Liberals are so gullible they keep believing propaganda long after it’s been discredited even by Western sources. Absolute rubes.

Every part of our society is dysfunctional and declining, and that’s self-perpetuating. If you throw a rock, you’ll hit a reason why the US is like this. We are pretty FUBAR.

It’s pretty much always been this way, like if you look at opinions and rhetoric post-9/11, the overwhelming majority of people supported Bush and it was common to talk about nuking random countries in the Middle East. Back then we were a bit less mask off in that Bush wasn’t as blunt and explicit about things as Trump is, but the bodies were just as dead. Trump realized that the facade of politeness had become vestigal and didn’t actually matter. As for American liberals, the thing to understand is that they only compare themselves to Republicans and so as long as they are 5% more proper and 5% kinder, 5% more intellectual, etc, they see themselves as having all of those qualities, but from the outside, to someone who has reference points outside of American politics, the differences often seem pretty marginal. So for example, “I can excuse indefinite detention without trial at Guantanamo Bay, but I draw the line at torture” and within the context of American politics that’s reasonable and even left-leaning but in a broader context, it’s like, "You can excuse what?"

I brought in the new year playing Fire Emblem: Awakening (which I’ve been obsessed with after finally getting it working on an emulator). I’d been struggling with lunatic mode but I figured out I can just feed Robin because of the XP boost and then use her to carry the team. Changed her to Pegasus Knight and then Dark Flier and now I can just swoop in and one-shot any enemy and she’s over-levelled enough that the enemies won’t prioritize her, and if they do, she dodges everything and has enough HP to survive a bow to the face.

The early levels were very challenging and I had to heavily abuse save states but once I got rolling it’s been a lot smoother. The two cavaliers you start with literally can’t survive a single hit starting out. Since everyone’s so vulnerable, you just have to get one unit good asap to avoid relying on your Jagen.

What did I say that’s whataboutism? You claimed that Cuba was authoritarian and the US is free, therefore it’s perfectly valid for me to compare the two against each other. It would only not be valid if you had placed them both in the same category.

Freedom House is literally funded by the US State department lmao. Nice objective and unbiased source you’ve got there!

The only “freedom” that Freedom House cares about is how free the bourgeoisie are to infiltrate the government and capture regulatory agencies. By that metric, Cuba is much less “free” than the US, sure.

Mhm. I wonder, which objective metrics led you to list the US as more free than Cuba?

Cuba’s family code is one of the most progressive pieces of legislation in the world concerning LGBT rights and gender equality, meanwhile, there are parts of the US where you can get arrested for using the bathroom, or for merely failing to rat out trans kids to the cops. The US performs mass surveillance on all citizens and has the most sophisticated spy network in the world, it has used extrajudicial, indefinite detention without trial (in addition to having the highest incarceration rate in the world), along with torture (ironically, on illegally occupied Cuban soil). The US has kangaroo courts where children as young as six have to represent themselves in court with no right to an attorney, against threat of deportation. The police are equipped with military-grade equipment designed to fight insurgents, with the police budgets of individual cities exceeding that of the militaries of many countries: Cuba’s military spending is several times less than the police budget of Phoenix, AZ.

Does any of that factor into your analysis?

Non sequitor. Where did I say anything was black and white?

It’s not saying that both sides are bad? You sure about that one, chief?

What’s it saying about US imperialism? Good or bad?

What’s it saying about countries the US opposes? Good or bad?

Right, and what I’m saying is that by that very same logic, Trump supporting the Palestinian genocide doesn’t justify the democrats supporting the Palestinian genocide - they should not be considered immune to criticism either, and when people criticize them, they should not be assumed to be supporting the other side.

I couldn’t ask for clearer evidence than not accepting Saudi Arabia as authoritarian to demonstrate that “free vs authoritarian” are just propaganda terms and that how “free” a country allegedly is is really just a function of how aligned it is with the US.

In what universe is Saudi Arabia more free than Cuba?

Correct, whether it’s about countries or parties.

No u.

if you’re a global power, you’ve got a body count in the millions.

Very true. But is this an inherent trait of the world, or is there some path forward that would change or mitigate this fact?

Wait, are you saying “both sides bad?” “Both sides are the same?” Am I hearing this right?

Look, if either Xi Jinping or Donald Trump is going to emerge as leader of a global hegemon, then any and all criticism of Xi Jinping is the exact same as being a Trump supporter. When are we going to do something about all these secret Trump supporters pretending to be leftists?

At least, that’s what I’d say if I accepted the absurd logic of lesser evilism the liberals were constantly berating everyone with.

When we say landlords are bad, it’s not really about the individual people so much as it’s about the system as a whole. Ideally, the human right to housing should be guaranteed for everyone, along with the right to be cared for in retirement. How many elderly people don’t own their own homes, and have rent to pay as an additional expense making it harder for them to retire? Sure, landlordism can provide a source of income for people who can’t work, but for every case of that, there’s another case of someone who can’t work who doesn’t have the privilege of owning a home, such that the existing system makes them even more desperate. So logically, it doesn’t really make sense as a justification.

Cases like this should be considered when we’re looking at how best to implement our ideals, but not for determining our ideals in the first place. The just thing is that everyone should have a secure place to live. That’s the ideal. In implementing that ideal, we should consider that houses currently are used as a form of investment and many people simply use them that way without a second thought, because of social norms. If we simply seized and redistributed everyone’s properties tomorrow, some people like your aunt would be disproportionately affected, compared to if they had invested in stocks that can be just as unethical. It would probably still be better for most people than doing nothing, but we ought to craft policy in such a way that we’re not trolley probleming it (except regarding the people at the very top, for whom it’s unavoidable), but rather such that it provides benefits while harming as few people as possible.

When society is organized justly and the wealth of the people on the top is redistributed, there will be enough to go around that everyone ought to be able to benefit from it. Therefore, it shouldn’t be a problem to compensate small landlords for their properties and ensure that they aren’t harmed by any changes in policy.

I don’t understand why people think in these terms, “If you approve of violence being done by your side, you must also approve of violence done against your side.” I’m not taking a principled stand in favor of violence for violence’s sake. I support that which hurts the enemy and oppose that which hurts friendlies.

Stealing from the rich? Good. Stealing from the poor? Bad. Killing exploiters? Good. Killing the exploited? Bad. There’s no contradiction here because my stance is based on self-interest and the interest of my class, not on any sort of categorical moral claim about some particular form of action.

who love nothing more but to suck terrorist cock.

You’re goddamn right!

I can see it now…

We’re out on one of the beautiful beaches on the island of Bali, in Indonesia where there’s no extradition treaty with the US and where the weather ranges from the 70’s to the 90’s all year round, Lay Me Down is playing in background, we kiss between sips of margherita and then he lays back as I move down and unbutton his pants…

The rule of law already works selectively, we’d just prefer it works selectively for us instead of them.

No one? What if your profession is being a guard at Auschwitz? Is it “disgusting” to say that the SS deservered to die based on their profession?