Yeah, but that pedantry did not add much. Yes, we do not ban children from drinking but there are still limits on their ability to buy and consume. A responsible adult needs to be present when children consume alcohol in many countries.
My son had no problem getting a beer with his meal at 15 in Munich. We were there, though, so it was supervised. It was also Radlers, so half beer, half soda.
>We ban gambling for children, even though the vast majority of harm caused by gambling comes from adults. Now you could argue that more harm would befall children if we let them gamble, but I honestly don’t think you should.
Yeah only children stealing credit cards to satisfy their addiction.
I don't know if the poster ever saw a child but they are largely sociopathic for a long time and will go great lengths to get their will.
Yeah it’s not just a demand side thing. Costs go down as well. Every leap in new hardware costs a lot in initial investment and that’s included in a lot of the pricing.
Mexico, Puerto Rico, Samoa, Hawaii, Guam, Cuba, Panama, and the Philippines?
In the last 100 years the trend has been been for America to invade a country and try to install a friendly government rather than formally annex them - Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Syria.
So it's not longer 30 years but 100? What the US did pre WW2 was in no way abnormal or worse than that what every other powerful was doing..
Also US never technically invaded Lybia, Yemen or Syria (unless you count their intervention to support the Kurdish and Iraqi governments against ISIS an invasion...)
What happened in Korea was the opposite of the invasion (of course the South Korea regime they were saving was extremely oppressive and arguably not worse at all than the one in the North at the time).
Also are you implying that the majority of military bases US has in other countries (especially in Europe) is involuntary?
Invading countries to annex them is not even that bad if you give full citizen rights to their population. Invading to occupy, destabilise and depredate is much worse.
> Invading countries to annex them is not even that bad if you give full citizen rights to their population.
How is that relevant to Russia's invasion of Ukraine? Whenever Russia takes territory they're filling mass graves with raped Ukrainian civilians.
American forces too have committed innumerable atrocities, and there is no forgiving that, but it doesn't support the premise above that Russia is in some way cleaner.
No intention to deny individual episodes of war crimes, but the ratio of civilian to military casualties in the conflict is pretty low, despite a drawn out war and massive military casualties: we're talking about 12-15 thousand civilian deaths in almost four years of war. Absolutely tragic but doesn't seem to indicate a genocidal intent. Compare with the widespread massacres of civilians perpetrated by Israel in Palestine.
Ukranian civilians sensibly fleeing for their lives when the front gets close has prevented many deaths, and doesn't change the facts of what happens when they don't escape.
There's 3.5 million people living in the Russia-occupied territories of Ukraine now. The Wikipedia entry about them even lists "forced Russification" as one of the abuses they suffer: "Ukrainians have been coerced into taking Russian passports and becoming Russian citizens". Now, as bad as this is, being forced to become a regular citizen of the occupying state is a far cry from being deported and murdered by that state. Nazi Germany wasn't giving German citizenship to Poles and Jews in occupied territories; Israel is not giving Israeli citizenship to Palestinians in occupied territories. Do you see the difference?
Putin himself has famously claimed that Russians and Ukrainians are the same people: this is the very opposite of the ideological premise to justify a genocide.
From what I understand from friends who still spend a lot of time in Donetsk because their businesses are there, you might be taken to a basement and shot if you say the wrong thing.
It's pretty bad, but sure, if you just go along with it you'll probably be fine.
>this is the very opposite of the ideological premise to justify a genocide.
Genocide is an attempt to kill a group; That does not happen only by murdering people - it's also forced assimilation. In this case, Russia is directly violating article 2) e) of the Genocide Convention*: "Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."
>citizenship
Citizenship is not relevant to the genocide convention at all.
Putin has famously claimed that Russians and Ukrainians are the same people for the same reasons that Hitler claimed that the Sudetendeutsche are the same people as the Germans - to justify an illegal imperial attack on a neighbor.
Russian imperialism needs Ukraine, since without Ukraine there's no Russian empire. Russia invaded Ukraine out of imperialist delusion, not for humanitarian reasons.
You have thoroughly bought into Russian propagandist lies.
> for the same reasons that Hitler claimed that the Sudetendeutsche are the same people as the Germans
Indeed, but Hitler is not famous for mass-murdering the Sudetendeutsche.
And I never claimed that Russia invaded Ukraine for humanitarian reasons. I think it did because it could not tolerate a Ukraine fully integrated in the West and NATO- but this just means exercising political control over Ukraine, it doesn't imply an ethnic cleansing or genocide of Ukrainians.
We'll see about Venezuela, it's early to say. In Ukraine, a short conflict would have been better than a prolonged one, and in case of annexed territories, the status and civil rights of annexed populations should have been the focus of any peace agreement. The territory doesn't care who owns it, it's the people that suffer.
For example, the Israeli occupation and progressive annexation of Palestine is especially criminal because they have no intention of including the native population in their ethno-state- it's an annexation with ethnic cleansing or, if needed, genocide.
>Invading countries to annex them is not even that bad if you give full citizen rights to their population.
This is soviet bullshit, the Moscowitz did a lot of genocides you can find plenty of sources, so they were and are as bad as Israel because the Rusky/slavs in Ruzzia are indoctrinated to feel superior to the other non slaves in the empire and feel still a bit more superior then the rest of the slavs. You can look at the existing recent data from the Ruzzian stats and how the minorities are more in decline then the Ruskies.
So for uninformed people that might read this soviet guy comment, read a wikipedia summary of what moscowites did and Putin is still doing, I suggest not reading in detail, like reading books or interviews with vitims of this criminal empire you will fill a big amount of pain if you have empath on how this Ruscists treated humans , I will never forget the stuff Ir ead and better if I did not know the details.
Ruzzia, israle , USA all are bad but the situation is multidimensional and is not easy to say that Ruzzia is less bad then Nazis and are better then Israle etc., we cana dmit that criminal are criminals, dictators are dictators, bastardads are bastards and trolls are trolls.
Russia in the last 30 years invaded and occupied Moldova, Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, Syria - not to mention the atrocities committed in Africa.
But with the exception of Syria, Russia always had genocidal intent - deny cultures, erase them, and make those countries as unstable as possible while remaining occupied.
I'm not saying what the US did was good, or right, but there's a big difference.
The US never denied the existence of cultures, languages, etc.
Right, so what's the scope of time we're talking about here? Are we talking about the world post WW2, or are we going back to the Roman Empire?
Because if you want to "win" arguments by randomly swinging hundreds of years to make a point, then it's pointless, because anyone can pick a point in thousands of years of History to show "look - they were bad here".
I think discussions about modern history are sufficient for the post-WW2 period, as there was a global consensus on international law and the Charter of the UN.
If you hold grievances about events hundreds of years old to make points about current events, then it's pointless.
If you believe the US that colonized part of North America is the same as post-ww2 US, then I can understand.
I don't think they're the same, so many institutions were established that over the years that I don't see them as the former colony of the British crown.
But hey, if you want to discuss semantics, go for it.
Yeah, when you draw arbitrary limits (30 years for you it seems), it's easy to paint one side as the better one. Once you start to think a bit bigger, you start to realize most big nations act as the others, and it's just different flavors of "bad", yet they're all as bad as the others.
What about segregation then, is that recent enough for you? Or that wasn't about culture/language, so that too isn't applicable? I'm afraid that with rose-tinted glasses, everything has an explanation why your favorite is different than their favorite.
Why is the founding of the UN, at the end of WW2, and the signature of the UN Charter, considered an arbitrary event in modern History for you?
It's the biggest geopolitical event in modern History to prevent the death of millions, by attempting to stop the expansion of borders through military force and making countries recognize the borders of each of its members.
> What about segregation then, is that recent enough for you?
What about segregation? Where? In different European countries? USA? South Africa? India?
Was there a global consensus to end segregation? Or were different events at different points in time, achieved in different manners? Is there still segregation happening in some societies?
So all the countries Russia interfered with are neighbours, with hundreds of years of ethnic, cultural and religious disputes, while basically all the countries the US interfered with are across one or more oceans, with no historical disputes with the US, and happen to be resource rich.
Thanks for explaining why Russia is less unreasonable than the US.
"Historical disputes" is the most unreasonable claim to violate international law and the UN Charter lmao
You're basically saying that one countries interpretation of events is enough to annex another. That's the old logic of pre WW2 lol
Especially Russia that has revised their history so many times they even have a saying that "Russia's past is uncertain".
So to have that interpretation of what I said shows that you have a very poor understanding of History and current events, or it's just a deficient provocation.
So they invaded their own internationally recognized territory. Wonderful. By that standard Ukraine invaded Donbass after they declared themselves independent of Ukraine.
>Syria
Even more outlandish claim, considering they were invited by the government. Whether the west considered the government illegitimate or not didn't matter.
>Moldova
>Georgia
in both conflicts in protection of a minority, on whose territory a larger state laid claim using Soviet drawn borders and dissolution of the USSR. Since the Ukrainian conflict started I observed lots of enthusiasm for Soviet borders on the side of Russia's detractors, which were often drawn with territories assigned as a form of favoritism, simply because communist leadership in Moscow had better a relationship with the communist leaders of one of the ethnicities in question. That way historic Armenian land of Artsakh was assigned to Azerbaijan for example -- the recent ethnic cleansing outcome of that is well known.
The US just stole every good ever. The Maine. Union Fruit/Banana Company.
If the US tried to survive by just fair economics it would crumble into dust in less than a decade. Yet they use Latin America as their own backyard in order to avoid this.
And, well, as an European I have to say that France does the same with Africa in order to be semi on par with Germany. If not, their GDP would just be slightly better than Spain, if not worse because centralisation it's hell for modern times.
Some states in the US would do fine, OFC. But in order to support the whole USA, that's unfeasible. You can't have a country where a few powerhouses have to carry up the rest in a really innefective way, such as oil dependant transportation.
Meanwhile, the Chinese and Europe will just build non-polluting railways everywhere.
Someday it will be your country and yourself, and nobody will be outraged anymore, because everybody is the same. Stop this cycle and organize, instead of separating like-minded people with useless lines, standing aside and shouting about how things should be, in your opinion, and how everyone else should do... something, because you know better than insiders.
You know that justification in support of access to firearms in the US- "we need to be armed in case our government goes rogue". I always thought it was BS, but in case it's not, maybe this is the time.
The problem is that there's no "we". Tens of millions of Americans support the Trump regime and its actions in Venezuela. Coincidentally, they are also the ones who have most of those firearms.
The specific Americans you speak of mostly care about domestic issues and trend isolationist. They'll perhaps be slightly peeved anytime we intervene overseas, but they'll certainly overlook it while they get what they want at home.
I doubt they care (or know) about Venezuela.
Also I think the number is hundreds of millions, not tens.
I'm referring specifically to the people who support the military action in Venezuela, which is a subset of those who voted for Trump. Like you say, most of them care mainly about domestic issues. However there is a crowd that is all in on Trump and supports whatever he does - you can see them cheering even here in the comments - those are the tens of millions that I'm speaking of. It's still way too many, unfortunately.
Thanks for answering my question and imploring me to drone some mantra (I counter with: everything is a system, my dog is a system), and I'll guess I have to wait for New Zealand to do some invading.
sigh Nevermind, it's obviously way too much to ask for a simple answer to a simple question after being strawmanned.
Do you understand that the difference in the Ukrainian case is literally caused by the actions of Western countries?
Venezuelans are going to work tomorrow because no one has provided their corrupt dictatorial government with hundreds of billions of dollars in military and financial aid?
The difference is that Russia's goal is the annexation of most or all Ukrainian territory, the looting of the country and the erasure of its national identity. Without western support, Ukraine would be in a much worse state than it is now.
Whatever US goals are, it seems they are not pushing forward after snatching Maduro.
Yeah, sure, if they did not get support they would have dies already and look what peaceful place this graveyard is. Slight hiperbole, not everyone would be dead, but a lot, for sure, and the rest, too scared they would be next to do anything else.
Privately owned and operated transportation, where the main government involvement is just telling them to make it happen and then giving a certain amount of money per active subscription.
Most likely the next democratic administration. Antitrust actions are wildly popular and are also things the executive can act upon without the need for Congress or the courts. I mean this is what the current administration has taught the public, now rather than aiming the state at the people it'll be aimed at the corporations hopefully.
Also, Germany currently has the problem of much more and more reliable wind generation in the north, but not enough network capacity to send it all south when needed. It is being addressed, but as expected, it is very complicated because infrastructure across the whole country touches the interests of a lot of groups with very different interests.
We might need much better tunnel building equipment and a deep sub-terranean network... (useful sci-fi idea, needs to be able to cope with mild earth quakes in some regions).
Gas-fired power plants are planned for load balancing, and these are already being built in such a way that they can be converted to hydrogen operation at a later date.
You can move slider for last 24hrs, there were sunny bits in Germany.
CO2 is constantly shit over here.
And yeah.. what am I supposed to do when it's not sunny or no wind? Fart into windfarm?
reply