Objection

joined 9 months ago
[–] Objection@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 hours ago

Propaganda is the reason the word took on that meaning.

[–] Objection@lemmy.ml 1 points 12 hours ago

But it’s fine! The Nazis killed more civilians, so, you know, from then on literally nothing less than the Holocaust ever matters, right?

You're not supposed to agree with that.

[–] Objection@lemmy.ml 1 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (2 children)

Of course, only the Americans matter, right? Let's focus on those poor soldiers who went off to another continent to massacre villagers and sometimes got shot, and completely ignore the million villagers who were massacred and had napalm and agent orange dropped on them.

But it's fine! The Nazis killed more civilians, so, you know, from then on literally nothing less than the Holocaust ever matters, right?

That's the real meaning of "Pax Americana" right there. The US will come to your country and slaughter people en masse and leave it in rubble using chemical weapons that last for generations, and then they won't even recognize it as a significant conflict because it was primarily your people who died, and only Americans register as human to them. Perhaps later they'll come by to film a movie about how killing you made them feel sad.

[–] Objection@lemmy.ml 1 points 14 hours ago (4 children)

The numbers are irrelevant. Just because WWII was so deadly doesn't mean you should trivialize Vietnam and other conflicts. It's ridiculous to call it a "small policing action to keep dictators in line" when over a million people were murdered in a war of aggression, propping up a dictator against a popular movement.

[–] Objection@lemmy.ml 3 points 16 hours ago

I gotta organize them to make them more singable sometime.

[–] Objection@lemmy.ml 4 points 18 hours ago (6 children)
[–] Objection@lemmy.ml 18 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (2 children)

When did 'Murica, land of the free, abandon freedom for madness?

Oh, I got this one! Pick me, pick me!

Mexico, Samoa, Hawaii, Philippeans, Columbia, Hondurus, Cuba, Nicaragua, Mexico (again), Haiti, Dominican Republic, Russia, Greece, Costa Rica, Albania, Syria, Egypt, Guatemala, Iran, Syria (again), Indonesia, Iraq, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Cuba (again), Congo, Dominican Republic (again), Iraq (again), Guyana, Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, Angola, East Timor, Argentina, Afghanistan, Nicaragua (again), Granada, Panama, the USSR, Iraq (again again), Haiti (again), Yugoslavia, Afghanistan (again), Venezuela, Iraq (again again again), Haiti (again again), Palestine (continuously), Syria (again again), Libya, Bolivia (again), Venezuela (again)

[–] Objection@lemmy.ml 4 points 19 hours ago (8 children)

Does Vietnam fall under "small policing actions that are necessary to keep dictators in line?"

[–] Objection@lemmy.ml 32 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

There's no need to go around making actionable threats of violence that could be read out in a courtroom, that's called fedposting. Try this on for size:

If the right keeps pushing, eventually someone's probably going to feel like their back's against the wall with no other recourse. For example, if there was, say, a national abortion ban, I wouldn't be surprised if someone tried to kill the people responsible. Tragic, really, but that's just the world we live in. Look, I want to do things peacefully, but if I can't produce results that way, well, it's not about me, it's about what's going to happen if other people lose confidence in my methods.

A prediction isn't a threat. I'm allowed to speculate about other people doing stuff, aren't I? Some historical orgs spoke that way, and their predictions could be eerily accurate.

[–] Objection@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Of course not. It's not meddling when we do it, because we're the good guys.

Our support of an organic democratic movement to overthrow the old corrupt regime, their meddling support of proxies to undermine the legitimate government.

[–] Objection@lemmy.ml 8 points 3 days ago

Read the article. It's not Bitcoin, it's another cryptocurrency called Libra, which just did this:

[–] Objection@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (4 children)

It's funny to me how both sides say this about the other. There were two rebellions in Ukraine backed by foreign powers, and which one you think is legitimate and which one was created by foreign meddling doesn't seem to have anything to do with any facts on the ground, it's entirely about which global hegemon you support.

In reality, both the succession movement and Euromaidan involved a combination of foreign agitation and popular support, and it's nowhere near as black and white as either side pretends.

 
 
 

How would you answer this, and how would you expect Chinese netizens on Xiaohongshu to answer?

I will link to the thread in the comments because I want you to take a moment and think about it first.

 

Just curious.

 

The first sentence on the Wikipedia page for it calls it "a disputed medical condition." Even the CIA itself has admitted that cases are not caused by "a sustained global campaign by a hostile power." The State Department similarly released a report that it was highly unlikely the symptoms were caused by any sort of directed energy weapon. In fact, seven different US intelligence agencies released a consensus statement saying, "available intelligence consistently points against the involvement of US adversaries in causing the reported incidents."

But the clowns on .world don't care about things like truth or evidence, or even direct statements from the people who's boots they have in their mouths. If it makes an enemy of the US look bad, then it is absolute truth, and anything short of complete faith and loyalty must be purged from conversation.

Rare video clip of a .world mod

:::spoiler Offending post

 
 

This one included.

-9
submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by Objection@lemmy.ml to c/usa@lemmy.ml
 

Before I begin, I have a confession: until recently (until today, in fact), I was a tankie. But this morning I just woke up and realized everything I believed and everything I'd been saying was wrong, and my critics were right about everything. And so, I have decided to completely and totally adopt their way of thinking.

The above image is an example to illustrate how my thinking has changed. You may be familiar with "Russell's Teapot," a thought experiment from Bertrand Russell where he imagines that someone says that there is a tiny, invisible teapot, floating out in space. He argues that while such a claim cannot strictly be disproved, it can be dismissed without evidence because there is no evidence to support it. The burden of proof is on the person making the claim. He goes on to explain that while he could not disprove the existence of God, he still considered himself an atheist, because he did not see sufficient evidence for the claim of God's existence to be credible.

In my previous (tankie) way of thinking, I would have agreed with this idea, that claims made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. But I now understand that this made me a Bad Person. Suppose that, as in the beautiful diagram I drew in MS Paint, the claim is not only that the teapot exists, but that inside of the teapot, there are a bunch of tiny invisible people who are geopolitical enemies of the United States and they are committing genocide against innocent people. Again, before, I would have said that that only makes the claim more implausible and would require extraordinary proof. Now, I realize how wrong I was, and I can only say that I deeply regret and apologize for my statements. The existence of the teapot can be proven incontrovertibly, by the following logic:

  1. If you claim that the teapot does not exist, you are denying that the genocide inside it is happening.

  2. If you deny the genocide is happening, you are a genocide denier and therefore a fascist.

  3. Fascism is wrong.

  4. Therefore, it is impossible to correctly deny the teapot's existence.

As a brief aside, I should mention that in addition to my political conversion, I have also experienced a drastic change in my religious beliefs, as it is now trivially easy to prove that God exists. According to the Torah, God flooded the world, wiping out virtually all of humanity, including countless ethnic groups. To deny the existence of God makes you a genocide denier and a fascist. However, it should be added that to worship God is genocide apologia, which is also fascist. The only non-fascist belief, which is necessarily correct, is that God exists and is evil. Moving on.

Before, I believed that it was ridiculous for the US to spend as much on the military as the next 9 countries combined. I wanted to slash the military budget to fund domestic spending, schools, hospitals, making sure bridges don't collapse, helping the poor, etc. I see now how wrong I was. The Genocide Teapot exists, somewhere out there in space, in fact, there could be countless numbers of them out there. Therefore, the real progressive thing to do is to further cut domestic spending and have everyone tighten our belts so that we can produce as many missiles as possible, to be fired out into space indiscriminately, in hopes of hitting a Genocide Teapot.

However, we must also consider the possibility that these teapots could be located here on Earth too. Teapots are a form of china, which is a very suspicious connection. Clearly, the US must be permitted to inspect every square inch of China in search of these invisible teapots, and refusal to comply should be considered an admission of guilt. But we should not, of course, limit ourselves to China. Perhaps there are Genocide Teapots in Russia, or Brazil, or Germany, or Canada, who knows? I do, because to deny that Genocide Teapots exist in all of those places is genocide denial, which is fascist and wrong.

In conclusion, we should bomb every country in the world simultaneously, including ourselves, and anyone who disagrees with me is a war-loving fascist.

Thank you.

22
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by Objection@lemmy.ml to c/usa@lemmy.ml
 

President Trump kept America out of new wars and brought thousands of brave troops home from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and many other countries. Joe Biden has undermined our military readiness and surrendered our strength to the Taliban.

When Trump pulls troops out of Afghanistan, it's "bringing thousands of brave troops home," but when Biden does the same, it's, "surrendering our strength to the Taliban." He brags about "keeping America out of foreign wars" while at the same time bragging about assassinating "the world's number one terrorist," Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, which was an extreme act of provocation.

This is taken from the issues page of Trump's campaign website, and there are several more statements relating to foreign policy, frequently and boldly contradicting each other. It's a perfect example of the "If By Whiskey" tactic. So what's actually going on here? Well, to understand the reasons for this equivocation, we need to analyze the foreign policy positions of Americans.

Broadly speaking, people fall into one of four camps: Idealist Hawk (liberals), Idealist Dove (libertarians), Realist Hawk (nationalists), and Realist Dove (socialists).

Idealist Hawks believe that US foreign policy is driven by benevolence and spreading freedom, and the fact that it repeatedly fails to do so (Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, etc) is explainable by a variety of excuses. Generally, they are more interested in current events and easily persuaded to support intervention based on seeing a bad thing happening, without a broader analysis or explanation of the situation or how things have played out historically.

Idealist Doves also believe that US foreign policy is driven by benevolence, but they see that as a bad thing. They are generally right libertarians or hold libertarian values, they see war as another example of wasteful government spending as it tries and fails to improve people's lives, which they generally don't see as a valid goal in the first place. Being idealists, they are still rather easily duped into supporting war and militarism, often, they will support a "night watchman state," with police and the military being the only legitimate functions.

Realist Hawks are nationalists who believe that states pursue their own material interests and are right to do so. They are incapable of distinguishing between the state's interest and their own. Some few are rich enough to actually receive benefits from US foreign policy, but most just root for America in the same way that they might root for a football team.

Realist Doves, which I am a part of, do not believe that US foreign policy is not grounded in benevolence and does not benefit the people it claims to be helping, but also (generally) that it doesn't benefit the majority of people at home. We see it as being driven by and for class interests, and are opposed to the class it benefits.

Trump's foreign policy equivocation, and his "America First" slogan allows him to appeal to both the Idealist Doves (libertarians) and the Realist Hawks (nationalists). He can't consistently take any line on any specific thing. If by Afghanistan, you mean a disastrous nation-building exercise, wasteful government spending, and endangering our troops for the sake of helping foreigners, then of course Trump opposes it. But if by Afghanistan, you mean exerting American strength, intimidating Russia and China, and weakening terrorists to keep America safe, then of course Trump supports it.

In reality, to the extent that Trump has coherent beliefs at all, he is a Realist Hawk, a nationalist, and his record reflects that. But part of the reason he was able to get anywhere was because he was able to triangulate and equivocate well enough to dupe anti-war libertarians.

Unfortunately, in American politics, the conflict is generally between Idealist Hawks and everyone else. This is part of what allows the nationalists and libertarians to put aside their differences (the other part being that libertarians are easily duped). Realist Doves are not represented anywhere, the Idealist Interventionists consider us Russian bots along with everyone else who disagrees with them on foreign policy (regardless of how or why), the Idealist Doves are extremely unreliable, and the Realist Hawks may see the world in a similar way but have diametrically opposed priorities.

tl;dr: Trump's halfhearted antiwar posturing is an obvious ruse that only an idiot would fall for, but painting everyone skeptical of US foreign policy with the same brush helps him to sell it and to paint over ideological rifts that could otherwise be potentially exploited.

 

What is Soulism? Soulism, also known as anarcho-antirealism, is a school of anarchist thought which views reality and natural laws as unjust hierarchies.

Some people might laugh at the idea and say it's not a serious ideology, but this is no laughing matter. If these people are successful, then consensus reality would be destroyed and we would return to what the world was like before the Enlightenment. What did that world look like? Well, you had:

  • Ultra-powerful wizards hoarding knowledge in high towers, reshaping reality to their whims, with no regard for the common people

  • Bloodthirsty, aristocratic vampires operating openly, and on a much larger scale than they do today

  • Viscous, rage-driven werewolves terrorizing the populace, massacring entire villages with reckless abandon

  • Fey beings abducting children and replacing them with their own

  • Demons and angels waging massive wars against each other with humans caught in the crossfire

Fortunately, out of this age of chaos and insecurity emerged a group of scientists dedicated to protecting and advancing humanity by establishing a consensus reality and putting a stop to these out-of-control reality deviants.

Before, if you got sick or injured, you'd have to travel across the land through dangerous enchanted forests seeking a skilled faith healer or magical healing potion. But with consensus reality, easily accessible and consistent medical practices were instilled with the same magical healing properties. Once, if you wanted to transmute grain into bread, you had to convince a wizard to come out of their tower and do it, and they were just as likely to turn you into a newt for disturbing their studies. But thanks to consensus reality, anyone could build their own magical tower (a "mill") and harness the mana present in elemental air to animate their own "millstones" to do it! These things were only made possible by consensus reality.

Now, I'm not saying that this approach doesn't have it's drawbacks and failures, and I'm not going to say that the reality defenders have never done anything wrong. But these "Soulists" want to destroy everything that's been accomplished and bring us back to the times when these supernatural reality deviants were more powerful than reason or humanity, and constantly preyed upon us.

So do not fall for their propaganda, and if you see something, says something. Anyone altering reality through belief and willpower, or any other reality deviants such as vampires or werewolves, should be reported immediately to the Technocratic Union for your safety, the safety of those around you, and, indeed, the safety of reality itself.

Thank you for your cooperation.

view more: next ›