BraveSirZaphod @ BraveSirZaphod @kbin.social

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2 yr. ago

Incumbency is such a massive advantage that willingly throwing it away, especially when the stakes are as incredibly high as they are right now, is absolutely something that can be legitimately criticized.

And let's not pretend that this is some altruistic act. He'll get on some talk shows, publish a book, and run for a Senate seat when one opens up. Maybe he genuinely believes his own bullshit, but it's hard to not imagine that, on some level, he knows what he's doing here.

This doesn't get described as the single most intractable geopolitical conflict in the world for nothing!

You're absolutely correct that it's an extremely complicated topic with legitimate grievances on all side. If you want to learn more, I'd just suggest that you make sure to get exposed to narratives on both sides and be retain a healthy amount of skepticism towards any news that comes out and towards anyone that attempts to "simplify" the conflict by stating that their side is unequivocally right. There are some people - on both sides, I might mention - that will say that any attempt to draw attention to the nuance and complexity is simply a conspiratorial effort to erase their obviously correct narrative, and this is obviously not done in good faith. Whenever someone is talking about the conflict (myself included!), always ask yourself what's actually motivating them to say what they're saying and try to figure out if they're legitimately attempting to observe events as they happen and describe them or if they're simply trying to push an agenda that they've already decided is correct.

Also, if I'm correct that you don't live in the region and it doesn't meaningfully affect you, just remember that you don't actually have to have an opinion on every geopolitical conflict in the world! There's much much more to life than politics, and you'll actually lose your mind if you try to learn every detail of every conflict in the world. There's nothing wrong with simply hoping that all sides manage to find a peaceful solution and moving on to touching grass or whatever it is normal people do.

Given that essentially all climate emissions are related to the economy in one way or another, it might be worth giving it some attention.

So, over or under on him lasting 1 Mooch?

Er, yes it will.

Modern urban warfare is an absolute bloodbath for all involved. The battle of Fallujah in Iraq in 2004 was extremely violent and led to many deaths on all sides.

That would probably fall under explicit discrimination on the basis of religion, which is going to have more legal protections, though I'm very much not a lawyer.

I'd say the basic position, without trying to start a big argument, is that regardless of historical grievances, Israel exists and is not going anywhere. That doesn't mean that its oppression of Palestinians is justified or that settlements in the West Bank aren't counterproductive to peace, or that they haven't committed terrible atrocities.

Be that as it may, none of that can ever excuse what happened three weeks ago. No amount of legitimate grievances can ever justify intentionally slaughtering hundreds of innocent civilians, and given that those attacks were explicitly organized by Hamas, who has the violent destruction of Israel and murder of its citizens as an explicit goal, Israel is justified in eliminating Hamas from ever being a threat again.

That does not mean that they have the right to just flatten Gaza and murder all its residents, which, it needs to be said, it easily could do and is not doing. However, while they certainly could be doing much more to protect the lives of Gazan citizens and should be criticized for not doing so, their fundamental aim of eliminating Hamas and forcibly de-militarizing Gaza is legitimately justified.

Ultimately, a two-state solution is the only realistic path towards some kind of peaceful co-existence, and that is impossible when you have a party like Hamas that is expressly opposed to the existence of Israel and takes action to indiscriminately murder its citizens. Again, that doesn't mean that Israel hasn't also done objectionable things as well, but what it hasn't ever done is drive the IDF into Palestinian villages and start shooting every man, women, and child they see.

Essentially, I support actions that make peace more possible and oppose those that don't. There is no world in which Hamas is part of a productive path to peace. Similarly, I'm also extremely opposed to West Bank settlements and have next to no sympathy for the people that voluntarily move there. They only really began in earnest once Likud gained power, and Likud is also a party that has no real interest in moving towards peace (though thankfully, they're absolutely toast once the fighting is over). However, the lands that were attacked three weeks ago have never been claimed by any Palestinian government and have been recognized as Israel's since 1949.

That's roughly the general liberal pro-Israel approach I see. Likud is bad and needs to go. Israel does a lot of bad things and needs new government (a sentiment shared by a good half of Israelis). Hamas are literal terrorists and absolutely have to go. If you have any genuine questions to ask that isn't just accusing me of being a genocidal maniac, I'm all ears.

You have to realize that this is not a terribly convincing statement, right?

Don’t see the point of looking at your face when you probably should’ve texted in the first place.

You said you don't see the point of looking at someone's face, so I gave a reason why people might actually rather like that. I don't really see the hostility there, but you do you.

More importantly, the main thing is that no non-citizen has an inherent right to American citizenship or a visa. An immigrant won't be arrested for posting anti-American content, but they're not owed the privilege of an invitation either.

To give you an actual answer, interpreting the 2nd Amendment as granting an essentially unrestricted right to firearm ownership to all Americans is a very recent concept, only being solidly established in 2008 in the SCOTUS case of DC v. Heller, which struck down a firearms regulation law dating from 1975. Justice Stevens called it "unquestionably the most clearly incorrect decision that the Supreme Court announced during my tenure on the bench", and suggested that a constitutional amendment should be enacted to explicitly overturn it.

That, and Republicans have clearly established that precedent means essentially nothing now, so appointing a SCOTUS majority that favors some amount of gun regulation is also a completely valid path forward, and probably more reasonable than an amendment.

So, the realistic option is to keep Republicans out of the presidency for a good decade or so. It's not fast, but Republicans persisted for nearly 50 years to overturn Roe v. Wade. It's doable.

I video call with my boyfriend every few days or so, and since we're on opposite ends of the Atlantic Ocean, it's a really nice way to connect on a deeper level than a basic audio call.

It's very well established that a massive amount of human communication happens through faces. Is it really that hard to imagine that people might like seeing the face of a person they care about?

I think a lot more of them are honest believers than chess masters than you'd think.

Yeah, every Republican from a Biden-voting district just signed their own death warrant.

I'll try to hold back my tears.

To paraphrase how someone some GOP Representative apparently described it:

"We have to find someone smart enough to get the votes and stupid enough to want the job".

It's difficult to square that with posting a headline that only mentions "humane treatment".

I'm sure you're smart enough to know that media bias can be expressed in a wide variety of ways. Hell, a lot of Fox News' reporting is itself perfectly fine, but then it'll be editorialized into painting an extremely sensational picture.

If Hamas had the same capabilities, there would likely be less violence because Israel would not be able to oppress, occupy, or encroach on Palestinian life

With all respect, this take is so detached from reality that I am literally incapable of responding to it.

The IDF does not routinely storm Palestinian villages and shoot every man, woman, and child they see, and you know that.

Could they do a lot more to protect civilians during military operations, and should the be criticized for that? Absolutely. But if Hamas had the capabilities that the IDF has, Tel Aviv would be crater. There is a very meaningful difference between the groups and equating them is sheer intellectual laziness.

Respectfully, I don't know if, er, electronicintifada.net is exactly a good source for unbiased news on this topic. I wonder what the article says...

Israeli propaganda officials are reportedly upset...

It truly is a work of science to take "some government propaganda officials are reportedly upset" and somehow turn that into "The entire state of Israel is FURIOUS...".

Almost as if the headline was engineered to reinforce pre-existing biases or something.

Maybe calling the entire population of a country Nazis is going a bit too far.

I'm gonna take a wild guess that you would say that it is wrong to call all Palestinians terrorists, no? It should really be noted that this government is not remotely representative of Israeli opinion, especially now.