Right, isolating the US is good for everyone else, the more tied to us they are the more leverage we have over them and the worse we can hurt them if they don't do the evil things we expect of them. Weakening the US is critical to the freedom and dignity of humanity.

I know, I thought about bringing it up but I didn't think it would help make my point. I think the larger point (that self-described libertarians aren't all obsessed with age of consent the way that American ones are) is still valid, but it is very unfortunate that the poster example of what I'm trying to describe had Epstein as an accountant.

I think a pretty strong reaction IS warranted against defense of NATO, personally I think it's a very bad take but I'm trying to stick up for you here. I think it would be better to focus the vitriol against that disagreement than going after your label.

If it's any help I'm not sure how much awareness you have of the recent controversy that's been roiling with the folks at SJW but there have been a lot of people recently defending the specific position you are but also engaging in a pretty hostile way, especially in regards to the use of ableist/transphobic rhetoric that we do not tolerate. Nerves are a bit frayed on Hexbear writ large. I think a lot of Hexbears are reacting to hostility with carpet bombing rather than precision as a result.

Hell, until this weekend I was basically just a lurker, the recent stuff brought me out of the woodwork. I can't tell you what to do, but I think if you give Hexbear some time things will mellow out, things are just tense at the moment. I wouldn't say you should ever expect them to like you being pro-NATO but I think you're likely to get more constructive engagement generally the further out from this weekend we get.

Just my two cents.

Don't people of a Chomsky-type bent sometimes self-describe as libertarian? It's less common in the US because of how libertarians here are usually right-wingers but the libertarians=pedophiles trope is less common abroad is my understanding. I usually peg them as more anarchist types, which usually are welcome in hexbear.

Not super into this one wanting to defend NATO but I think they have a point about the pedo stuff.

I'm not moving the goalposts, I'm just pointing out that it's a bit disingenuous to frame a question about what should happen in an unresolved civil war as a question of nations and their sovereignty. It would be disingenuous to frame Russia's intervention in Ukraine as defending the independence of an entire country, I think it's a similar situation between ROC/PRC, the primary difference being the length of the dispute.

Which is relevant if we're talking about how one can consistently be anti-imperialist, I think. I agree it's a bit flippant to say stuff about 'giving up Loser Island' but I think it's important to recognize that it's more complicated than 'two independent countries fighting over the territory of one of them.'

I appreciate your openness here. I think the PRC would also prefer peaceful engagement with the longer term goal of peaceful reincorporation, the trade ties they've cultivated in spite of US hostility I think lend credence to their sincerity there. In the big picture I just don't think the region can sustain two governments that each claim sovereignty over the same areas, and given their historical cultural and economic ties I think reunification would be the outcome of a process of dialogue between them.

Is the Donbas a separate country because it declared independence from Ukraine?

EDIT: Which is actually more than Taiwan has done, the government in exile on Taiwan considers itself the rightful government of the entirety of mainland China and parts of Mongolia.

Look further up this comment chain. Momo said something I won't repeat that your mods removed, that's what I called ableist. Your mods agree with you that 'crazy' isn't a slur so they didn't remove the comment for that. It was worse.

You really don't have to come to the defense of a post your mods removed for being bad.

You didn't actually say any of my takes were wrong, you asked clarifying questions or moved from what we were talking about to another related issue that bothered you. It's truly unfortunate that you've blocked the community and can't go back to see the context, I felt like we were getting somewhere. I'm sure you had your reasons though.

You really don't have to come to the defense of a post your mods removed for being bad.

I can't tell how serious you're being but I read a really good book on this subject- The History of White People

The TL;DR on that is that whiteness is a social category, not an objective observation of human beings and their differences. For most of American history, as an example, Anglo-Saxons, Dutch/Low Germans and Scandinavians were considered a superior race to the 'alpine' and 'mediterranean' races of High Germans, Spaniards, and Italians. Irish weren't Anglo-Saxon, they were Celtic and were thus considered inferior. The racism people observe when they see 'Irish need not apply' signs or slurs directed at Italians in the 1800s were because those people were not considered 'white' at the time. It's an over-simplification, but these groups needed to be incorporated into the dominant group before they would be given the treatment we generally think is normal for white people.

Which is very jarring to us, since obviously Irish and Italians and Bavarian Germans are 'white'. But it literally does vary, and the entire purpose of the category is to render people inside of it superior by virtue of belonging to it, it's a category that exists to express supremacy.

Oh hey! You never got back to me on whether you felt that the discussion we had exposed some more nuance on the subject of the war in Ukraine, I assumed you must have gone to sleep or something. But I was really enjoying our discussion and was genuinely curious if you felt it had been productive. Maybe you just wanted to argue with other people more, but it seemed like we were making progress.

For what it's worth, I didn't say Russia was justified, I said the war was bad and the US made decisions that lead to this situation. I'd appreciate it if you would represent me fairly. I certainly hope you're representing everyone else fairly too, I didn't really read the other discussions you were having.