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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   26927 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 25, 2023

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It's only peanuts because youre comparing it to the world's most inflated and ridiculous military budget. 100 billion is more than any country other than China spends on defense. Also both the US and China are rather larger countries than Ukraine with more people to defend.

2023 population estimates for Ukraine are around 36million. The US alone has spent 113 billion according to cnn 6 days ago.

Per Ukrainian we're spending 3138 USD

2023 population estimates for the US is 332 million. Budget is 773 billion a year.

Per American we spend 2328 USD x 1.5 since the war has been more than a year. 3492. We're spending nearly as much per Ukrainian as we are per US citizen, and realistically most of that budget isn't defending us, it's supporting imperialist projects abroad.

100 billion is more than any country other than China spends on defense. Also both the US and China are rather larger countries than Ukraine with more people to defend.

They are also both rather notably not at war currently. It is entirely reasonable for the defense budget of a country currently in a total war to be on par with a much, much larger country.

Yea the US is not at war, weird how we still end up spending on this garbage. Why don't the people on this forum that are so concerned about Ukraine ship themselves there? They are taking foreign recruits.

Even if you could point to people on this forum who are "so concerned about Ukraine" - which I do not think you can; "more sympathetic to Ukraine than to Russia" does not mean one's heart bleeds for Ukraine - this kind of "why don't you ship yourself there and fight?" sneer is not an intelligent or civil rebuttal to any actual argument.

This place is beyond bleeding heart, 90% of the pro-ukraine "arguments" are just dressed up feelings with little to no reasoning.

Russia is going to invade Poland and Germany and eventually the US if we don't do something! -anxiety

We are destroying our great enemy for a pittance! -hate and phobia

Something Chamberlain yada yada appeasement. -anxiety

etc.

There is nothing to argue with, when people are being emotional you can only reach them with emotion. I find shaming them works well.

Edit: but I will take the hint and timeout myself from this topic. No more posting in this or the other thread on the same topic for me.

99% arguments against involvement in Ukraine that I've seen here are based on greed ("why my tax dollars?") and hate/phobia ("serves those GAE Europeans right"), so I'm afraid the pro-Ukrainians got you beat here.

More than 1% of the arguments against involvement are due to not wanting nuclear war, toe-to-toe with the Ruskies.

Personally, I'm mostly for giving money and materiel, but that keeps me up at night.

By the standards of the poster above me as I see them, that's an emotional argument too. Can you really have any idea of the odds that Kremlin will dare go MAD, let alone assume they're high enough to fear?

Just to be clear, I'm claiming that >1% of the arguments against are fear of nuclear war. That's not a probability, it's counting what people are saying.

More comments

Sure, you can argue that funding Ukraine's war effort is not worth it for the US, but it seems spurious to argue it's an unreasonable amount on the basis of comparisons to defense budgets in countries that aren't at war.

I guess it wasn't clear but that first bit should be read with a /s. I'm making fun of the idea that the US isn't at war. The US is eternally at war. Which is why the "defense" budget is so much higher than everyone else's.

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