huey_m

I mean, I am using adult conversation as you can see. I can do two things at once.

Nope, one undermines the other. You can’t actually engage in good faith adult conversation while being reductive and childish… the latter precludes the former. If you’re being childish by definition you aren’t being mature.

I also have not conflated civilian and military populations. I drew an explicit distinction. There’s nothing wrong with targeting military personnel as targets themselves; I’ve already said attempting to target civilians directly as a reprisal, I wouldn’t support. Non critical civilian infrastructure that also supports military, however, I think is far less morally questionable.

The example was purely to point out that normally immoral actions can in some situations be moral. Not all war crimes are created equal… shoplifting is more easily justified than murder. Similarly, targeting warehouses for consumer goods in the way least impactful to life possible is far more easily justified than targeting schools; equivocating these just because they’re both crimes is imo not being honest.

anymore than getting punched by a man would justify punching his cousin.

You see, you are equivocating here. If what Russia did is punching, Ukraine’s action is not punching. It was pretty clearly not even an attempt to kill civilians.

This is more like punching the business partner who (knowingly) is in business with someone who killed your family in order to put pressure on them to stop doing business with him. When there’s no police to help you legally find justice, importantly.

Yes, that’s pretty justifiable in my view.

Nah, you can’t go calling well thought out positions childish and silly and expect to continue conversation. Learn a lesson on how to conduct yourself and kindly piss off.

Literally justifying crimes against himanity with the moat silly and childish reasoning.

You can disagree with it, but this is just bullshit. That is a very well reasoned and difficult moral analysis. Stop being a baby and use big boy words and maybe consider for 5 seconds that some moral questions are actually really fucking difficult and not everyone will agree on.

I can just as easily argue you’re being a literal child by refusing to engage in serious and difficult moral questions by equivocating explicit bombing of schools and civilians with bombing commercial warehouses, at night to avoid casualties (that are also providing some supplies to military by the way) as both being “crimes against humanity”. One is a very clear crime against humanity, the other is a lot more unclear, they are not equivalent and being unsure about the latter (as a response to the former, by the way) does not at all give logical cover for the former.

You know what, screw it, blocked.

Try to keep a level head here. I explicitly am not providing logic to cover genocides as reprisals, I’m not even arguing eye for an eye here; I’m arguing that putting economic pressure on a civilian population by targeting commercial infrastructure, in response to brutal war crimes such as the targeting of children’s schools, is a pretty reasoned and limited response. I would not excuse them targeting Russian civilians directly.

A Nazi would not be putting this level of thought into the morality of war crimes, and you know this. Might simply makes right for them.

I think the world isn’t black and white in morality, and I think it’s naive to act as though it is. Immoral actions are sometimes warranted, I think. Do you agree with that principle at all? If not, we just have different moral views.

I think the exact context of the response matters a lot here. I don’t think deliberately targeting civilians or life critical infrastrucrure would be excusable. I think targeting consumer infrastructure, at night to limit casualties, in response to serious war crimes, is much more excusable and a context that matters and is dishonest to remove. Crucially, particularly when there’s no justice available to the victim to find a legal solution.

This is what made Balkan genocides and responses different, that was in a process of justice that ultimately resulted in literal international police action to enforce the law on war crimes being perpetrated. There’s a responsibility there to let justice take its course.

You can’t, in my view, tell victims of war crimes that they can’t respond in any meaningful way when you aren’t willing to enforce the law against the perpetrator. Another context that’s important. You can only morally tell people to let rule of law work when rule of law is being enforced; you can’t tell them to rely on a justice system that is non existent. If we want sides to respect war crimes, we need to put our money where our mouth is and be willing to put ourselves at risk too to see that done, beyond milquetoast sanctions.

Are you going to be reductive and childish like in your edit rather than use adult conversation? In that case, I’ll answer in kind and ask you to answer my point first before I respond…

Are you saying it is wrong for an abused slave to murder his master, who has tortured him and killed or sold his family, when he escapes? Is it wrong for an abused woman to kill her rapist in the act? Or are there cases where a morally wrong action is sometimes warranted?

I actually do have a thoughtful response to your question that isn’t a pithy meme, but I’d like to see some good faith from you first and see you actually address the core moral question of my point first.

War crimes are war crimes exactly because you don’t want to open the can of worms exposing your own people to reprisals. That can was opened by Russia, and as reprisals go this is a very, very mild response that’s clearly attempting to target infrastructure not people (and consumer infrastructure at that, not even things like power and water).

I think targeting consumer infrastructure in response to having your schools targeted is pretty damned reserved. We consider the abuse received by someone murdering their abuser in how we respond, I think even war crimes need to be considered in the context they’re committed. I’d similarly say tortured POWs escaping and murdering their torturers should have that context considered when judging what if any punishment should be received.

I think it’s hard to take a hard-line stance here against Ukraine when there’s no real international response to stop war crimes being committed against them. I think if the UN or Europe was putting boots on the ground in response to Russian war crimes explicitly, you can better make the argument that there’s a responsibility to let justice take its course… it’s hard for me to say someone can’t respond by, if we’re being honest, a far more minor crime when on the receiving end of far, far more brutality.

I think there’s a point where abstract morality conflicts with practical situation. And in a situation where there is no “police” enforcing the law, it isn’t reasonable to say only one side must strictly adhere to it, likely at the cost of their survival, to have a moral high ground in death.

I can’t think of a more humane way to put civilian domestic pressure towards political change in Russia, can you?

I live in Hungary and supported the sanctions and halting of EU funds on us for the same principle; yes, it sucks for us and we badly needed the money, but people were going to keep supporting Fidesz until the wallets of the middle and upper middle class started to hurt more, and I think it really did contribute to political change.

In this case the action is more severe because it’s an active war that many Russians are at least apathetic about, and this kind of thing starts to hurt enough that even apathy is untenable.

I can empathize with people being in a hard spot having to stand against an authoritarian regime, but pressure really does help push populations towards that end. And this is better than, say, schools being targeted to create that pressure to end the war.

E: that’s a pretty childish edit considering a well thought out response imo.

My bet on why people don’t identify with that anymore is shifting social expectations and economy leading to having kids way later than in their day.

Which… I love my kids, wouldn’t trade 'em for anything. But they can definitely make you feel old both by just watching them age and the extra responsibility reducing the freedom/spontaneity you might have had more of earlier in your youth. If you had kids in your early 20s, this starts earlier. If you don’t start until your 30s, you’re probably already starting to settle a bit anyway just from being more established in a career and such.

I’d also be curious to know rates of messing around with harder drugs and drinking and such. My sense is those have gone down, and that kind of thing can be hard on your body.

Just spit balling here.

You can see the ruins of the old blown up bridge under the Danube in Budapest. Pictures are wild. Cargo barges aren’t running at all now as far as I know. Hungary has to shut down the nuclear plant that provides something like 40% of the nation’s power during this heat wave.

I often lose track when people jump into conversation like that…

I was appreciating what you added to the conversation at first, but man… giving a bad faith one line response to a long, well thought out comment, now being unable to admit a mistake without passive aggressively implying it’s the others person’s fault you didn’t read thoroughly…

I guess I do appreciate knowing who to block before I need to personally interact with them.

Amount I’d say no, the US has been very car centric since the 50s and that was firmly established by the 80s. Size is probably a fair point, much more SUVs by the 90s. I still think in the vast majority of cases this is more a matter of the 24 hour news cycle making parents afraid of abductions and the like despite an all time low.

Honestly these comics really kind of annoy me and I’m glad to see comments seem to grasp the problem better. It doesn’t really have anything to do with kids… in this economy where you have to work your dog ass off, any greater responsibility, no matter how rewarding it is, will feel like this at times.

I will say I think both sides of this particular question can be equally obnoxious.

I’m sure there are some areas where it truly is unsafe, but IMO most people who think this really just aren’t giving their kids enough credit. Especially in the US, city design and prevalence of high speed roads hasn’t changed significantly from back when this was more normal.

They really didn’t grasp at all the sweetheart deal they had with the EU… other countries would have killed for that.

It reminds me so much of the Americans complaining about their position in NATO and the “world policeman” that they fought tooth and nail to get because of the huge amounts of soft power it grants in negotiations and generally shaping world policy.

The irony of a Republican working to undo that… Kissinger’s gotta be able to power a small country with how fast he’s spinning. Ultimately, good for the world in the end, but another pretty hilarious example of a nation misinterpreting a boon as an albatross around the neck and shooting themselves in the foot by getting rid of it lol. Rhymes so much with Brexit.

Possible, but I think he is Hitler in the bunker at this point that still thinks Steiner can come support him in retaking Berlin. By all reports, the entire head of Fidesz was completely and totally blindsided by the loss, they had built so many yes men around them the idea was inconceivable. I think most have realized the music has stopped now, but Orban still hasn’t. I think he still imagines himself leading a glorious comeback. I think him being too egotistical to leave means Fidesz is going to die as everyone else leaves the sinking ship… unfortunately, the most likely lifeboat for them to scurry to is… Mi Hazank, which has already been courting them and is a much more explicitly hard right party. So Hungary may go from having a center right kleptocrat with a milquetoast center left opposition that was toothless, to having a center right [question mark on politics beyond that] with a hard right opposition.

Could be totally wrong, maybe he just steps away and Fidesz remains the core opposition for the right, but there are concerning signs that won’t be the case.

Yup, still a thing for kids here in Hungary as well. Except they usually say it “Tizen-három” because it fits the sound better and is… 6+7.