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> The question is simple. It most certainly is not. > Would it be beautiful for you to see people banning US athletes? At this point, I think it would, for ma

> The question is simple. It most certainly is not. > Would it be beautiful for you to see people banning US athletes? At this point, I think it would, for many people. Why don't we see it anywhere? That's the question. This does reach the crux of the matter. Why don't we see Cubans boycotting American athletes and gaining major international support? Why aren't Syrians raising hell at every athletic competition, protesting that Americans and Turks are allowed to compete? Everyone's free to join in and boycott, so why don't they? Answer: Because on the whole it's not important enough to them to warrant the investment of effort and time. Because America's behaviors aren't that far out of the international norm of today (sad to say). That "suddenly" hasn't happened yet, and probably won't for quite some time. And that's how we measure moral shifts. One day the shittier things America does today will be protest worthy, but our morality has not moved that far yet, and we still have much bigger fish to fry. So to answer your question: I feel strongly about one case but not the other because they are not equivalent. And worrying about all the little problems before starting to solve the big ones makes the perfect the enemy of the good. And that's the beef I have over whataboutism: It makes storms in teacups. That's what it's designed for, and why it's rightly called a logical fallacy.

EGreg 4y ago
What Russia is doing is analogous to what USA did in the Cuban Missile Crisis. You can't allow a neighboring country, especially one that was a former ally, to join an enemy military alliance and pose an existential threat to some of your citizens, by, say, pointing nuclear missiles at you -- neither now nor in 15 years. Any country would react to being surrounded and cornered, including today's USA. That at least has some relation to self-defense and preservation: you don't want to take the chances that a "purely defensive alliance" which already bombed destroyed Yugoslavia and Libya will now stop bombing and destroying. So what you said honestly seems backwards to me on every level, including logical, ethical, and reality. Logical: You say we should not "worry about all the little problems before starting to solve the big ones." So are you trying to say that going halfway around the world, bombing, invading, occupying and destroying multiple countries, and resulting in over a million deaths, is a much smaller problem, than invading one country to prevent it from joining a hostile alliance? The number of countries is larger. The death toll is also larger. The destruction is larger. But you have it backwards somehow. If you applied your principle, it would mean we would actually have to prioritize preventing USA from doing this anymore, not Russia. I am saying we should do both. Ethical: How is going halfway around the world to attack countries that pose literally ZERO threat to your country, less worthy of moral condemnation, than getting militarily involved around your own localized borders in order to stop that same "globetrotter" from flipping your neighbor against you? One has an actual connection to self defense, and the other literally does not. But you have it backwards, again. Reality: billions of people recognize that NATO's expansion led to this, USA's own experts predicted it, and even the Ukrainians themselves did NOT want to be part of NATO, when George W Bush vowed to bring them into NATO kicking and screaming anyway. Every sound bite you are you told to repeat, including "open door policy", "purely defensive" and "unprovoked and unjustified", is backwards. Ukraine says NO to NATO: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2010/03/29/ukraine-says-no-to-nato/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2010/03/29/ukraine-says-n... Bush vows to press for Ukraine in NATO: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-ukraine-bush/bush-vows-to-press-for-ukraine-georgia-in-nato-idUSL0141706220080401 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-ukraine-bush/bush-vo... Decades of warnings predicting NATO expansion leading to this exact war: https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-follows-decades-of-warnings-that-nato-expansion-into-eastern-europe-could-provoke-russia-177999 https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-follows-decades-of-w... 50 prominent US policy experts said this back in 1999: https://www.armscontrol.org/act/1997-06/arms-control-today/opposition-nato-expansion https://www.armscontrol.org/act/1997-06/arms-control-today/o... Billions of people hold NATO responsible for Ukraine war more than Russia: https://thewire.in/world/more-indians-hold-us-nato-responsible-for-ukraine-war-than-russia-survey https://thewire.in/world/more-indians-hold-us-nato-responsib... Even the pope says it repeatedly and doubles down on it: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2022/06/14/italy-vatican-pope-francis-russia-war-ukraine-nato/5711655218266/ https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2022/06/14/italy-vat... Nigel Farage warned about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=KqE7UTptgGg https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=KqE7UTptgGg Tulsi Gabbard and many politicians say it could have been avoided: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OF5oPNjMZw4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OF5oPNjMZw4 Progressives try to push for peace: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/25/democrats-joe-biden-ukraine-war-russia-letter https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/25/democrats-jo... The very peacemakers who were brokering peace in the first week of the war say USA and UK blocked the peace: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yma0LxyVVs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yma0LxyVVs I could go on... but my point is it's backwards. This is plain and simple a way for USA to push through a surrounding of Russia at Ukraine's expense ... if they can get it done, great. If not, well Ukraine paid the price, they "wanted to fight" after all.
- kstenerud 4y ago
  Aaaaand now we've taken a hard-right into propaganda territory, so I'll get off here. I would suggest consulting Timothy Snyder, Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University, specializing in the modern history of Central and Eastern Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_D._Snyder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_D._Snyder His lectures are available on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJczLlwp-d8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJczLlwp-d8
  - EGreg 4y ago
    So no amount of logic, moral argumentation matter, and links to mainstream sources, words of the very political involved in brokering peace, or polls sampling billions of people are dismissed as "propaganda"? Can you please define what you mean by "propaganda" here -- you seem to be making a category error. I don't understand. Are all Indians susceptible to propaganda, but you and Timothy Snyder know the actual truth? I can certainly listen to Dr. Snyder (I haven't) but it's going to be one opinion, one data point, for me. Not an absolute authority. Can you at least answer my questions from a logical and moral point of view? PS: Just in case your "hard right" implies that somehow this is a right-wing conspiracy or propaganda, I should point out that "the war could have been avoided and we should have peace talks" is understood by people on all sides of the political spectrum. The pope is on the left. The progressives in US Congress are lefties. Noam Chomsky is a leftist. They all say the same thing. Heck even the World Socialist Website highlights thousands of people in Spain protesting the NATO summit in Spain: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/05/02/ydws-m02.html https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/05/02/ydws-m02.html Propaganda... you keep using that word... I don't think it means what you think it means.
    - mopsi 4y ago
      > So no amount of logic, moral argumentation matter, and links to mainstream sources, words of the very political involved in brokering peace, or polls sampling billions of people are dismissed as "propaganda"? Your long, bitter and whiny rants are based on random scraps and fall apart on closer inspection. For example, saying that GWB was forcing Ukraine into NATO is incorrect and absurd; NATO is a very exclusive club hesitant to accept any new members, because it increases commitments of existing members and provides access to their internal defence information. The initiative to join NATO has always come from Eastern European governments, not somehow forced upon them. This is clear, obvious, well documented. Claiming anything else is either ignorance or malicious lying akin to saying that Bob Hope was the 40th president of the US -- plain wrong without any room for debate.
athrowaw 4y ago
> Answer: Because on the whole it's not important enough to them to warrant the investment of effort and time. Because America's behaviors aren't that far out of the international norm of today (sad to say). And to elaborate on “important enough” it’s about how beneficial for them is this to take the fight, and not about the moral or how "far out of the international norm". X can be amoral, but if powerful country X is doing it I will loose a lot in this fight, so I won’t take it. But if less powerful country Y is doing the same, there is high chance of winning and I will take the fight. Asking “How about X?” is highlighting the issue - the more powerful country you are the more amoral things world can tolerate you doing. (The author of the comment doesn’t try to justify the bad actions, but tries to highlight the inequality of treatment).

EGreg 4y ago

What Russia is doing is analogous to what USA did in the Cuban Missile Crisis. You can't allow a neighboring country, especially one that was a former ally, to join an enemy military alliance and pose an existential threat to some of your citizens, by, say, pointing nuclear missiles at you -- neither now nor in 15 years. Any country would react to being surrounded and cornered, including today's USA. That at least has some relation to self-defense and preservation: you don't want to take the chances that a "purely defensive alliance" which already bombed destroyed Yugoslavia and Libya will now stop bombing and destroying. So what you said honestly seems backwards to me on every level, including logical, ethical, and reality. Logical: You say we should not "worry about all the little problems before starting to solve the big ones." So are you trying to say that going halfway around the world, bombing, invading, occupying and destroying multiple countries, and resulting in over a million deaths, is a much smaller problem, than invading one country to prevent it from joining a hostile alliance? The number of countries is larger. The death toll is also larger. The destruction is larger. But you have it backwards somehow. If you applied your principle, it would mean we would actually have to prioritize preventing USA from doing this anymore, not Russia. I am saying we should do both. Ethical: How is going halfway around the world to attack countries that pose literally ZERO threat to your country, less worthy of moral condemnation, than getting militarily involved around your own localized borders in order to stop that same "globetrotter" from flipping your neighbor against you? One has an actual connection to self defense, and the other literally does not. But you have it backwards, again. Reality: billions of people recognize that NATO's expansion led to this, USA's own experts predicted it, and even the Ukrainians themselves did NOT want to be part of NATO, when George W Bush vowed to bring them into NATO kicking and screaming anyway. Every sound bite you are you told to repeat, including "open door policy", "purely defensive" and "unprovoked and unjustified", is backwards. Ukraine says NO to NATO: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2010/03/29/ukraine-says-no-to-nato/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2010/03/29/ukraine-says-n... Bush vows to press for Ukraine in NATO: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-ukraine-bush/bush-vows-to-press-for-ukraine-georgia-in-nato-idUSL0141706220080401 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-ukraine-bush/bush-vo... Decades of warnings predicting NATO expansion leading to this exact war: https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-follows-decades-of-warnings-that-nato-expansion-into-eastern-europe-could-provoke-russia-177999 https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-follows-decades-of-w... 50 prominent US policy experts said this back in 1999: https://www.armscontrol.org/act/1997-06/arms-control-today/opposition-nato-expansion https://www.armscontrol.org/act/1997-06/arms-control-today/o... Billions of people hold NATO responsible for Ukraine war more than Russia: https://thewire.in/world/more-indians-hold-us-nato-responsible-for-ukraine-war-than-russia-survey https://thewire.in/world/more-indians-hold-us-nato-responsib... Even the pope says it repeatedly and doubles down on it: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2022/06/14/italy-vatican-pope-francis-russia-war-ukraine-nato/5711655218266/ https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2022/06/14/italy-vat... Nigel Farage warned about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=KqE7UTptgGg https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=KqE7UTptgGg Tulsi Gabbard and many politicians say it could have been avoided: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OF5oPNjMZw4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OF5oPNjMZw4 Progressives try to push for peace: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/25/democrats-joe-biden-ukraine-war-russia-letter https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/25/democrats-jo... The very peacemakers who were brokering peace in the first week of the war say USA and UK blocked the peace: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yma0LxyVVs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yma0LxyVVs I could go on... but my point is it's backwards. This is plain and simple a way for USA to push through a surrounding of Russia at Ukraine's expense ... if they can get it done, great. If not, well Ukraine paid the price, they "wanted to fight" after all.

kstenerud 4y ago
Aaaaand now we've taken a hard-right into propaganda territory, so I'll get off here. I would suggest consulting Timothy Snyder, Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University, specializing in the modern history of Central and Eastern Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_D._Snyder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_D._Snyder His lectures are available on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJczLlwp-d8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJczLlwp-d8
- EGreg 4y ago
  So no amount of logic, moral argumentation matter, and links to mainstream sources, words of the very political involved in brokering peace, or polls sampling billions of people are dismissed as "propaganda"? Can you please define what you mean by "propaganda" here -- you seem to be making a category error. I don't understand. Are all Indians susceptible to propaganda, but you and Timothy Snyder know the actual truth? I can certainly listen to Dr. Snyder (I haven't) but it's going to be one opinion, one data point, for me. Not an absolute authority. Can you at least answer my questions from a logical and moral point of view? PS: Just in case your "hard right" implies that somehow this is a right-wing conspiracy or propaganda, I should point out that "the war could have been avoided and we should have peace talks" is understood by people on all sides of the political spectrum. The pope is on the left. The progressives in US Congress are lefties. Noam Chomsky is a leftist. They all say the same thing. Heck even the World Socialist Website highlights thousands of people in Spain protesting the NATO summit in Spain: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/05/02/ydws-m02.html https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/05/02/ydws-m02.html Propaganda... you keep using that word... I don't think it means what you think it means.
  - mopsi 4y ago
    > So no amount of logic, moral argumentation matter, and links to mainstream sources, words of the very political involved in brokering peace, or polls sampling billions of people are dismissed as "propaganda"? Your long, bitter and whiny rants are based on random scraps and fall apart on closer inspection. For example, saying that GWB was forcing Ukraine into NATO is incorrect and absurd; NATO is a very exclusive club hesitant to accept any new members, because it increases commitments of existing members and provides access to their internal defence information. The initiative to join NATO has always come from Eastern European governments, not somehow forced upon them. This is clear, obvious, well documented. Claiming anything else is either ignorance or malicious lying akin to saying that Bob Hope was the 40th president of the US -- plain wrong without any room for debate.

athrowaw 4y ago

> Answer: Because on the whole it's not important enough to them to warrant the investment of effort and time. Because America's behaviors aren't that far out of the international norm of today (sad to say). And to elaborate on “important enough” it’s about how beneficial for them is this to take the fight, and not about the moral or how "far out of the international norm". X can be amoral, but if powerful country X is doing it I will loose a lot in this fight, so I won’t take it. But if less powerful country Y is doing the same, there is high chance of winning and I will take the fight. Asking “How about X?” is highlighting the issue - the more powerful country you are the more amoral things world can tolerate you doing. (The author of the comment doesn’t try to justify the bad actions, but tries to highlight the inequality of treatment).