Elections Democrats: Vote for us or the USA may stop funding the Ukraine War

[Islam Imamate]

The criticism is that continued war is bad for the US population and by objecting to them negotiating a peace deal and by arming Ukraine, we are prolonging the war. The argument is also that we are in an economic depression yet we are spending billions of dollars to support a nation that isn't part of NATO or any other formal alliance. I don't get why people need to twist and strawman the argument when it isn't that complex.

Well yes there are negative effects to the war but I think we'd feel those regardless, if anything allowing Russia to control more of Ukraine would allow Russia to put the hurt on the West even more.

We're having economic hardships but we're not in a depression. Besides, the right wingers who are against sending the fund over to Ukraine are also against domestic spending so the idea that we need to save that money kind of rings hollow to me when I know most of the proponents would be against investing those funds in America.

 

[Jack V Savage]

We're having economic hardships but we're not in a depression. Besides, the right wingers who are against sending the fund over to Ukraine are also against domestic spending so the idea that we need to save that money kind of rings hollow to me when I know most of the proponents would be against investing those funds in America.

This is a key point just in that it shows that the criticisms are obviously made in bad faith. I think habitual consumers of rightist media or Twitter accounts like Greenwald's truly do not even know how an honest discussion goes.

 

[Islam Imamate]

This is a key point just in that it shows that the criticisms are obviously made in bad faith. I think habitual consumers of rightist media or Twitter accounts like Greenwald's truly do not even know how an honest discussion goes.

I don't know its necessarily about dishonesty, I think a lot of it comes down to the proliferation of media silos on the internet so everyone is working off of different assumptions and sets of facts. If someone consumes media narratives that convinces them we're in a depression and then they come on here and see us denying that, from their POV it looks like we're the bad faith actors.

 

[badascan]

Good... At what point should we stop funding someone elses war? Our efforts are unaccounted for as far as I know (at least as far as the citizens of America are concerned) so maybe we start with no more funding until you can document what we're funding?

Everything is fucked in America, how can we help others when we're decaying from within? Those who demand we continue to "help others" (whatever that means) are the same who demand the destruction of their own country...

 

[Cajun]

I think we should be acting in the best interests of our country, but in this case, providing aid to Ukraine is also clearly the morally right thing to do. I think leaving them to be massacred now would be a huge stain on our souls as well as a disastrous mistake, and that's even more true if you think we are responsible for it happening, though I don't actually see the case for that.

My point is we likely provoked what has happened now (all the fiancial amd military aid, inviting to NATO). I am not against helping now that it is critical. I just think there are many times when we bring about bad consequences for the stuff we are trying to do. We also giving so much more volume than anyone else. We are already in 25 billion which I know allows us to build more weapons but still. It all seems to fall within political spectrums for the most part on whether an action is Justified or not these days.
I think you know I don't believe in such nonsense which is why I do believe now if we have helped create this then we need to support them. Even as corrupt as the Ukraine is on its own.

 

[Jack V Savage]

I don't know its necessarily about dishonesty, I think a lot of it comes down to the proliferation of media silos on the internet so everyone is working off of different assumptions and sets of facts. If someone consumes media narratives that convinces them we're in a depression and then they come on here and see us denying that, from their POV it looks like we're the bad faith actors.

"Dishonesty" might not be le mot juste (especially because it is ignorance--not about the facts necessarily but about how such a discussion would proceed), but it's something related. If you think there's a depression now, it would seem that you'd just look up the numbers (unemployment rate, for example). But that requires actually believing that the statement is objectively true. But I think the statement really means "I feel bad about the economy/country" and someone pointing out that the literal meaning is way off is just saying, "I feel good about the economy/country," and, yeah, there's incredulity from someone steeped in partisan media that that could be honest. And so it goes with other issues. Partisan media consumers take every statement to be fundamentally about vibes and don't even get the concept of trying to only say things that are factually true. That's why there's an almost violent resistance to attempts to clarify thinking.

 

[7even]

Because America was the baddies in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Now Russia are the baddies.

Pretty simple.

We went there to kill Bin Ladin after killing over 2000 Americans in a single day. The Taliban were protecting him. How are the Americans the bad guys?

I disagree with trying to build a nation in Afghanistan but you can see the locals weren’t happy with us leaving with them clinging on to landing gear and shit.

 

[Jack V Savage]

My point is we likely provoked what has happened now (all the fiancial amd military aid, inviting to NATO). I am not against helping now that it is critical. I just think there are many times when we bring about bad consequences for the stuff we are trying to do. We also giving so much more volume than anyone else. We are already in 25 billion which I know allows us to build more weapons but still. It all seems to fall within political spectrums for the most part on whether an action is Justified or not these days.
I think you know I don't believe in such nonsense which is why I do believe now if we have helped create this then we need to support them. Even as terrible as the Ukraine is on its own.

I don't think that we provoked it at all. I think fundamentally, Putin has not accepted Ukraine's right to exist for a long time. He's been increasingly trying to act on that (putting a puppet in place, stealing some territory, etc.). Naturally, they have been concerned about their security, but that's held off the invasion rather than caused it. And as far as the partisan aspect, back in May, the vote for $40B aid package passed the Senate 86-11. So about as bipartisan as it gets these days (all the no votes came from Republicans, but it was still a majority of the party passing it). It's getting more partisan as the election approaches (and the GOP media has been chipping away at the support a little--most recent Senate vote on aid was 72-25), but I don't think it's fundamentally a partisan issue. On the subject of the thread, we have this majority of the majority bullshit that could flip things dramatically even if all Democrats support aid and it's close to 50-50 among Republicans.

 

[Jack V Savage]

We went there to kill Bin Ladin after killing over 2000 Americans in a single day. The Taliban were protecting him. How are the Americans the bad guys?

I disagree with trying to build a nation in Afghanistan but you can see the locals weren’t happy with us leaving with them clinging on to landing gear and shit.

Fair on Afghanistan, though it should have been over a lot sooner. In Iraq, we had very little legitimate justification for invading. Similarly, Russia had no legitimate basis for invading Ukraine. Bigger point is that a consistent position in opposition to invading foreign countries. Not really sure how you get people who oppose the Iraq invasion but support the Russian invasion (and people like Greenwald who supported both invasions--though he claimed to change his mind on Iraq--are just sick).

 

[Cajun]

I don't think that we provoked it at all. I think fundamentally, Putin has not accepted Ukraine's right to exist for a long time. He's been increasingly trying to act on that (putting a puppet in place, stealing some territory, etc.). Naturally, they have been concerned about their security, but that's held off the invasion rather than caused it. And as far as the partisan aspect, back in May, the vote for $40B aid package passed the Senate 86-11. So about as bipartisan as it gets these days (all the no votes came from Republicans, but it was still a majority of the party passing it). It's getting more partisan as the election approaches (and the GOP media has been chipping away at the support a little--most recent Senate vote on aid was 72-25), but I don't think it's fundamentally a partisan issue. On the subject of the thread, we have this majority of the majority bullshit that could flip things dramatically even if all Democrats support aid and it's close to 50-50 among Republicans.

I think nato was the last straw. It has been brewing but they have been kept at bay. Joining NATO would allow NATO a lot of leeway to set missiles wherever they want strategically. And I mean more partisanship surrounding voters. Anyone that supports doing nothing is doing it for partisan reasons because they don't want to agree with Biden on anything. At this point in our political Spectrum it doesn't seem there is presidential support for anyone that's in power from the voters of the opposing party. Biden has advisors same as any other president.

Don't even get me started with the partisan media. It's all ridiculous and used for ratings. It obviously creates a further divide with all of this commentary of the news nonsense. There is no just reporting facts these days. As a matter of fact people don't even really watch the news they only watch the commentary of the news which is silly but it feeds they're already biased opinion

 

[Islam Imamate]

"Dishonesty" might not be le mot juste (especially because it is ignorance--not about the facts necessarily but about how such a discussion would proceed), but it's something related. If you think there's a depression now, it would seem that you'd just look up the numbers (unemployment rate, for example). But that requires actually believing that the statement is objectively true. But I think the statement really means "I feel bad about the economy/country" and someone pointing out that the literal meaning is way off is just saying, "I feel good about the economy/country," and, yeah, there's incredulity from someone steeped in partisan media that that could be honest. And so it goes with other issues. Partisan media consumers take every statement to be fundamentally about vibes and don't even get the concept of trying to only say things that are factually true. That's why there's an almost violent resistance to attempts to clarify thinking.

That I agree with 100%.

 

[Scerpi]

Sounds like a selling point to me.

Edit: You know, I'm going to add an edit here with some reasoning. Since the knee-jerk rhetoricians are already in here accusing others of being in support of Russia, so might as well make a case.

For years some of us have been arguing in favour of policy that would have effectively castrated Russia. A strong energy policy, making reliable Western nations able to supply the needs of smaller and more vulnerable nations... What would Russia's leverage have been if we had done this? They'd be a third rate power rattling sabers and trying to find markets for a product the world was saturated with. Instead of making this happen this we've watched a legion of self-righteous cunts (you'll see many of this type here) drive Europe's energy security into the ground and weaken the West's energy position as a whole for years - and now we're getting what this policy was bound to lead to. A predatory world power is taking advantage of the idealistic, pie in the sky policy that we've been pushing in places like Canada and the US. We are reaping what years, even decades, of pie-in-the-sky policy has sowed.

Now that it has happened, what do we do? We are collectively dumping tens of billions into a country that was widely recognized as one of the most corrupt, socially backwards, and generally shitty in the Western world. Ironically, usually to the seal-clapping applause of the utter asshats whose policy ideas got us here in the first place - and in this forum you know who you are. This is a country that nobody wanted in Nato because it was such a backwards, racist, corrupt shithole, that you couldn't turn on the news and see much about other than stuff about the Panama papers and its massive far-right extremist policy...

And what is the public discourse surrounding this? Support this shit country or you're morally bad and support Putin. Fuck that - it is such an utter politically driven bullshit talking point. For many of us, we'd rather see us shape up our energy policy, buckle down and make sure Nato countries are ready to stand firm, and let Ukraine fend for itself. That country is a black hole of corruption, and will end up being a ward state that will take decades and billions to fix up and bolster if they win. What's more, the whole "He (Putin) won't stop there!" line is such bullshit - because Nato exists precisely for this reason. Bolster Nato, and leave a country that isn't our problem to be not our problem.

This is not some "You want to send billions to Ukraine or you support Putin" binary situation, and the rank dishonest politicking of those who paint it as such - and there are many - is stomach turning. Our countries have been screwing up in major, realpolitik related ways, for a long time now. If when this is made painfully clear our answer isn't "We need to fix this" but "We need to dump billions into the pit that is Ukraine" it's not a pro-Russia sentiment to take a step back and say:

We built this crisis with idealistic Green New Deal style bullshit. If we're not willing to approach a solution to it without stepping back on a lot of that failed policy and rhetoric, I don't want hear about how we need to dump more Western tax dollars into a new money pit. Move to fix the underlying issues or fuck off.

 

[Mr Holmes]

Well yes there are negative effects to the war but I think we'd feel those regardless, if anything allowing Russia to control more of Ukraine would allow Russia to put the hurt on the West even more.

We're having economic hardships but we're not in a depression. Besides, the right wingers who are against sending the fund over to Ukraine are also against domestic spending so the idea that we need to save that money kind of rings hollow to me when I know most of the proponents would be against investing those funds in America.

I personally am all in favor of reinvesting that money back here. We should start with securing the border and making sure we have clean drinking water. But lets assume you're right and opponents of sending that money don't want to reinvest it. Do you think spending that money or saving the money would help most with our inflation problem? I think most of us, who aren't dishonest technocrat NPCs, can agree there is an issue with inflation.

 

[Cajun]

That I agree with 100%.

Me too. Even if they bring in an expert it's an expert that feeds their own bias. The fairness Doctrine had its issues but I think the outcome of removing all boundaries is what we're seeing. Even people who are considered journalists are showing heavy bias. Ultimately it removes the ability for people to even have honest discussions where they disagree but may find common ground

 

[jrams]

We're having economic hardships but we're not in a depression. Besides, the right wingers who are against sending the fund over to Ukraine are also against domestic spending so the idea that we need to save that money kind of rings hollow to me when I know most of the proponents would be against investing those funds in America.

I clearly meant recession, but the terms are all relatively meaningless, so who really cares? The crux of the point is that we are having economic hardship and getting caught up on recession vs depression is just handwaving away the point.

Your second point is imprecise. It assumes that we need to spend that money (or rather that the implication of opposing funding Ukraine is we should fund something else). There is a lot of criticism about the volume of government spending and that it is major cause of inflation currently. So being against funding Ukraine but also being against funding national investments isn't hypocritical by default.

I'm also curious who you are referring to when you say "right wingers". I would argue the voting bloc and the politicians are different in their opinion of reduced government spending. Republican politicians would be spending this money without qualms while in charge while also politicking for reduced spending and smaller government while the minority. That doesn't change the voting bloc's desire to fight inflation through reduced spending.

You'd be better off not blinding falling for Jack v Shill's partisan strawmanning of right wingers. He makes caricatures of those he is against and is just bad faith all around.

 

[M3t4tr0n]

Save the animals

Save the animals! Vegetarianism!

 

[Jack V Savage]

I think nato was the last straw. It has been brewing but they have been kept at bay. Joining NATO would allow NATO a lot of leeway to set missiles wherever they want strategically. And I mean more partisanship surrounding voters. Anyone that supports doing nothing is doing it for partisan reasons because they don't want to agree with Biden on anything. At this point in our political Spectrum it doesn't seem there is presidential support for anyone that's in power from the voters of the opposing party. Biden has advisors same as any other president.

I don't think Putin has ever actually been afraid that NATO would just attack Russia. I think that he does see his opportunity for expansion closing, though.

Don't even get me started with the partisan media. It's all ridiculous and used for ratings. It obviously creates a further divide with all of this commentary of the news nonsense. There is no just reporting facts these days. As a matter of fact people don't even really watch the news they only watch the commentary of the news which is silly but it feeds they're already biased opinion

Exactly.

I clearly meant recession, but the terms are all relatively meaningless, so who really cares? The crux of the point is that we are having economic hardship and getting caught up on recession vs depression is just handwaving away the point.

We're not in a recession.

You'd be better off not blinding falling for Jack v Shill's partisan strawmanning of right wingers. He makes caricatures of those he is against and is just bad faith all around.

Nah, you know that's never happened (and "shill?" WTF?). You're actually illustrating the issue by claiming a recession. You just mean you feel bad vibes about the economy, but the term has an actual meaning.

 

[Islam Imamate]

I personally am all in favor of reinvesting that money back here. We should start with securing the border and making sure we have clean drinking water. But lets assume you're right and opponents of sending that money don't want to reinvest it. Do you think spending that money or saving the money would help most with our inflation problem? I think most of us, who aren't dishonest technocrat NPCs, can agree there is an issue with inflation.

I agree there's an issue with inflation but I don't think the aid to Ukraine is going to make it worse. Could be wrong about that though.

I clearly meant recession, but the terms are all relatively meaningless, so who really cares? The crux of the point is that we are having economic hardship and getting caught up on recession vs depression is just handwaving away the point.

Well the meaning of words matter. If anything I question the idea that we're in a recession, seems like we have the opposite problem and have an overheated economy. If we were really in a recession than deficit spending would make sense.

Your second point is imprecise. It assumes that we need to spend that money (or rather that the implication of opposing funding Ukraine is we should fund something else). There is a lot of criticism about the volume of government spending and that it is major cause of inflation currently. So being against funding Ukraine but also being against funding national investments isn't hypocritical by default.

I'm also curious who you are referring to when you say "right wingers". I would argue the voting bloc and the politicians are different in their opinion of reduced government spending. Republican politicians would be spending this money without qualms while in charge while also politicking for reduced spending and smaller government while the minority. That doesn't change the voting bloc's desire to fight inflation through reduced spending.

You'd be better off not blinding falling for Jack v Shill's partisan strawmanning of right wingers. He makes caricatures of those he is against and is just bad faith all around.

Uh sure some people might be against all spending but the aid to Ukraine is some of the best bang for our buck we've had when it comes to foreign policy in decades. We're spending a relatively small amount to cripple the greatest threat to Europe.

I don't think I'm blindly falling for anything. JVS and I have our disagreements but on lots of things we happen to agree.

 

[Islam Imamate]

I don't Putin has ever actually been afraid that NATO would just attack Russia. I think that he does see his opportunity for expansion closing, though.

That I disagree with. The interventions against Yugoslavia and especially Libya seemed to have really shook Putin. Gaddafi's death in particular bothered him because Gaddafi tried to make overtures to the West but was still ousted when he faced internal pressures. Putin fears that can happen to him because his regime is on shaky ground and he fears any popular uprising that gains enough momentum could lead to NATO ousting him.

Of course I don't buy this as an excuse. Why? Because he has an option available to him that would completely erase that NATO threat; liberalize and democratize Russia instead of continuing to run a gangster state. So yeah he is right to fear NATO the same way a mafia boss is right to fear the Feds.

 

[Jack V Savage]

Well the meaning of words matter. If anything I question the idea that we're in a recession, seems like we have the opposite problem and have an overheated economy. If we were really in a recession than deficit spending would make sense .

It's a nutso claim. We're definitely not in a recession. Unemployment is 3.5%! And falling. There's a lot of talk about the risk of a recession going forward because the Fed is tightening very hard, and monetary policy acts with a lag. Plus factors unrelated to heating have contributed to inflation, and we also have fiscal austerity causing a drag. All that means an overcorrection is a high risk going forward (probably an easily fixable one, as recession caused by excessively tight money tend to be very short). But there's no argument at all for a current recession.