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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   25227 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023

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Israel killed a bunch of american soldiers and mainstream conservatives still mindlessly repeat about how Israel is "our greatest ally" despite the fact that it's not in NATO and hasn't sent troops to Korea/Vietnam/Afghanistan/Iraq unlike actual US allies. It should matter, but it clearly doesn't matter to you or them.

Conservatives don't hold a monopoly on supporting "our greatest ally" this is the Uniparty at work.

At my day job as a very small cog in the military industrial complex machine we're not permitted to use hardware or software from our greatest ally for security reasons.

I mean, who is the US’ “greatest ally”? I’m sure you can find minor countries that haven’t specifically gone against US interests but among the major or more powerful nations all the candidates (the UK, France, Canada) all have done things highly contrary/opposed to the position of the US government of the day in relatively recent history (since WW2, at least).

Well, AFAIK Japan is considered to be "the greatest ally" of the US, but not in terms of 'the most loyal' but rather 'the most valuable' taking into account its geostrategic position and power projection capabilities. Probably "being loyal" isn't even a good measure in the international relations.

Maybe Australia? Poland? I don't know who specifically is the greatest ally, but it's clear who isn't.

Wait, you think that Israel should be putting troops in Afghanistan/Iraq? Even Bush wasn't that dumb.

Nope, my point is that actual allies who fought on the same side as US and have common defence obligations are obviously greater allies than Israel.

conservatives still mindlessly repeat

But

There are literally millions of people on either side of every major conflict, and finding that one of them is doing something wrong or thoughtless proves nothing and adds nothing to the conversation. We want to engage with the best ideas on either side of any issue, not the worst.

Post about specific groups, not general groups, wherever possible. General groups include things like gun rights activists, pro-choice groups, and environmentalists. Specific groups include things like The NRA, Planned Parenthood, and the Sierra Club. Posting about general groups is often not falsifiable, and can lead to straw man arguments and non-representative samples.

So please don't drop low-effort group smears.

OP said "mainstream conservatives", mindlessly repeat it, not conservatives as a whole. And, indeed, part of being in the mainstream is that you believe the standard line. Mainstream liberals think "corporations bad." Mainstream conservatives think "regulations bad." If they didn’t think those things, they wouldn't be mainstream! That they do so "mindlessly" is the problematic part of OP's claim, though even that is probably true of huge chunks of the mainstream.

Tomatoh, Tamatah.

I don't mean that all conservatives do it, but that it's mostly conservatives doing that and that it's a mindless cliche.

Why would I want to smear all conservatives? I'm not a leftwinger.

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