide if many thousands of Israeli civilians had died in Iranian strikes.
Crowstep
22hr ago
I'm not sure what you're saying. Are you suggesting that I need to personally know doctors, scientists and scientifically literate people to believe that vaccines work?
2rafa
22hr ago
As a whole not really, it can still get hot, SF itself still gets a lot of fog even if it’s less than it was.
But slightly inland in Silicon Valley proper yeah, the ultra expensive places like Atherton, Woodside around Redwood probably have a close to ideal climate-weather combination.
It’s not perfect, though. That honor goes to San Diego.
Crowstep
22hr ago
Contracting and then passing on COVID to my older immuno-suppressed relatives, for whom the vaccine doesn't provide 100% protection. And since the way we ultimately defeated the virus was by achieving herd immunity, me getting a vaccine contributes to that, rather than free-riding as anti-vaxxers did.
Jiro
22hr ago
He would simply point out that there is no example in history, with the exception of the few brief periods in which Israel has existed as an insular sovereign political entity, in which Jewish people have had the power to openly privilege themselves as a dominant racial group at the expense of other groups. Whereas there was a period of several centuries wherein white people — conscious of their whiteness and the way it made them different/better than other people — had both the means and the willpower to travel around the world establishing states in which they were made the supreme/privileged race and others were treated as less-than as a result.
And even people who weren't white nationalists could look at that and say "motte and bailey".
He can claim that abolishing whiteness is a technical term that doesn't imply any racial hostility. But saying "I don't really mean X" when there are plenty of people in your coalition who do mean X is indistinguishable from giving them cover and encouraging them even if you pinky swear that that isn't really what you mean.
His argument is that the independence of US territories is unconstitutional because the Constitution denies some powers to the states and independence implies granting those powers, and because the Constitution applies to the states and making them independent denies the inhabitants their constitutional rights.
The former argument should fail because the Constitution actually says "state" and territories that are granted independence are not states. The latter argument wouldn't apply to the Phillippines because the inhabitants were not US citizens and not born in the US. He just handwaved away the Insular Cases and he claimed the inhabitants of the Phillippines were born in the US, which wasn't true.
Note that the argument isn't actually originalism.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
23hr ago
People exclaiming loudly about how dangerous this is while also campaigning for increasing escalation in Ukraine against an actual nuclear adversary are not serious people.
I'm not that plugged in to the American commentary, so I might have missed something, but are there people doing that? I agree it sounds rather schizophrenic.
functor
23hr ago
Invading their neighbours three times, attacking Iran, backing all sorts of terrorist groups in Iran and then bombing for over a week seems to be the best way to convince them to get nukes. The best way to convince a country not to get nukes is to not be hyper aggressive towards them.
AnonymousActuary
23hr ago
I would be shocked if this results in boots in the ground. Like with Soleimani, seems like gamble that stops with the air strikes (plus whatever Israel is up to).
People exclaiming loudly about how dangerous this is while also campaigning for increasing escalation in Ukraine against an actual nuclear adversary are not serious people.
I'm highly against more foreign intervention but this seems fine to me. A nuclear Iran seems to be very bad in very obvious ways.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
23hr ago
Trump has bombed Iran's nuclear sites, using B2 bombers dropping 30,000-pound massive ordinance penetrators. All aircraft have successfully cleared Iranian airspace, and Trump is claiming that all three nuclear sites were wiped out. No word that I've seen of a counter-attack from Iran, as yet.
AOC has concluded that a president ordering an airstrike without congressional approval is grounds for impeachment. Fetterman thinks it was the right move. Both are, I suppose, on brand.
My feelings are mixed. I absolutely do not want us signing up for another two decades of invading and inviting the middle east, and of all the places I'd pick with a gun to my head, Iran would be dead last. I do not think our military is prepared for a serious conflict at the moment, because I think there's a pretty good likelihood that a lot of our equipment became suddenly obsolete two or three years ago, and also because I'm beginning to strongly suspect that World War 3 has already started and we've all just just been a bit slow catching on. That said, I am really not a fan of Iran, and while I could be persuaded to gamble on Iran actually acquiring nukes, it's still a hell of a gamble, and the Israelis wiping Iran's air defense grid made this about the cheapest alternative imaginable. I have zero confidence that diplomacy was ever going to work; it's pretty clear to me that Iran wanted nukes, and that in the best case this would result in considerable proliferation and upheaval. Now, assuming the strikes worked, that issue appears to be off the table for the short and medium terms. That... seems like a good thing? Maybe?
I'm hoping what appears to me to be fairly intense pressure to avoid an actual invasion keeps American boots of Iranian soil. As with zorching an Iranian general in Iraq during Trump's first term, this seems like a fairly reasonable gamble, but if we get another forever war out of this, that would be unmitigated disaster.
Tree
23hr ago
Same thing. They soothe parents who panic and hold the hand of leucemics.
It’s the hansonian argument about doctors being more about showing people care than producing a substantial increase in qaly. And the background modern increase in qaly caused by clean water, vaccines, antibiotics, which you don’t need all those doctors for.
The elites of the USA (who are often to be said to be captured by the left) are pro-Ukraine, pro-Israel, though. A substantial fringe of academics and student protestors doesn't change that.
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