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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   29443 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023

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BTW, as for Bush, if we are counting lives lost and lost saved, he is probably on the positive side of the ledger.

American troops die for Israel alone in the desert, thousands of miles from their families, but hey Bush saved some Africans from AIDs so it all balances out.

Well they banned you for a bit so I suppose I won't get an answer right away, but if you're game, I'd dearly like to hear an actual rigorous definition of exactly which wars America has fought in the last few decades were "for Israel" and why. Near as I can tell, none of them were suggested or approved by the Israeli state, and none were particularly beneficial to it.

I think I could make a better argument that the US in it's war-making has been rather hostile to Israel. Israel was not permitted to join in on Operation Desert Storm. Saddam launched some SCUDs at them anyways in hopes of provoking a direct response. The US forbade Israel from responding directly and attempted to stop Saddam themselves.

Well, the article says 25 million. If so, it does indeed balance out. Especially since I would bet that some of those dead troops were Jewish, while none of those Africans were. By the only metric you seem to care about, Bush should be your favorite person!

  • -10

By the only metric you seem to care about

In context this appears to be, at best, an incredibly hostile non sequitur. Too antagonistic, don't do this please.

In broader context, at least what I saw from that person until I blocked them, it appears to be on the mark. If not to a particular comment, then definitely to the particular personality.

I apologize, but to be clear it was a reference to dude's constant postings about "the Jooz." Edit: And, his reference to "dying for Isreal." So not much of a non sequitur.

I apologize, but to be clear it was a reference to dude's constant postings about "the Jooz." Edit: And, his reference to "dying for Isreal." So not much of a non sequitur.

Oh, your meaning was clear. But I can't ban a user for single-issue posting if everyone else keeps trotting out that user's hobby-horse for them. Israel is a foreign power. Treating it as a synonym for "Judaism" is something its advocates and critics do interchangeably, depending on the point they want to make. That kind of disclarity is objectionable, here, but so is making uncharitable assumptions about which meaning is intended.

The user to whom you were responding is not the most artful user we have, in terms of disingenuously cloaking objectionable insinuations in plausibly neutral language. But that does not excuse uncharitable jabs from other, similarly artful posters.

We want, in short, for people to have room to change their minds, however minutely. Comments like yours discourage that.

It balances out if you are mentally deranged- maybe you would be happy to trade your child or friend or neighbor being killed for no good reason, so long as a random African is saved from AIDs, then you can consider "the ledger balanced". That's due to a derangement in your value system and not mine.

That's due to a derangement in your value system

You are free to explore value disagreement, but dropping to accusations of derangement is too much heat. I might let it slide if it were some passionate rhetoric in the midst of an effort post, but this comment seems to just be pure heat. Three day ban.

Be that as it may, OP was clearly complaining not just about the loss of American lives but rather the loss of the lives of non-Americans. Hence his reference to Nixon bombing Laos, Obama wrecking Libya, and the "rivers of blood' on Bush's hands, only some of it American. Hence, my reference to foreign lives saved.

That's due to a derangement in your value system and not mine.

This seems to imply that it ethically "deranged" for a US President to endanger the life of a even a single serviceman in order to save the life of non-American civilian children. So, it is unethical to stop a genocide, if it puts American servicemen at risk. It was unethical to evacuate Vietnamese from Saigon. Heck, I guess Hugh Thomson was unethical as well; look at the American lives he endangered.

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