This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
It is a genocide. First off 80% of the population of Gaza are there because they or their ancestors were forced into Gaza and have been locked in Gaza ever since.
Israel has denied them food, bombed them at an astounding rate and murdered tens of thousands of people. Judaism is a religion which holidays are celebrations of Bronze age genocides of neighbouring tribes and that rhetoric has been used liberally during the war. While Israeli soldiers have been committing war crimes on an industrial scale they haven't been shy about referencing their historic genoicides.
Israel has shown that it is incapable of of taking an area the size of a city against an enemy with no logistics. The war started with Israeli soldiers crying in a bathroom of a well fortified position while getting smoked by men in sandals, and ended with Israelis being unable to fight. Israel has ended up deeply divided and is in a permanent state of crisis. Israels situation today is similar to the situation of French Algeria in the 50s or Vietnam in the 60s. They have a population that hates them and the cost of containing it is too great. Israel isn't a sustainable state and the Arabs know that they can outlast them as long as they sustain the pressure.
Europeans have fought battles on battle fields for thousands of years with a strong aversion to harming civilians, punishing prisoners and acting in a non-chivalrous manor. The cowardly and brutal fighting style has once again reminded Europeans why the jewish mindset is fundamentally incompatible with the western mindset and how the Semitic/MENA culture simply is not anything we want to deal with. Israel's popularity has plummeted in the west, especially among younger people who consume their news through social media, which is less controlled by the ADL. The same Jewish institutions who attack westerners for the slightest ethnocentrism have the chutzpah to try to justify bombing the Christians in the middle east so they can build summer homes on the west bank.
If you ran the IDF, how would you fight Hamas in a chivalrous manner? The Israelis would like nothing more than to fight Hamas ”honorably”, mano a mano, on the open battlefield, with civilians safely miles away in refugee camps run by the Red Cross. Alas, that is not Hamas’ preferred strategy.
You can’t honourably duel a guy who refuses to duel you.
I have read that there are voices within Israel itself which are critical of the current approach because it is, in a sense, cowardly: It seeks not to maximize the effectiveness of the operation, but rather to minimize the Israeli casualties, relying too much on airstrikes and not enough on outright occupation.
Don't have enough knowledge of either Israeli politics or warfare to know if the claim is real or true, though.
More options
Context Copy link
First off, occupying a large population that fundamentally doesn't have anything to gain from the current setup is futile. Trying to force the Palestinians to accept only having a tiny fraction of the land with an awful arrangement won't work. The only times counter insurgency has worked, it has been with political concessions.
The arrangement is awful for gazans largely because they dump resources into poking the bear next door instead of developing themselves.
Israel explicitly forbids them from developing themselves, to the point of making it illegal to harvest rainwater because they consider the rain to be their property.
I don't know how they can be forbidden from developing themselves when they got $4B in aid between 2014 to 2020 for things like schools, infrastructure, hospitals, etc etc.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Why should they lay flat and accept defeat? They were pushed into a tiny area after their villages were destroyed and many of their kin were killed. They are put in a small camp with awful natural resources and have constantly been attacked by the Israelis who have bombed them repeatedly since start. Israel started the war when they attacked the Al Aqsa mosque and had already taken thousands of Palestinian hostages.
If you don't want to get smoked while crying in a bathroom in an IDF outpost don't move to Palestine and don't join the IDF. They have no reason to be there and have only themselves to blame for the constant headache which they will face.
Jarvis pull up the gazan death toll in the latest war
I again remind you that Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza, evicted settlers, exhumed Jewish graves, and in return gazans elected Hamas to eradicate the Jews.
Could say the same thing about you "crying" about gazans "getting smoked" - don't shoot rockets at the militarily superior neighbor and they won't kill you. As simple as that, yet you only apply the standard one way.
Lower than what the Vietnamese, Algerians or Afghans paid.
So they took all the land except for a tiny sliver with minimal natural resources and no connection to the west bank and then put it under blockade.
Because there is absolutely no reason for the IDF to be there. The idea that a God gave them the land in exchange for parts of babies penises is absurd as a legal argument. The Palestinians did not start the fight, people who managed to get all of Eastern Europe to hate them and then decided to move to Palestine started the conflict.
I'm pretty sure there were Jews in the middle-east (and in Israel specifically) long before Eastern Europe hated the Jews.
More options
Context Copy link
This is a dead giveaway that you're actually attacking Jews, not Israel.
(Also, Muslims practice circumcision as well, so you could say the same thing about Gazans.)
Are you serious? Are you applying any charity to that comment at all? There's very obviously a religious factor to the existence of Israel and their claim to the land and they will proudly tell you that they are taking this land because God promised it to them. I don't think there's any point to litigating this kind of argument on the motte because Israel and Jewishness are so tightly linked that the only point to saying something like this is to uncharitably attack somebody.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Really? Because I don't recall anyone griping about a Vietnamese "genocide". And none of those conflicts were existential for the other side. But you already know this, because you've been told this repeatedly and failed to address it.
Singapore also has no natural resources. Gaza has access to the ocean. The blockade is entirely a result of Gazan aggression after the unilateral withdrawal.
Possession is nine tenths of the law. There's no reason for Hamas to be outside Gaza. Your argument about Jews getting killed is entirely based on force and who is stronger. If we're talking who is stronger, then let's see who's stronger. It's beyond ridiculous to be "might makes right" when it comes to Hamas shooting up Israeli towns and then gnashing your teeth about the eternal Jew when Israel bombs Gaza. Pick an argument, you don't get both.
If you think it's Jews' own fault when they get killed then what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
When the enemy hates you for deep-set religious and ethnic reasons, what concessions are possible? This isn’t Northern Ireland, where the end of the troubles coincided magnificently with both the Protestants and (especially) Catholics embracing secularism, with extreme economic growth in the Republic etc. The only concession the enemy will accept is a shared state, which all but the most optimistic critics accept means becoming both (a) just another third world shithole and (b) jewish subjugation and eventually expulsion in alliance with other Arab states and groups.
The analogy to the troubles is somewhat limited, but there is one part that is very true. The troubles largely stopped following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the flow of communist money to IRA and other terrorist groups.
If the west cut off aid and let Israel cut off the Iranian pipelines to their hearts' content, Gaza would change quite rapidly methinks.
Unfortunately, the troubles stopped after cutting off American funding to the IRA.
Tony Blair’s ambassador to America describes in his biography how much of his job was persuading influential Irish-Americans that passing money to the IRA was funding Irish-on-Irish atrocities rather than being a convenient way of giving Britain the finger and keeping in touch with the old country.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The area is majority Palestinian. You can't have an area where the majority of people are second class citizens in their own home and nobody except Israel wants a massive refugee crisis. This is question for the people who thought building a jewish state in a densely populate area to answer.
Why not? That is the way it is in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arab countries today, and in a wider sense that is the way things have been for various native and non-native populations for states that have lasted centuries countless times across human history.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Right, once the religion died down, so did the ethnic strife, so religion was the dominant factor. I don’t think arab christians care all that much about which worldly ruler owns Jerusalem. It’s 99% religious-islamic reasons. Only islam provides palestinians with generational deep hatred through all the defeats and humiliations, and against every rational consideration. Even SS and functor would at some point, after yet another lost battle, surrender, lay down their arms and let their children live in peace and comfort.
Therefore Israel’s best chance is to destroy or weaken Islam before it destoys Israel. If the saudis can export wahhabism, the jews with their very particular skills can get apostasy going. Of course this eminently justified and thoroughly beneficial endeavour will be viewed in a negative light by morally confused people, but then there is nothing the jews could do that would not be.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The Eastern Front of WWII concluded less than 80 years ago… like c’mon!
And how like are Hitler and Stalin today?
Not too bad.
More options
Context Copy link
Whatever the reputation of their leaders today, clearly many rank-and-file Soviets and Nazis of the time also weren't averse to harming civilians, punishing prisoners and acting in a non-chivalrous manner...
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Since densely populated urban centres have become commonplace, how many Europeans have comported themselves in such a manner in wartime? There was plenty of deliberate bombing of exclusively civilian targets on the part of the Allies in the second world war, for example (Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki). Likewise the deliberate bombing of villages by Americans in the Vietnam war. Evidently this "cowardly and brutal" fighting style is not unique to Jews.
And that's not even addressing the obvious point, that civilian collateral damage is literally unavoidable when engaged in a conflict with a belligerent which employs guerrilla warfare tactics and uses civilians as human shields, fully anticipating - even hoping - that they will get caught in the crossfire.
Compare the British in Northern Ireland with the videos of IDF soldiers larping biblical genocides. The British stabilized northern ireland and effectively pacified it. They were not mass killing tens of thousands of civilians in a year, and Belfast isn't a smoking heap of rubble. Israeli politicians openly talk about moving large numbers of Palestinians to Europe and other countries in the middle east while blowing up all civilian infrastructure. The level of brutality is unusually high and gets a level of support from the leadership that is unprecedented.
You mean the British soldiers who opened fire on a peaceful protest completely without provocation, killing fourteen people (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_(1972)) ? The British security apparatus which provided almost all of the resources to a paramilitary organisation on one side of the conflict, while British soldiers had an explicit policy of shooting members of opposing paramilitary organisations dead on sight? The British security apparatus which urged the members of a separate paramilitary organisation to assassinate the Irish Taoiseach?
"The British soldiers brought peace to Northern Ireland" is certainly not my understanding of the period 1960-98, some of which I lived through. I accept that the Troubles was a much less brutal conflict than the Israel-Palestine war (although I wouldn't say Israel is solely to blame for said brutality), but the British military and security apparatus deserve a great deal of the blame for needlessly escalating it.
14 deaths in Northern Ireland becomes so famous people know the story 53 years later. Israel kills hundreds of people a year during a peaceful year and tens of thousands during the war. The Gazan war had as many dead in a month as the troubles had in 30 years. It was about 360x more bloody.
The IRA was also significantly less bloodthirsty than Hamas, their goal was to maintain a low level insurgency until Britain ceded the six counties to the Republic of Ireland. Hamas by contrast wants the Jews wiped out.
More options
Context Copy link
You're also failing to take population into account. The current combined population of Israel, Palestine and the West Bank is about 15 million people. In 1948 it was about 2.2 million. Let's average that and say the combined population is 8.6 million in the period under discussion.
The Troubles were almost entirely confined to Northern Ireland, only occasionally spilling over into the Republic and the British mainland. To keep things fair, I'll exclude any deaths which took place outside of Northern Ireland, per this table. The population of Northern Ireland was 1.5 million in 1966 (when the Troubles began) and 1.7 million in 1998 (Good Friday Agreement), giving us an average of 1.6 million for the period.
3,272 deaths against a population of 1.6 million = 214 deaths/100k
100,000* deaths against a population of 8.6 million = 1,221 deaths/100k
So the Israel-Palestine conflict is only 6 times as bloody as the Troubles, not 360 times. And that isn't even taking timescale into account, as the Troubles went on for 32 years while the Israel-Palestine conflict has been ongoing in one form or another since 1948.
3,532 deaths against a population of 1.6 million, over 32 years = 7.2 deaths/100k/year
100,000* deaths against a population of 8.6 million, over 77 years = 16 deaths/100k/year
So only slightly more than twice as bloody as the Troubles.
*Roughly.
More options
Context Copy link
But by the same token, I'll note that Hamas claimed nearly half as many lives in one day (7/10) as the Troubles did in 30 years, almost all of whom were civilians. It seems to me that you're being rather selective in your condemnation.
First off the British military wasn't incompetent enough to get pwnd that hard. The Israelis were defending military outposts with hundreds of soldiers and got owned by men in sandals running over an open field. Of the 797 civilian casualties a large portion was killed by Israel blasting the area and preferring to kill civilians rather than letting them be taken prisoners. That is a civilian to military casualty rate well below two civilians killed by Hamas for every IDF soldier.
What is your basis for the claim that a large portion of those casualties were killed by the IDF?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
None of these cities were purely civilian targets, particularly if you think military industry is fair game. Hiroshima was a Japanese army headquarters, and at Nagasaki the bomb detonated between an arsenal and an arms factory, while the Doolittle raid hit an aircraft carrier and various industrial targets (and also civilian buildings, but AFAIK the Raiders were not instructed to target e.g. schools). The Dresden bombing was planned to hit German industrial centers and a railroad yard - there were apparently some ancillary military assets there (such as barracks) but the real target was the military industrial center that was believed to be there.
Now, that being said, I tend to agree with your overall point - there's certainly a case to be made that these bombing raids were not proportionate and therefore not justified under the laws of war. But there were certainly military or at a minimum industrial targets relevant to the war effort at all four of those locations.
So I guess the tunnel network under Gaza makes every inch of it a legitimate target for earthquake and bunker buster bombs.
Any strike on the tunnel network under Gaza would need to apply the principle of proportionality – same as the Allied bombing strikes on Japan. International law bans
I am not a lawyer but I think that in practice what this means is that if striking the tunnel network was sufficiently necessary to achieve Israel's goals, and it was also entirely colocated with orphanages, hospitals, and food banks, it would be justified to hit a food bank in order to strike the tunnel network. (Note also that as I understand it the Gazan combatants would have some duty to not entirely colocate their military equipment with orphanages, hospitals, and food banks.)
But on the other hand if Israel had the ability to strike the tunnel network and gain the same military advantage without striking an orphanage, hospital or food bank, they should take that option instead of the one that could reasonably be expected to kill civilians.
I have never seen a realistic suggestion for how to militarily destroy the tunnels without hitting said food bank etc. I've seen many suggestions by people who have watched too many Hollywood movies, though.
I don't have a strong opinion on the tunnel network, but it seemed like a helpful example to demonstrate proportionality.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
This is also true for Gaza.
Yes, I agree – Gaza, as a whole, is not a purely civilian target. This, at least in my estimation, does not mean that carpet bombing it is necessarily a proportionate response – particularly given that modern precision-guided weaponry and the lack of Gazan air defenses means that Israel faces a different calculus than the Allies did during World War Two (and even then, from what I know, I think you could reasonably argue at least some of the Allied bombing strikes weren't justified).
Note that I am not saying the Israelis have been carpet-bombing Gaza – I do not believe that to be a correct description of their actions. Just pointing out there's a material difference at play.
This is the piece of the puzzle that I think you are missing. The bombings of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden and dozens of other strategic air raid targets are totally unjustifiable by modern standards. They fail the tests of both proportionality and distinction. Were we to be using the standards of the allies in WWII (which were still higher than the standards of the Axis) then Israel turning the Gaza strip to rubble with carpet bombing or nukes would be, if not justifiable, at least comfortably within the window of normality.
Dresden, perhaps. With Hiroshima and Nagasaki it depends on if you take into account that they won the damned war. Critics like to not count that part. If you balance Hiroshima and Nagasaki against continued conventional warfare to a conclusion, they look a lot more proportional.
Under certain very soecific conditions: Japan must give Northern Territories, Korea, South Seas Mandate, Formosa, but gets to keep Hokkaido. His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor Syowa will lose power, but will not be tried, imprisoned, let alone murdered. Japanese people will not be enslaved.
Change any of these arbitrary conditions, and surrender comes at a different time. Perhaps if guarantees to the Emperor were less doubtful, only Hiroshima would be annihilated. If Potsdam declaration mentioned the Emperor by name as a war criminal, perhaps a couple of more cities would be irradiated.
These are largely quibbles, especially when applied to Hiroshima. The point is that weighing the civilian lives lost at Hiroshima against the immediate military advantage of destroying Hiroshima's military infrastructure rather than against the actual, plausible, objective of ending the war without a full-scale invasion is unreasonable.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I wouldn't count myself as a critic of the atomic bombings. It was a war crime in a war that was war crimes from beginning to end. Was it justifiable (in the moral sense) on the basis that not dropping the bombs would have resulted in ultimately a far worse outcome for all involved? Personally, I think so. But under the modern Law of Armed Conflict, such a bombing would not even be close to passing muster.
Sure, in hindsight it probably won the war, but all military acts are designed to win the war in some sense. That does not give all actors carte blanche to do anything they want on the basis that it may just be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Ostensibly, the military infrastructure of Hiroshima was the true target of the bombing. the ~100k collateral civilian deaths caused by the bomb would certainly not be considered proportional to the military value of destroying those enemy assets.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Yes, I think you are correct. But on the other hand, modern standards for warfare are much higher due to precision weapons. As you suggest, from what I understand Allied tactics in the Second World War were not unusual when contrasted with the Axis tactics.
Mind you, this isn't necessarily a moral justification for the actions - I just think it's important to understand that our standards are and should be higher because we can be more discriminating.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
What is "proportionate" in this context? If I have 1 000 soldiers and the opponent has 10 000, then they kill 100 of mine, is it proportionate to kill 100 or 1 000 in response? Adjust as needed for civilian casualties.
From what I understand, there's no limitations in a time of war on striking enemy combatants. Although there are certainly political questions of proportionality, from what I understand under international law if I sink your rowboat you are entirely justified in sinking my aircraft carrier.
The question of proportionality kicks in when you're considering civilian collateral – so for instance you are probably not justified in nuking downtown Los Angeles to destroy a single military rowboat. But you probably would be justified in launching a conventional strike on San Diego to hit the military base there if it is calibrated to cause as few civilian casualties as possible while achieving its desired military effect.
Note that I am not a lawyer though.
Yes, that's exactly what it means. Now, how many civilian casualties are acceptable per military target is very wishy-washy, depending on the country and their situation, and for good reason! We don't want soldiers to say, "Well, per international law, if I have two civilians with me at all times (or five for two soldiers, nine for three, and scaling up), we're legally and/or doctrinaly unassailable."
It's a bad idea to impose a kill limit on your own troops
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I think that underestimates Israel on two points. First, unlike other colonial powers the people making the decisions have no where else to go. Israel is the only Jewish majority state on th3 planet. Given the last 2000 years of Jewish history, if Jews lose the country they control, and their military ability to defend themselves they fully expect a return to periodic pogroms and expulsions. That’s what their history has been in Europe. That’s a lot different from most other colonial projects done by Europeans projecting power from relative security in Europe and thus could give up on a territory without putting themselves in danger. Jews in Israel will fight to the last man and woman to protect Israel because they have no other option.
Second, Israel has the full backing of the USA. Even in the face of huge opposition, neither party could bring themselves to offer more than pious mouth noises as they give Israel full access to the American arsenal and logistical and intelligence support on the side. Trump has, if anything provided more of this support, including strong arming Jordan and Egypt into taking Palestinians into their countries. Other countries in the region don’t have that.
If Americans are so adamant about a jewish state they should give them a small plot of land. Jews have managed 2000 years without a state so it would hardly be anything new. A large portion of jews lived in the middle east without a jewish state for the past 2000 years. A jewish population in an Ottoman style empire would be return to normalacy.
Jews require constant conflict with everyone around them in order to maintain group cohesion. If they didn't want to be disliked a good start would be to stop killing large numbers of civilians. The cause of antisemitism is the type of behaviour Ben Gvir and his likes are engaging in.
Along with Vietnam and Afghanistan? Evangelical Christians who honestly believe Jesus will return if the foreskins in exchange for Israel deal is upheld is shrinking. The fact that the Jewish community is deeply antagonistic towards the Christian groups that support them doesn't help.
Man, I wish that deal was on the table. I'd take a Jewish state in the Patagonia (not the nicest part, though) every day of the week.
More options
Context Copy link
I’ve posted this before- in practice, Christian Zionism is not driven by the belief that it will bring around the rapture(or connected to American circumcision, which was a WWII-era health program). Christian Zionism is driven by the(in fairness born out by events) belief that siding against Israel will lead to bad things happening to the country that does it.
More options
Context Copy link
How do you imagine this happening? Let's say Israel collectively says "You're right, this was a bad idea, we're packing it up and dissolving the country."
Which Arab states do you imagine would take them in?
The only place they've been in constant conflict with everyone around them is Israel.
An even more ahistorical claim. At various times, the Israeli government has been substantially more conciliatory and peacenik than now, and it didn't stop y'all from hating Jews.
More options
Context Copy link
"If the world is so adamant about a Palestinian state, they should give them a small plot of land." After all, there's plenty of land outside of Gaza or the West Bank. I'm sure Israel would be happy for the Palestinians to no longer be their neighbors.
Do you think the Palestinians or surrounding Arab nations would accept this if it was actually offered?
Oh, absolutely not. That's a major part of the conflict in the region, and the point of my mirrored statement.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
There is absolutely no reason for the rest of the world to want or support a Palestinian refugee crisis. Neo con wars end up with migration crises and these need to be stopped. No more mass movements of arabs.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The Ottomans are not around any more. Nor is there any replacement; even Erdogan doesn't seem to be that ambitious.
Plus the last ottoman elites declared that pillarization was out of fashion, and so decided to murder all their minorities instead. You can’t really go lower than dead, but I think they’d have even stronger misgivings towards a newly implanted jewish minority.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I’m not convinced that Jews in Israel would give up their only Jewish state for any reason, as I said, Jewish history isn’t one of success and power and so on. Its pogroms, expulsions, culminating in a holocaust. No Israeli will give up Israel to go back to that. And I think this is behind the response to Palestinians— if they lose Israel, Jews will be back in ghettos hoping that the rest of us don’t try to hurt them again. Better to be a pariah state than risk not being a state at all.
And Kamala Harris is hardly an evangelical speaking to evangelicals. Even so, the best they could come up with contra Israel is “we fully support Israel’s right to defend itself, and at worst we’re slowing down the sale of weapons (NB, not even stopping, just slowing). That in the face of protests and arguably at the cost of her winning the election. The elites are fully on board here.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
laughs in thirty years war
Wesphalian Peace mentioned in proxy!
Occasional reminder that the Nazi's rhetorical explanation for giving up at the end of ww2 was "if this continues the devastation will approach that of the 30 years war and we don't want that"
More options
Context Copy link
Or the high time of european chivalry, the Hundred Years War.
After a battle they routinely executed all prisoners who were commoners, while the nobles were allowed to ransom their lives. One such man was King John II “the good” who was living large in captivity while France bankrupted itself to pay his ransom. At the same time, his subjects had trouble surviving the standard noble chevauchée tactic, where a small mounted force kills villagers, livestock and destroys crops, to force the rest inside protected walls, destroying the enemy’s agricultural, tax, and ultimately, population base.
But, noblesse oblige. The financial obligations of his starving people to his noble title, that is. And he was considered particularly chivalrous, as his surname alludes to. For the people of the time chivalry did not mean what functor implies, some kind of protective duty towards the weak. It meant the right etiquette for courting highborn ladies, and riding into battle like a total jackass like King John the Blind, another shining beacon of chivalry of the time, who died strapped to his horse like a useless bag of fertilizer of his own chivalrous volition.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link