Focusing in on his one singular good take to criticize as usual.
Minimizing loss of life by negotiating peace is a good thing. The hawks didn’t get enough from our last 20 year war that just ended so they want to indefinitely commit to another conflict, and it doesn’t matter how many die or whether there’s anything other than rubble left afterwards, all that matters is nationalist pride and defense industry profits. I wish they’d asked Harris what the timetable was, how long and exactly how much blood and treasure she’s willing to commit over a couple provinces on the other side of the world.
How quickly we forget the past. People learned nothing from Iraq and Afghanistan.
If only we could get someone who’s consistently anti-war, and not an absolutely horrible and disgusting person in every other aspect.
Hmmm… I’m a staunch pacifist and also 100% behind helping Ukraine. These things are not at odds because the enemy of pacifism is aggression. The person that can actually end the war is on the other side of the world.
You don’t get to call yourself a pacifist, let alone a staunch one, and then rally around the defense of the fatherland, even if it’s your own fatherland, which in this case I’m assuming it’s not. This is complete nonsense and hypocrisy.
I’m a Roman Legionnarie out fighting in Gaul, but I’m a “staunch pacifist,” you see, because Rome made an alliance with one of the Gallic tribes and its neighbor tried to mess with it, so now, I’m out here slaughtering foreigners hundreds of miles away from home to defend Rome’s honor. But I’m a pacifist, you see!
What the hell does “pacifism” mean to you?
Here’s how Google defines it:
the belief that any violence, including war, is unjustifiable under any circumstances, and that all disputes should be settled by peaceful means.
I’ve read works by actual pacifists such as Tolstoy, whose views reflected that definition. Can you cite any “pacifist” who thinks supporting a war, even a defensive one, is consistent with pacifism?
Take is a weird word. Take as a noun refers to what has been taken. So, in this context, it is like an opinion informed by a story. In a more definitional use…
I took from that story that the sky is blue. That is what I have taken from that story, therefore, that is my take.
I’m sorry your response indicates that my intent went over your head. You positioned someone telling you the literal definition of a word and then a historical example as an opinion. You’re being childish with your refusal to engage in honest conversation.
Sorry, you sounded like you were asking for a definition as if English was not your first language. Did you really want to split hairs over the definition of take? How about, what he said was so stupid it doesn’t warrant a response?
Well I don’t talk like that because I’m not an insufferable redditor. If I have a problem with something someone said I don’t make a smug meta comment about how I’m not going to engage despite engaging. I’m going to directly address the problem I have.
Sorry, I guess I’m just not smart enough to understand that pacifism is when you’re pro-war, actually. And I guess the fact that I backed it up with the actual definition and with actual pacifist theory I’ve read further shows that I’m obviously wrong.
I will defer to your judgement, O Wise One. I accept your definition. I’m a pacifist too, I oppose violence in every case except for the cases where I don’t. Pacifism.
Pro war would imply a desire for the combat inherently. I’m sure the vast majority would be perfectly happy for Russia to go home and the war to end. I’m not pro-fighting if I fight back as I am getting actively punched, I didn’t want any punches thrown in the first place.
That’s nonsense. If “pro-war” means the desire for combat inherently, then virtually no one would be considered pro-war outside of Klingons and Nazis. By that standard, if I invade a country to loot and pillage, I’m not “pro-war” because I don’t actually want combat, I just want their stuff and combat is merely a means to that end.
I’d say Russia was pro-war, you have to be to initiate an unprompted offensive war. The US in the second Iraq War was pretty solidly “pro-war”, as they went in without provocation and the justification of “WMD” was revealed to be wrong (mistaken at best, probably fabricated). These are scenarios where the aggressor has a choice between peaceful status quo and violence and chooses violence.
If you have the violence brought to you, then I think it’s weird to characterize self-defense as “pro-war” or “being a war hawk”. One may rationalize that Pacifism means in favor of rolling over for any abuse, but I think it’s wrong to characterize any willingness to employ violence to protect oneself as “pro-war”.
For example, I haven’t thrown a punch in decades, I don’t want to throw a punch and I’ll avoid doing so if there’s a sane alternative. However when someone did come up to me one time and start hitting me on the head with something, I absolutely was not just going to take the beating and fought back.
One may rationalize that Pacifism means in favor of rolling over for any abuse
This is the main point I was making. In the context of discussing pacifism, which condemns all war, supporting any war is pro-war, at least relative to the actual meaning of pacifism.
Wow, if it’s that easy, then I definitely don’t think people should be going out and dying over it, there’s just no reason for it when anybody could just pick up the phone and tell him to give the territory back instead.
I agree that people shouldn’t have to die over this, but Putin is dedicated to the invasion on Ukraine. He won’t stop just because someone kindly ask him to stop over the phone. He’ll continue until there’s no Ukraine anymore, and then he might also go for Moldova and other former Soviet countries.
Ukraine has to defend themselves for as long as Putin is willing to continue the war.
Exactly. You can always tell when uninformed people chime in with their opinions on this topic. Ukraine has already attempted to achieve peace with Russia multiple times, under the condition that they return stolen territory. That’s a pretty easy thing for Russia to do but they won’t.
So, 20 years from now, if Putin is still willing to continue the war, which is to say, not fully recognize all Ukrainian claims including claims that Russia held before the war as a precondition to negotiations, then you’ll still be sending more and more guns and bombs in until there are no two stones left on top of each other in the whole country.
To be unwavering anti-war including defensive wars, is appeasement, and WWII is a demonstration of exactly where that leads. Even if you ignore all the combat related deaths, millions were still just butchered by the nazis in non-combat situations, and that number would have been even more if no one stood up to counter. The reluctance to forceful resistance resulted in more deaths including innocent non-combatants. Problem is in reality, if all the ‘good’ folks are anti-war, then the one asshole who is pro-offensive war conquers all. Being highly skeptical of war, especially offensive war I can see, but to stand aside as evil just takes and takes is too far.
Further, it’s not our blood to commit, it’s the Ukrainians. We are supplying but it’s their skin in the game, not our forces. It’s their choice to make and we are supporting that decision in the face of a completely unjustified invasion. This is distinct from Iraq and Afghanistan, where we went in with our own forces to unilaterally try to force our desired reality on a sovereign nation. If Ukraine decided to give in, we would not stand in the way, even if we were disappointed in the result.
Also, the only reason the goalposts moved to ‘a couple of provinces’ is that Russia was stopped when they tried to just take the whole thing. If Russia had just rolled in to easy three day victory, then the goalposts would have moved to have even more Russian expansion (as happened in WWII with Germany).
This was a reply to your stance, not a rejection of your definition of pacifism. Your comment didn’t claim anything about the definition of pacifism, and neither did mine.
Now maybe you meant my other comment, where you responded to someone asserting being a pacifist is actually “pro-war”. In which case I also did not speak one way or another on your definition of pacifism, but your characterization of people supporting self-defense as being “pro-war”.
Regarding your previous comment, the comparison to Hitler has been used by high ranking figures in the US to justify every major conflict for the past 70 years, from Korea, to Vietnam, to Iraq. In retrospect, it’s easy to see how completely nonsensical such claims were - somehow, Vietnam did not go on to conquer the world after we lost.
However, no matter how clearly wrong such comparisons and such conflicts are, they are generally accepted, and each of those conflicts was begun with overwhelming popular support.
I happen to think that one conflict from 70 years ago isn’t the only thing we should be thinking about or comparing conflicts to when we judge them in the modern day. Why is it necessary to go back so far to find a conflict where the US was justified?
Because the US is frequently not justified and has the history of being the warmonger, so they are often unjustified. That says nothing about the Ukrainian situation though, where a well established independent nation was subject to a military invasion. There isn’t significant “gray area” to find in this scenario.
There are justified US military operations in more recent history but those aren’t useful as an example either. Because the prospect of someone actually “caving” to invasion is a rare situation, and we do have to go back 70 years to cite an example of what happens when major powers try the “let the dictator win without resistance” strategy. The major powers learned something in the 1930s and have not repeated that behavior.
Here’s another example of “letting the dictator win without resistance.” The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The Soviet revolutionaries had rallied the people in opposition the the meat grinder of WWI, in which the Russian people were being slaughtered en masse for no real benefit. So when Lenin came to power, he signed a treaty with Kaiser Wilhelm that was very favorable to Germany and ceded a considerable amount of territory to him. The resulting peace stopped the killing and allowed the Russians to focus on rebuilding.
If you take a broader historical view, you can see that the reality is more complex. There are numerous differences between the situation in the 30’s and the situation now, and even then it’s only one example, and one that’s vastly overused. And the reason that it’s overused is that it can be used as a pretty generic pro-war argument for any war imaginable. “If we don’t beat them now, they’ll keep coming forever.” All you have to do is paint the people you’re fighting in a negative light and you can sell people on it.
For these reasons, I reject the comparison. I think it’s intellectually lazy.
In the WWI scenario, Russia was able to have a reprieve because the central powers had other things to do. So “appeasement” worked at least in the scenario where the opposition has multiple other fronts to contend with, and also when that would-be opponent ultimately lost. WWI was a lot more “gray area” so it’s hard to say what would have happened if the central powers prevailed, whether they would have decided to expand into Russia or not care enough to press that front.
For the opposite experience for Russia, see WWII where they started off with appeasing Germany and then got invaded two years later.
But again, the WWI Russian experience of maybe fighting in a conflict where they didn’t actually have a horse in the race doesn’t apply here, where the combatants are Ukranians, who have no option offered of just being left alone for the sake of peace. We don’t have US military being ordered to go in to fight and die in that conflict.
it’s hard to say what would have happened if the central powers prevailed, whether they would have decided to expand into Russia or not care enough to press that front.
Then why is it so easy to say that modern Russia would continue expanding forever? Isn’t it possible that Putin is more like Kaiser Wilhelm than Adolf Hitler?
But again, the WWI Russian experience of maybe fighting in a conflict where they didn’t actually have a horse in the race doesn’t apply here, where the combatants are Ukranians, who have no option offered of just being left alone for the sake of peace.
They do though. They could negotiate peace at the cost of territorial concessions, the same way the Soviets did. It’s not that the Soviets didn’t have a dog in the fight, they surely would’ve preferred a better treaty that preserved more of their territory, but they prioritized peace instead.
The exact lines would have to be negotiated. For starters, obviously Russia is going to keep Crimea which they held before the war started. At most, they’d receive the disputed provinces which had been fighting in the civil war before they got involved, which requested Russian assistance. I don’t know what percentage of Ukrainian territory those provinces are.
The exact amount of loss that’s acceptable to achieve peace is debatable, but there hasn’t been any discussion of it whatsoever. Zelensky has insisted on zero territorial concessions at all, including retaking Crimea, which is completely unrealistic.
And, I suppose, all Ukraine gets out of the deal is that Russia stops taking more of their territory. For now. This sounds like it’s all in Russia’s favor.
As opposed to what, exactly? Like, even in your wildest fantasies, how does this go exactly? Ukraine reclaims all of it’s lost territory, including Crimea somehow, and then negotiates peace. For now. Oh, I guess that’s not enough then, is it? So what, does Ukraine seize Russian territory? Does Russia get coup’ed, and the US hand picks someone to be in charge to make sure that Russia is never threatens anyone ever again, like it did in the 90’s? Hey, wait a minute…
Sometimes conflicts end without one side being completely annihilated, and no matter how the conflict ends, that’s how it’s going to end. Ukraine can negotiate for security guarantees, but what that would look like exactly would have to be worked out in the negotiations that aren’t happening.
You didn’t make a guess, you told me what is not enough for me. Don’t try to weasel out of it now. You’re clearly not interested in knowing what I think.
Marxist-leninist account made inconsolable from others that say supporting a country resist russian invasion is worth fighting and funding a defensive war. Go figure
Focusing in on his one singular good take to criticize as usual.
Minimizing loss of life by negotiating peace is a good thing. The hawks didn’t get enough from our last 20 year war that just ended so they want to indefinitely commit to another conflict, and it doesn’t matter how many die or whether there’s anything other than rubble left afterwards, all that matters is nationalist pride and defense industry profits. I wish they’d asked Harris what the timetable was, how long and exactly how much blood and treasure she’s willing to commit over a couple provinces on the other side of the world.
How quickly we forget the past. People learned nothing from Iraq and Afghanistan.
If only we could get someone who’s consistently anti-war, and not an absolutely horrible and disgusting person in every other aspect.
Hmmm… I’m a staunch pacifist and also 100% behind helping Ukraine. These things are not at odds because the enemy of pacifism is aggression. The person that can actually end the war is on the other side of the world.
Then you are not a pacifist. Words mean things.
You don’t get to call yourself a pacifist, let alone a staunch one, and then rally around the defense of the fatherland, even if it’s your own fatherland, which in this case I’m assuming it’s not. This is complete nonsense and hypocrisy.
I’m a Roman Legionnarie out fighting in Gaul, but I’m a “staunch pacifist,” you see, because Rome made an alliance with one of the Gallic tribes and its neighbor tried to mess with it, so now, I’m out here slaughtering foreigners hundreds of miles away from home to defend Rome’s honor. But I’m a pacifist, you see!
What the hell does “pacifism” mean to you?
Here’s how Google defines it:
I’ve read works by actual pacifists such as Tolstoy, whose views reflected that definition. Can you cite any “pacifist” who thinks supporting a war, even a defensive one, is consistent with pacifism?
This take is so stupid, it doesn’t warrant a response.
What does the word ‘take’ mean if it can include a dictionary definition of a word?
Take is a weird word. Take as a noun refers to what has been taken. So, in this context, it is like an opinion informed by a story. In a more definitional use…
I took from that story that the sky is blue. That is what I have taken from that story, therefore, that is my take.
I’m sorry your response indicates that my intent went over your head. You positioned someone telling you the literal definition of a word and then a historical example as an opinion. You’re being childish with your refusal to engage in honest conversation.
Sorry, you sounded like you were asking for a definition as if English was not your first language. Did you really want to split hairs over the definition of take? How about, what he said was so stupid it doesn’t warrant a response?
Well I don’t talk like that because I’m not an insufferable redditor. If I have a problem with something someone said I don’t make a smug meta comment about how I’m not going to engage despite engaging. I’m going to directly address the problem I have.
Sorry, I guess I’m just not smart enough to understand that pacifism is when you’re pro-war, actually. And I guess the fact that I backed it up with the actual definition and with actual pacifist theory I’ve read further shows that I’m obviously wrong.
I will defer to your judgement, O Wise One. I accept your definition. I’m a pacifist too, I oppose violence in every case except for the cases where I don’t. Pacifism.
Pro war would imply a desire for the combat inherently. I’m sure the vast majority would be perfectly happy for Russia to go home and the war to end. I’m not pro-fighting if I fight back as I am getting actively punched, I didn’t want any punches thrown in the first place.
That’s nonsense. If “pro-war” means the desire for combat inherently, then virtually no one would be considered pro-war outside of Klingons and Nazis. By that standard, if I invade a country to loot and pillage, I’m not “pro-war” because I don’t actually want combat, I just want their stuff and combat is merely a means to that end.
Pro-war is when you support war.
I’d say Russia was pro-war, you have to be to initiate an unprompted offensive war. The US in the second Iraq War was pretty solidly “pro-war”, as they went in without provocation and the justification of “WMD” was revealed to be wrong (mistaken at best, probably fabricated). These are scenarios where the aggressor has a choice between peaceful status quo and violence and chooses violence.
If you have the violence brought to you, then I think it’s weird to characterize self-defense as “pro-war” or “being a war hawk”. One may rationalize that Pacifism means in favor of rolling over for any abuse, but I think it’s wrong to characterize any willingness to employ violence to protect oneself as “pro-war”.
For example, I haven’t thrown a punch in decades, I don’t want to throw a punch and I’ll avoid doing so if there’s a sane alternative. However when someone did come up to me one time and start hitting me on the head with something, I absolutely was not just going to take the beating and fought back.
This is the main point I was making. In the context of discussing pacifism, which condemns all war, supporting any war is pro-war, at least relative to the actual meaning of pacifism.
Ofcourse not. I’m Atlanticist. Pacific should shove a dildo up its ring of fire and fuck right off.
Don’t you have some imperialist colonialism to support with actions and deny by word?
Go tell Putin and his friends to stop the invasion and hand back all the Ukrainian territory they’ve stolen. It’s easy!
Wow, if it’s that easy, then I definitely don’t think people should be going out and dying over it, there’s just no reason for it when anybody could just pick up the phone and tell him to give the territory back instead.
You were so close to understanding sarcasm
So were you.
I agree that people shouldn’t have to die over this, but Putin is dedicated to the invasion on Ukraine. He won’t stop just because someone kindly ask him to stop over the phone. He’ll continue until there’s no Ukraine anymore, and then he might also go for Moldova and other former Soviet countries.
Ukraine has to defend themselves for as long as Putin is willing to continue the war.
Exactly. You can always tell when uninformed people chime in with their opinions on this topic. Ukraine has already attempted to achieve peace with Russia multiple times, under the condition that they return stolen territory. That’s a pretty easy thing for Russia to do but they won’t.
So, 20 years from now, if Putin is still willing to continue the war, which is to say, not fully recognize all Ukrainian claims including claims that Russia held before the war as a precondition to negotiations, then you’ll still be sending more and more guns and bombs in until there are no two stones left on top of each other in the whole country.
Okay, so what’s your timetable then?
It’s a shame Putin is a bloodthirsty weirdo who won’t listen, I guess.
To be unwavering anti-war including defensive wars, is appeasement, and WWII is a demonstration of exactly where that leads. Even if you ignore all the combat related deaths, millions were still just butchered by the nazis in non-combat situations, and that number would have been even more if no one stood up to counter. The reluctance to forceful resistance resulted in more deaths including innocent non-combatants. Problem is in reality, if all the ‘good’ folks are anti-war, then the one asshole who is pro-offensive war conquers all. Being highly skeptical of war, especially offensive war I can see, but to stand aside as evil just takes and takes is too far.
Further, it’s not our blood to commit, it’s the Ukrainians. We are supplying but it’s their skin in the game, not our forces. It’s their choice to make and we are supporting that decision in the face of a completely unjustified invasion. This is distinct from Iraq and Afghanistan, where we went in with our own forces to unilaterally try to force our desired reality on a sovereign nation. If Ukraine decided to give in, we would not stand in the way, even if we were disappointed in the result.
Also, the only reason the goalposts moved to ‘a couple of provinces’ is that Russia was stopped when they tried to just take the whole thing. If Russia had just rolled in to easy three day victory, then the goalposts would have moved to have even more Russian expansion (as happened in WWII with Germany).
Thank you for that argument on why pacifism is wrong but it has no bearing whatsoever on the fact that that’s what pacifism means.
This was a reply to your stance, not a rejection of your definition of pacifism. Your comment didn’t claim anything about the definition of pacifism, and neither did mine.
Now maybe you meant my other comment, where you responded to someone asserting being a pacifist is actually “pro-war”. In which case I also did not speak one way or another on your definition of pacifism, but your characterization of people supporting self-defense as being “pro-war”.
My mistake.
Regarding your previous comment, the comparison to Hitler has been used by high ranking figures in the US to justify every major conflict for the past 70 years, from Korea, to Vietnam, to Iraq. In retrospect, it’s easy to see how completely nonsensical such claims were - somehow, Vietnam did not go on to conquer the world after we lost.
However, no matter how clearly wrong such comparisons and such conflicts are, they are generally accepted, and each of those conflicts was begun with overwhelming popular support.
I happen to think that one conflict from 70 years ago isn’t the only thing we should be thinking about or comparing conflicts to when we judge them in the modern day. Why is it necessary to go back so far to find a conflict where the US was justified?
Because the US is frequently not justified and has the history of being the warmonger, so they are often unjustified. That says nothing about the Ukrainian situation though, where a well established independent nation was subject to a military invasion. There isn’t significant “gray area” to find in this scenario.
There are justified US military operations in more recent history but those aren’t useful as an example either. Because the prospect of someone actually “caving” to invasion is a rare situation, and we do have to go back 70 years to cite an example of what happens when major powers try the “let the dictator win without resistance” strategy. The major powers learned something in the 1930s and have not repeated that behavior.
Here’s another example of “letting the dictator win without resistance.” The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The Soviet revolutionaries had rallied the people in opposition the the meat grinder of WWI, in which the Russian people were being slaughtered en masse for no real benefit. So when Lenin came to power, he signed a treaty with Kaiser Wilhelm that was very favorable to Germany and ceded a considerable amount of territory to him. The resulting peace stopped the killing and allowed the Russians to focus on rebuilding.
If you take a broader historical view, you can see that the reality is more complex. There are numerous differences between the situation in the 30’s and the situation now, and even then it’s only one example, and one that’s vastly overused. And the reason that it’s overused is that it can be used as a pretty generic pro-war argument for any war imaginable. “If we don’t beat them now, they’ll keep coming forever.” All you have to do is paint the people you’re fighting in a negative light and you can sell people on it.
For these reasons, I reject the comparison. I think it’s intellectually lazy.
In the WWI scenario, Russia was able to have a reprieve because the central powers had other things to do. So “appeasement” worked at least in the scenario where the opposition has multiple other fronts to contend with, and also when that would-be opponent ultimately lost. WWI was a lot more “gray area” so it’s hard to say what would have happened if the central powers prevailed, whether they would have decided to expand into Russia or not care enough to press that front.
For the opposite experience for Russia, see WWII where they started off with appeasing Germany and then got invaded two years later.
But again, the WWI Russian experience of maybe fighting in a conflict where they didn’t actually have a horse in the race doesn’t apply here, where the combatants are Ukranians, who have no option offered of just being left alone for the sake of peace. We don’t have US military being ordered to go in to fight and die in that conflict.
Then why is it so easy to say that modern Russia would continue expanding forever? Isn’t it possible that Putin is more like Kaiser Wilhelm than Adolf Hitler?
They do though. They could negotiate peace at the cost of territorial concessions, the same way the Soviets did. It’s not that the Soviets didn’t have a dog in the fight, they surely would’ve preferred a better treaty that preserved more of their territory, but they prioritized peace instead.
Exactly how much Ukrainian land should Russia get to keep in this negotiation? Percentage is fine.
The exact lines would have to be negotiated. For starters, obviously Russia is going to keep Crimea which they held before the war started. At most, they’d receive the disputed provinces which had been fighting in the civil war before they got involved, which requested Russian assistance. I don’t know what percentage of Ukrainian territory those provinces are.
The exact amount of loss that’s acceptable to achieve peace is debatable, but there hasn’t been any discussion of it whatsoever. Zelensky has insisted on zero territorial concessions at all, including retaking Crimea, which is completely unrealistic.
And, I suppose, all Ukraine gets out of the deal is that Russia stops taking more of their territory. For now. This sounds like it’s all in Russia’s favor.
As opposed to what, exactly? Like, even in your wildest fantasies, how does this go exactly? Ukraine reclaims all of it’s lost territory, including Crimea somehow, and then negotiates peace. For now. Oh, I guess that’s not enough then, is it? So what, does Ukraine seize Russian territory? Does Russia get coup’ed, and the US hand picks someone to be in charge to make sure that Russia is never threatens anyone ever again, like it did in the 90’s? Hey, wait a minute…
Sometimes conflicts end without one side being completely annihilated, and no matter how the conflict ends, that’s how it’s going to end. Ukraine can negotiate for security guarantees, but what that would look like exactly would have to be worked out in the negotiations that aren’t happening.
Well you’ve decided how I fantasize it will go, so I guess I don’t have to tell you. Congratulations on your psychic powers.
deleted by creator
I made a guess, if I’m wrong, explain it to me.
You didn’t make a guess, you told me what is not enough for me. Don’t try to weasel out of it now. You’re clearly not interested in knowing what I think.
Lol, ok. So you don’t have an answer, got it.
I’ve never read such dumb bullshit in my life… until I found your comments…
Marxist-leninist account made inconsolable from others that say supporting a country resist russian invasion is worth fighting and funding a defensive war. Go figure