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The butter side up/down does make war seem absurd. And a lot of war has happened over things that seem that absurd to me. But war also happens over important t
by chmod600 5y ago
The butter side up/down does make war seem absurd. And a lot of war has happened over things that seem that absurd to me.
But war also happens over important things. The USSR really did have a different political and economic system. Was it really a threat to the U.S. or its allies? Maybe not. But the issue at hand was not a trivial one.
And I'll point out that the U.S. Constitution is still a radical document even among Western countries. Rights to speech and peaceful assembly, and the right to due process of law are not universal. Even some aspects of Canada's handling of the trucker protest would probably have been unconstitutional in the US.
- marcosdumay 5y ago> But war also happens over important things. The USSR really did have a different political and economic system. That's a funny example. The moment Russia had its communist revolution and people got from semi-slavery into a minimum of empowerment, the first thing they did was taking their country out of an international war. Important things are almost never far away, so if the fight is there, it's almost never important.
- watwut 5y agoThe abolishement of monarchy was followed by years of incredibly bloody civil war between like 5 sides.
- chmod600 5y ago"That's a funny example." It's what the article and book are clearly about, it's not just a random example I invented. "Important things are almost never far away, so if the fight is there, it's almost never important." Can you explain your point? Are you saying that important differences are just excuses?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- steve76 5y ago[dead]
- toiletfuneral 5y ago
- cat_plus_plus 5y agoDifferent political and economic system in USSR was absolutely not the issue at hand. There are still absolute monarchies like Dubai, we don't shake nukes at each other. The issue was that USSR attempted to realize Marxist ideal of worldwide worker's revolution through KGB creating an appearance of such revolutions through meddling and then Red Army taking over countries. The same tactics are on display in Donbus today.
- chmod600 5y agoMy main point was that the differences between the USSR and the US were far greater than butter side up/down, so the comparison is ridiculous. But you are right that the reason for conflict was more complicated than just those differences.
- Jiro 5y ago>But war also happens over important things. The USSR really did have a different political and economic system. Which was a criticism of the book at the time. Moral equivalence between the US and USSR owas common on the left. If you weren't on the left, the book looked like yet another helping of the same thing, except this one aimed at children.