3 ms·

Then, if you live in a western country, stop paying taxes because it supports killing innocent people, and to a much larger extent than what is going on in Ukra

• dunkelheit 5y ago
  It is kind of crazy when one remembers all the human rights abuses that companies providing popular products and services tolerate and benefit from, and where the tax money goes. It is almost as if if the goal is to be consistent and avoid hypocrisy, the only two options are abandoning modern lifestyle... or not protesting at all.
• mrtranscendence 5y ago
  What specifically is empty talk? Someone can support Ukraine for a number of reasons that don't require withdrawing from all life in a western nation. They might trust that their rulers have evaluated most alternatives before deploying military options and do not kill indiscriminately. You might scoff, but I suspect most people are at least somewhat in that boat; even if they think that the US shouldn't have invaded Iraq, for example, they probably think it wasn't that bad and that murders of civilians were minimal. That doesn't mean that they don't or shouldn't protest the invasion of Ukraine, though it probably does mean that they should reflect further. They might also believe that invading Ukraine is uniquely bad because it is a developed western nation within mainland Europe, setting a terrible precedent. Or they might simply not have thought very much about the contradiction. And I note that you're lumping every western nation under the same category when some are much less objectionable than others; in how many developing nations has Finland engaged in extralegal murder? That said, yes, the costs are lower to protesting the invasion of Ukraine than protesting everything the US government does overseas. So what? The costs are lower for me to buy Kroger brand soft drinks, too, that doesn't mean my opinions about the flavor is just empty talk.
  • whimsicalism 5y ago
    > murders of civilians were minimal. But nobody (AFAIK) is contesting that the US killed more civilians in Iraq or in Syria (or second-order in Libya) than Russia has killed in Ukraine. Your argument is that people perceive it as okay because the intentions were good? Our government could not forsee that these people would die, it was unexpected? Or were they unintended consequences that were foreseen? I don't believe such a distinction is defensible, if you foresee the consequence and do it anyways, you intended such a consequence.
    • pessimizer 5y ago
      > Your argument is that people perceive it as okay because the intentions were good? Even worse, I think the argument is that the intentions were good because it was our rulers who did it, not theirs. Our rulers are careful and thoughtful, while theirs are evil and cruel.
    • mrtranscendence 5y ago
      > But nobody (AFAIK) is contesting that the US killed more civilians in Iraq or in Syria (or second-order in Libya) than Russia has killed in Ukraine. That's missing the point. Nobody with knowledge of the matter is contesting that, but plenty of people lack that knowledge. This means that they're not willfully ignoring the kind of contradiction that would make their opinions about Ukraine "empty talk". > Your argument is that people perceive it as okay because the intentions were good? No, my opinion is that many people don't realize how objectionably the US has behaved in the past (and currently), so it's not apropos to call them out on a contradiction that invalidates their outlook on Russia's invasion. Call them out on ignorance all you like, though.