Not always. For example, if I were “caught” eating pig meat in a Muslim country, I would probably be defensive. Without that actually meaning that I genuinely thought there were anything bad about eating pig meat.

As an analogy, you can in theory be defensive about watching Joe Rogan without genuinely thinking there is anything wrong with Joe Rogan.

yea, the double standard is real.

Trump is an actual fascist. Who said he would rule as dictator. Unless the cardboard cutout was also a fascist, there is no double standard here.

I assume that Democrats can decide who is allowed to call themselves a “Democrat”. So just make a rule that nobody is allowed to run in an election where they will be 70+ years old on the day of taking office.

Also Star Wars… Star Wars even have a city covering an entire planet.

From Irregular Webcomic!, #87 via https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SingleBiomePlanet

Imperial Officer: Lord Vader, the rebels have fled the ice planet of Hoth. After going to the swamp planet of Dagobah, Skywalker has rejoined his friends on the desert world of Tatooine. And now the rebel fleet is massing for an attack on the forest moon of Endor.
Darth Vader: I sense a great disturbance in the Force.
Imperial Officer: My lord?
Darth Vader: How else can so many worlds be totally covered with only one terrain type without regard to latitudinal variations?

If there is somewhere where humans can live, then likely there are also zones nearer and further from the poles.

So e.g. surely almost all planets with a livable zone would have polar ice caps.

I have a printer that works.

I love how this is a statement that is said in all seriousness.

Metal.

Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samantha_Fox_Strip_Poker

If true, it would still not be the stupidest thing Trump has said this week.

liberate your own country

Tibet was not China’s “own country”. It was imperialistically annexed.

The excuse of every imperialist. Even using the word “liberated”. Yellow man’s burden?

China has been acting like shit in Hong Kong, but it was originally Chinese territory. So I wouldn’t count that as imperialism.

China’s behavior in the South China Sea is a much better example.

ChatGPT normally writes at a way higher grade level than that tweet. It seems unlikely to be from a LLM.

China gets 37% of the oil normally going through the strait. So while China might be happy that the US is projecting less power, I assume the oil shortage will still be painful for China in the short run.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-oil-trade-through-the-strait-of-hormuz-by-country/

Have you ever heard of Tibet?

something that will come out

Anti-SLAPP suit is gearing up very soon: https://feddit.dk/post/20969245/19914002

But there is some support from USA at this moment, right?

Limited. There are 1) some sanctions on Russia 2) intelligence support (which Trump has withheld intermittently) and 3) allowing European countries to pay for US weapons to be sent to Ukraine. 4) Maybe I forgot something.

If the US completely stopped supporting Ukraine tomorrow it would be suboptimal, but wouldn’t really change the situation fundamentally. If the EU stopped tomorrow, Ukraine would be completely fucked, and Russia would win within 6 months.

Europe seems perfectly happy to fight Putin alone, right now. Europe might lose, but Europe still tries to do what is right there.

Like, it was not all a lie. E.g. the 1991 Gulf War was perfectly morally defensible, while at the same time being in the US economic interest. But there is no inherent problem with defending your economic interest. And the US deserves unqualified praise for the 1999 Serbia intervention to prevent a genocide in Kosovo.

What the US is doing in Venezuela is (at least Trump thinks so) in the US economic interest. But completely amoral at the same time.

If America, Russia, and China is going to be evil, then Europe is also going evil for sure.

I don’t see why Europe would necessarily turn evil.

What is the point of fighting evil

Traditionally, America has seen itself as standing for goodness, morality, doing the right thing, Democracy, etc… Most of the voters have, at least.

Trump does not think that. Look at Venezuela: It is open and blatant colonialism, resource extraction. Trump has just come out and said that he doesn’t care if the Venezuelan people have freedom and democracy - Trump only cares about profiting from resource extraction. Now maybe America has sometimes acted like this in the past, but Trump openly stating it is new.

This open disregard for doing doing what is morally right is a new thing. Which Trump can do without consequences from Republican voter, apparently - Trump still had ~90% approval among them, last I checked.

So in conclusion, asking “What is the point of fighting evil” is a non sequitur - Trump is not claiming to be the good side fighting evil. Trump represents this as “being strong” (=fascism…). And Republicans are cheering.

As another example, look at Ukraine. Rarely have I seen a more black-and-white, good-vs-evil conflict. A fascist dictator is invading a budding democracy, with the openly stated purpose of annexation, without even pretending to have a casus belli. With Putin openly doing warcrimes left and right, torturing and executing prisoners of war, threatening nukes, and sending his own soldiers on suicide “meat assaults”. And yet, Republicans and Trump seems more sympathetic to Putin than Ukraine.