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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 27, 2024

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We should fight this war because this is at least the third time Russia has annexed or "made independent" territory from another nation under Putin. If something works, why would you not do it again?

The fallacy I keep seeing in this and other similar conversations is the assumption that if Ukraine surrenders everything stops. I don't believe that option is even on the table unless Putin is made to regret committing to this. Hell, Putin's terms for Ukraine's surrender is to pretty much dismantle their military.

At Putin's current rate of expansion, it will take him like five hundred years to conquer Europe. I'm not that worried, despite the hysterical rhetoric about him being a second Hitler on the verge of sweeping all of Europe.

Does someone have to operate on the scale of Hitler to be be compared to Hitler?

More importantly, buried in that statement is the implication that you don't really care if Putin repeats his behavior so long as it's under a certain threshold. Do I have that right?

How about the part where the ostensible reason to surrender is to cut losses and return to peace. If Putin reneges on that and attacks again then there was no reason to surrender in the first place. Ukraine is back in the exact same position but worse since Russia will have rebuilt and put in terms of surrender conditions that would prevent them from doing the same. The U.S. is in the same position where their goal of nuclear de-escalation is threatened because a dictator has proven that if you have nukes you can do whatever you want, and the only defense is having your own nukes. Putin would have every incentive to repeat this, since he was already inclined to so and previously rewarded for it.

No. And you don't need to operate on the scale of Donald Rumsfeld for me to point out that this is the exact same tactic he used to bully people into supporting the Iraq War.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-aug-30-na-legion30-story.html