OP specifically mentioned smiting and wrath, which is often considered violent and destructive anger, so I interpreted the question to include acting based on emotion. If we assume that this is about the Abrahamic religions, we’ve got some examples to consider where God may not have acted proportionally or appropriately.

That’s where the paradox kicks in. Can God feel anger so strong he cannot control his actions? If God is omnipotent and therefore capable of acting appropriately despite emotions, or, because of omnipotence he is capable of not having those emotions at all, then why the carnage?

One example could be the Noahic Covenant, where it was somehow necessary to kill all animals (except two of each species) because of disappointment in human wickedness. Another might be the Ten Plagues of Egypt and ensuing Deuteronomy Covenant where the punishment for one person’s disobedience requires the punishment of others, including children, future wives and livestock. It doesn’t seem at all clear why all the creeping things that creepeth upon the Earth had it coming, when omnipotence allows for simply fixing the problem.

Omnipotence implies the ability to control emotions (along with everything else). Were God only framed as being omniscient, then your answer could explain it. It’s a bit harder to ignore the gap for omnipotence.

OP’s question is a version of the classic Omnipotence Paradox: “Can God make a rock so heavy he can’t lift it?”, which has had a good couple of thousand years worth of discussion, but no particularly satisfying answers. I doubt lemmy will have a breakthrough, but no harm in trying.

Finland and West Germany were more major trading partners with the USSR, and more than half of Yugoslavia’s trade was with the OECD.

Yugoslavia’s economy destabilized firstly from the 70s oil crises and the IMF loans tied to requirements to privatize industries. Many of those loans were taken with the premise that the USSR may invade and the funds were necessary for defense.

That is a very oddly binary take on geopolitics. Slovenia was part of Yugoslavia in the 70s, Yugoslavia was one of the founders of the Non Aligned Movement.

Slovenia wasn’t part of the Soviet bloc though

Slovenia is Eastern Europe?

Trump isn’t the disease, he’s just the most visible symptom.

I’m not telling you to tolerate intolerance. I’m telling you that what you have attacked is something entirely unrelated to their intolerance, and actually perpetuates some of that intolerance.

It’s not like I’d be spared from concentration camps either, I’m part of a few demographics which have been some of the first targets of fascism too.

Dehumanization is a core mechanism of fascism. It’s not possible to eradicate fascism by using its tools. Your statement also stands in stark contrast with your position that empathy is the most important part of a person.

The problem is, we’re all capable of atrocities, even if some are much more easily convinced to participate than others. It’s an uncomfortable truth of being human. But we have the choice to attack the parts which are actually contemptible - their words and actions. Alienating people based on their physical appearance equally alienates the people who perceive themselves to have a physical similarity, even when they hold entirely opposite views. That collateral damage is neither necessary nor desirable.

I don’t doubt they hold ghoulish views, but it has nothing to do with their appearance. They look like older women fetishizing a revolting idol while subscribed to white supremacist ideals about youth and beauty. Describing them as “things” is dehumanizing in a similar way as they would likely dehumanize us. The more ideologically revolting members of our species are still people.

People. They’re people. Objectionable people with grotesque views, but people nonetheless.