Imagine Vietnam-era US, but it was willing to sacrifice every warm body within its borders to win.
Like the US, I think Russia is on a collision course with failure. But they’re going to take it a lot farther before waving a white flag. So much so that it will take the country decades to recover.
And Ukraine won’t be looking too hot at that point anymore, either.
No no.
See, we ran the Numbies.
China Numbies Go Down.
Numbies supposed to Go Up.
China is doom.
/s
This strain of brainworm never ceases to amaze me. I’m not a tankie, either and I hate the mainland with a passion. But counting China completely out when it’s clowning the rest of the world on infrastructure right now is just plain mouth-breather stupid.
Taiwan’s position is no longer that it is the rightful ruler of China. That notion died with Chiang Kai-shek and nobody with a shred of a brain truly believes it.
The PRC won the fight over who “legitimate China” is when the UN gave them the seat for China. Also, one of these is an international superpower and the other is Taiwan.
This mostly correct.
But the US isn’t responsible for Taiwan’s increased interest in independence. Taiwan is.
After the Sunflower Movement and witnessing what happened to HK, young Taiwanese are overwhelmingly in favor of independence. So much so that independence has become all but stated as the platform of the DPP. The KMT is now the pro-unification party, but outside of the last mid-terms, they have been getting slaughtered in elections and had to tone down their pro-China rhetoric.
Status quo is definitely still the overall majority, but that is going to change with demographics and the next generation overwhelmingly favor independence.
As they should. China was not the first owner of Taiwan, and over the course of Taiwan’s history, their control of the island was relatively short. This is not even speaking of the Indigenous Taiwanese who are always left out of the conversation about Taiwan and have never been citizens of China or had Chinese heritage.
It also “arbitrarily” has its own currency, government, military, flag, infrastructure, foreign policy, trade deals, etc.
And anybody who knows the history of Taiwan and doesn’t perceive it to be an independent nation is willfully ignorant.
I guess that makes me number 3?
The ending was a bit silly, but the Qunari storyline was fucking incredible.
Taiwan has legalized gay marriage and VERY open LGBTQ+ neighborhoods in its cities.
The cancelation makes no fucking sense.
Fart.
Can you name all of the actors that played Putties in the original English run of Power Rangers from the 90s?
See, I can set arbitrary, movable goal posts, too.
It doesn’t work that way. FBI documents remain classified for 50 years before being accessible to FOIA. That means that we don’t have the means to confirm culpability outside that 50-year window.
I can throw names at you. But here’s what I know will happen in response. You will either;
A) Claim the person was not innocent. Despite conflicting claims, they either had a weapon, attempted violence, whatever. So they deserved to be murdered.
Or
B) The situation is not clear. Nobody was outright blamed. Details are fuzzy. Investigations were inconclusive.
Regardless of what I post, the outcome will never be “Wow, you’re right. I guess law enforcement does kill innocent people without impetus sometimes.” You will always move the goal posts and claim that I did not meet your burden of proof. Because you’re arguing ideologically in bad faith. And since I’m not a fucking idiot, I’m not going to waste my time.
And if you want to say that you are, in fact, arguing in good faith, then my rebuttal is simple;
I’m not doing your fucking homework for you, Billy.
And everyone knows that the FBI was never involved in the extrajudicial killing of an innocent dissident besides that one time.
It goes beyond that.
With Saudi Arabia leaning increasingly towards BRICS and being more erratic in its support of the West, Israel is the last firm diplomatic beacon and region of influence the US has in the Middle East.
It also just so happens to be an apartheid state.
Even if public opinion sharply turned on Israel (it won’t), the US would still hold firm in supporting it. Not because it’s obligated to Israel or even because of sunk-cost fallacy. But because it would remove any chance of the US playing a part in regional hegemony.
Effective protest means accepting going without and inconvenience.
In an instant gratification society, that is anathema.
It means the mods at r/pics just dropped a “Please Cover This” sign to the biggest news show in reddit’s prime demographic.
It’s honestly kind of fucking genius. Much respect.
Put all your libertarian homies on watch. They’re grieving right now.
So it’s treason, then.
Dig in, folks. Time to bring the pain.
Yep. The Romans fucked themselves sideways doing this a few times. You can have all the soldiers or you can have some farmers and skilled laborers. You can’t have both.