I don't think that calling people out for these tactics is virtue signaling. On Ukraine I've given no "virtue signals" that if you don't support X position on Ukraine you aren't a good person. Some positions it's obvious that if you support Putin you are likely to not get much love here, but still.... AT LEAST THAT'S A POSITION. In this case, I'm calling out those like Ghost who are vaguely insinuating a position without actually taking a position and wanting a gold star for their position while positioning themselves for snarking at other people's stupidity for the position they took while they actually never took anyone. Again... not calling him a Russian troll, but there is a DIRECT LINE to people like Tucker & Tulsi who do the same thing with this topic of vague "Non-Interventionalist" position which drives me nuts that they get away with. "Non-Interventionalist" isn't a position. Even Switzerland cannot claim true "non-interventionalist" stance. You have a position of power in the world then you always have areas where you have to intervene and when you don't intervene in certain situations YOU ARE INTERVENING to influence in another direction. In the US' case you could be "acting" as a non-interventionalist way by doing nothing but your doing nothing means you are buying Russian oil which is directly paying for bombs that kill holocaust survivors and pregnant women. You are never just sitting on the sidelines doing nothing when you are a country with any relevant power in the world. I don't think it's too much to ask to give specifics on what you are wanting or not wanting your political leaders to actually do in any situation. I also think it's unfair to compare someone like myself to what was going on with the chest beating after 9/11 and in the early days of Iraq. I've NEVER ONCE argued that we should be going to war directly with Russia. I don't think that's a good idea at all, and I'm glad we have some adults over at the White House. Sorry for the rant but I have to step in here and say that I don't think that take on what I was saying is entirely accurate.
So you don't want us to be NATO or have pacific alliances against China? You just seem to have an naïve worldview, like things beyond our shores don't affect us. Nature abhors a vacuum.
Fair enough. "Sounds like..." isn't a direct accusation, so my bad. From personal experience, it does make the other party defensive. AFAIK "non-interventionalist" means an negligible amount of capital or soft power is spent. So the West buying oil from them like it's the Obama years would be "non-interventionalist"...though to many others, it'd be appeasement. Regarding my initial claim of virtue signalling: It's very difficult to properly weigh these words while acknowledging the sheer gravity of the situation. Just like how some Cons complain Biden is both doing too little and too much. I genuinely don't know what grounds lie where both sides communicate without attaching that emotion. Not picking on you in particular. It just strikes me as an observation to think about with the internet and these discussions in particular.
He's touched in the head alright...guy has some serious issues but this is the Ukraine thread so I'll leave it be.
Sanctions with special characteristics... The western elite is preventing us from going after the assets of Russia’s hyper-rich Why has no progress been made on an international financial registry? One simple reason: wealthy westerners don’t want one In Europe and the United States, everything is done to distinguish useful and deserving western “entrepreneurs” from harmful and parasitic Russian, Chinese, Indian or African “oligarchs”. But the truth is that they have much in common. In particular, the immense prosperity of multimillionaires on all continents since the 1980s and 90s can be explained to a large extent by the same factors, and in particular by the favours and privileges granted to them.
that dude standing straight up to fire the RL, while his mates are crouching around him is interesting.
To be honest, provoking a response was my point because if you just engage in debate based without piercing through the games actually would just reinforce the debate tactic. Does it inject too much emotion… maybe but I think we are at a point where it needs to be shown that you can’t use the political gameplay you see on FoxNews and have zero accountability for what you are saying. On FoxNews, Tulsi Gabbard can get interviewed and never have a question followed up on. In real life, I get to tell my crazy uncle “tell me what you actually talking about” and you look like an idiot if you obviously don’t know what you’re talking about. On the point about interventionism, you actually laid out a position and case point which is what im trying to make sure people are laying out instead of getting away with the Tulsi Gabbard stance of using a phrase to mean whatever she wants it to mean after she hears the initial rebuddle in order to portray the other person she’s arguing against in the most negative way possible. As we continue to figure out how to talk to each other in this new hyper propaganda atmosphere I think it’s a good thing to work our debate muscles out so we don’t turn out to have a real life CNN debate panel with our friends and family. It’s a diatribe on my part I know but I can’t stand the trend to increasingly teach people these soft skills that just teach people how to “own” each other instead of just having interesting dialog.
Your post didn't offend me. I'm just giving out my opinion. Carlson literally rooted for Putin on his shows and repeated Putin's propaganda (biolab, Ukraine corruption, Ukraine run by Nazi, and so on). There might be one or two on this board that goes that far, I don't really remember, but not SG. Right, phrases don't mean much without explaining. I would just suggest asking questions directly to get more information and if none is provided, just move on.
We knew that it was a multipolar World already before Russia invaded. The PRC already had built up alliances and influence and was expanding it's influence greatly through Belt and Road. Russia while not having the same economic might still had military might that it was using in the Middle East. It's natural resources also kept it very relevant to Europe. What this war clarifies though is that Russia isn't that much of a pole anymore. It's shown that it's military isn't as strong as many thought and is hemorrhaging badly. Those North Atlantic Globalist elites you keep on talking about are stronger and more united than ever. Even if Putin wins this will likely lead to NATO increasing it's membership rather than decreasing. Russia might constitute some of it's old land empire but will be dealing with insurgencies for decades, a greatly weakened economy and will have to go hat in hand to the PRC if they want to be part of an alliance in opposition to the West. If anything this war is making it more likely we go back to a unipolar World.
That was a surprisingly good first paragraph you wrote above. Well done! But the second and third paragraph were, sadly, not surprising at all. We will see how this winds up. If you are right, this will drag on for a long time. I suspect it will wrap up somewhat more quickly.
I'm not saying this is good US policy or bad US policy. it's obviously US policy. US policy is bad for the Ukrainians, however.
