Unfortunately I think most of us would probably survive at least the a couple of those years, as much as we might wish we died.

True, I’m pretty sure they hate them for being Arabs. They love killing Palestinian Christians too. It’s racial.

The existence of Israel is part of what causes that intolerance within majority Muslim countries. Israel, through its own racist apartheid and colonialism, has inflamed resentments in the region against non-Muslim peoples.

But Israel doesn’t deserve all the blame! The other cause is the US actively propping up other repressive regimes in the region, as well as murdering so many people’s families that they see no choice but to take up arms against the Great Satan.

The only way to believe that Islam is some kind of uniquely backwards and primitive religion is through racism. This situation is a product of recent history.

I’m not going to forgive your racism, actually.

Decolonization can be done peacefully.

I don’t think that will happen, but it could!

I also support Palestinian resistance, and that’s very different from Israeli violence inflicted onto Palestinians. Indigenous resistance to colonization is always justified.

Sure, Israel should be abolished peacefully.

I’m just saying, this isn’t how we got here.

No, we ended up in this situation because colonizers came and stole Palestinian land. It’s an Israeli myth that Palestinians first stole the land from the Jews and expelled them.

The truth is, Palestinians are just descendents of ancient Israelis. They’re not invaders. They’re indigenous to the land.

It’s not the smoking gun like the title claims, but it is another piece of evidence in the pile.

The poverty is the result of the US economic siege war, don’t pretend like they did it to themselves.

Harris decided she’d rather help Trump get reelected than break with Biden on Israel. It’s her fault that she lost an extremely winnable election. She is the one that got Trump elected, more than any voter.

This is exactly like when gun lovers try to say “this isn’t the time to discuss gun laws” and “they would have found a way to hurt people regardless”. Zero difference.

But actually this is exactly when we should argue about the existence of cars: someone just performed a live demonstration of how dangerous they are in the hands of someone who wants to kill people. Without a car, mass killing would be much much harder and it would also be possible for people to defend themselves or escape the danger. Cars also enable impulse killings in a way knives don’t, because carrying a knife has to be premeditated whereas with a car the murder weapon is always readily available.

Over a million people around the world die because of cars every year. The most recent number I found for Canada was 1,998 people.

Let’s compare that to knives. The most recent number I found for Canada was 138 people stabbed to death. Globally, 97k. Orders of magnitude in difference.

Most vehicle deaths are accidents, but you can’t ignore the fact that cars kill far more people than knives.

I don’t like cars, and one of the reasons is because they’re extremely deadly and driving is basically the most dangerous thing we do on a regular basis.

But not anything could be used as a mass murder weapon. Killing nine people with a kitchen knife would also be quite hard (technically possible if the attacker gets lucky, but still more likely to result in the attacker dying)

The fact that cars are all potential mass murder weapons isn’t my primary reason for wanting to ban cars, but it’s totally a reason.

The tool is very relevant when it enables greater amounts of violence.

Killing nine people with your fists is extremely hard and you’d probably die trying. A car, gun, or bomb makes it much easier.

Let’s not pretend like these children aren’t having this behavior reinforced by their parents.

Obviously not, but lead contamination kinda is. This shit happens because of cost cutting.

We tend to find older practices barbaric because they were unscientific and didn’t work, not because they became obsolete due to better technology. Like, lobotomies and shock therapy are barbaric and that has nothing to do with our technology being better. They were just stupid scams.

Iran is already under strict sanctions, what else is there? Pretty sure he’s powerless to do anything about this unless Huffpo is suggesting he should declare war on Iran.

I think this is a very strict small-r republican moral framework for understanding government legitimacy, but I don’t think the consent of the governed has to strictly come from casting ballots in an election.

When a government loses their legitimacy they have to rely on violence against their own people to remain in power, and this is true whether there are elections or not. Zelensky would lose power if he was not kidnapping Ukrainians off the street to fight Russia, therefore, he needs to employ violence to retain power.

Compare that with Hamas, who never lack fighters and don’t bother with conscripts because the masses are willing to fight and die for them.

Hamas is able to operate because of the many people willing to volunteer their help as smugglers/informants or hide them from Israel intelligence or join them directly as fighters. Guerillas live and die by their support from the people, a guerilla movement like Hamas would not be able to exist without the masses. Their continued existence, itself, proves legitimacy imo

Not to say that Zelensky has lost legitimacy, per se, just to say that I don’t think using a moral framework based on elections will tell the whole story. I do question his legitimacy, though, which is why I don’t think he’ll be in power next year. Hamas, on the other hand, isn’t going anywhere.

Would you say Ukraine’s government is also illegitimate because they aren’t having elections?