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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 14th, 2023

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  • Classism is present in Russia too.

    I watched a couple of YouTube videos from a normal guy who lives in Russia talking about what it was actually like to live in Russia around the time that Tucker Carlson did that weird state visit and he peeled back a layer of intentional propaganda that the American journalist was spreading - that Russians are living in some kind of luxury paradise. Sure, everything costs less over there, but people are also paid a lot less too. If you’re working class, it’s hard to afford enough food to put on the table sometimes. The rich, however, are not hurting for anything and a lot of big brand labels that said they would exit Russia just rebranded themselves or quietly re-entered the market after all the commotion about the war died down.







  • Nothing. I can see the future and I see what everybody is refusing to believe - Trump will not be gone in 4 years. Congress can’t hold him to account (because half of them are collaborators) and the court’s orders can’t be enforced. Best we’ll get is a stern tut-tut from Democrats while more and more rights will slip away at an alarming pace. Sure, the constitution SAYS you have the right to certain things, but if Trump violates those rights by ordering people below him to carry out unconstitutional acts, who will come save you? Not congress, not the judiciary, not the SCOTUS, not the police, not the military.

    We’re fucked. It’s over.


  • There’s nothing that says Presidential Pardons need to be in writing. Biden just had to direct the right people to offer a pardon to an individual which can then be accepted or declined. That can be verbal, electronically communicated, or in writing, but a signature from the President is just a formality and definitely not required, so the autopen/esign argument is a totally dead argument.

    Just more criminal conduct from the felon in chief.







  • I have had plenty of painful moments, but a recent one is that my parents just don’t seem to understand that the first result on Google is an advertisement and that they shouldn’t be clicking on it. They literally can’t see the difference between a sponsored search result (which can often be a bad faith actor or a scammer paying to get their result to the top of the search results) and a genuine link to the real site they were trying to reach.

    I have tried installing adblockers for them, but they end up disabling them for certain websites that require popups to be enabled and then they never re-enable it again and end up clicking on bullshit links.




  • I dont know why you need a comparison in the first place.

    Evidently, there are a LOT of people who don’t seem to understand just why the deal was so bad to begin with. Not you, of course, but some other comments in these Ukraine threads are either woefully uninformed or intentionally being obtuse about acknowledging facts.

    And sorry about it being a series of Amerocentric examples, especially here in World News where it’s probably a bit taboo or tone deaf, but suffice to say it seems like the primary culprit behind much the willful ignorance are Americans with a narrow understanding of foreign affairs. I’m also just sticking to what I know so I don’t embarrass myself with my terrible geography.


  • You’re looking too far into the details. The value of the territory is irrelevant for this hypothetical scenario. But I’ve been catching a lot of flak in the comments for it, so you know what? I’ll humor you, let’s change the formula.

    Let’s say tomorrow, Russia announces that because they feel that they were cheated in 1867, they are refusing to recognize the sale of the Alaska territory to the United States and are reestablishing their control over the land as it’s sole owner. They send an invasion force and they capture the land in a swift blitzkrieg-style assault, the United States is caught completely by surprise.

    Now, the United States fights, but we can’t really conduct ground operations without the support of Canada. They are our not just our neighbors, but our staunchest allies in this fight. However, a new Prime Minister is sworn in and they suddenly decide to take a massive shift in foreign policy, and try to broker a “peace deal” between Russia and the USA in which we agree to sign over the rights to future drilling operations to Canada in exchange for a ceasefire from Russia, but Russia gets to keep Alaska since they occupy it now anyway. Refusal means Canada pulls their support, forbids US soldiers from operating in Canadian waters or on Canadian soil, and conducting operations in the occupied Alaskan territory becomes virtually impossible. And, let’s not forget, no security agreements even if we do sign the agreement. So, if Russia decides to attack Hawaii or California next, nobody will be compelled to aid us.

    Is that a better comparison? Alaska has massive economic and strategic value, so there’s a good reason for Russia to want it. They’ve been regretting ever selling it to us in the first place.


  • It’s a hypothetical scenario. I could think of some better examples if you really wanted, but that’s the most salient one I could think of off of the top of my head, because you know if the United States was attacked, we would expect the international community to fall behind our right to defend ourselves from any and all threats to our sovereignty.

    I don’t see why things should be any different when considering Ukraine’s position.


  • I’m sure if you go far enough back in time you could say that anyone in control of any particular swathe of land stole it from somebody else. Past wrongs committed are not a valid casus belli for modern wars of aggression or land grabs.

    Regardless, your contrarianism doesn’t change the fact that Mexico surrendered that territory to us after the Mexican-American war. Legally, it belongs to the United States after the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which redrew the border based on the path of the Rio Grande.