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PaperclipPerfector  10d ago (text post)   35673 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 20, 2025

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Me

Do what you want in your country.

Was Mr B (or anyone else in the chat) Mexican?

In any case, it's not unusual to be scandalised about the possibility of a nation's sovereignty being so flagrantly violated (which is obviously what such an operation would do) - doubly so if the person you're speaking to feels some connection to the country itself. This isn't a criticism of the idea of the US directly intervening in such a way, which I'm too uneducated about to comment on.

Yes. I have family there through marriage. This would be pretty much the worst thing to happen in my adult life, for my country to invade the country of the other half of my family.

Why would it be? This assumes that all invasions are equally bad. Presumably your relatives are not in cartels. How would it even affect them?

That’s like saying, well your relatives aren’t in the taliban, how would a prolonged counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan even effect them?

By usual principles of implicature,

In any case, it's not unusual to be scandalised about the possibility of a nation's sovereignty being so flagrantly violated (which is obviously what such an operation would do) - doubly so if the person you're speaking to feels some connection to the country itself.

implies that sovereignty is relevant; if you agree with this, you are particularly upset because it's an invasion, not just because the cartels are being fought. But this particular invasion wouldn't be the kind of invasion that is aimed at civilians. To the extent that civlians are hurt, they'd be hurt by crackdowns on the cartels whether done by invasion or not.

Do you think citizens in Afghanistan suffered hardship during the US occupation?

Compared to what? Compared to no occupation, yes. Compared to a crackdown of similar intensity without the element of "occupation by US"? No.

'Living in a war zone is deeply unfortunate' is a general rule of thumb.

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