Lord Ratner

We're basically just arguing philosophy. Realpolitik vs idealistic liberalism. So we're not going to agree because you fundamentally believe in a utopian outcome, if we just get it right this time. I don't. Nonsense. Are we enemies with Japan? Germany? The American South? This is uniquely funny with Iran because if we are creating so many enemies amongst the Iranian people, why is the regime doing everything in their power to keep them silent? Curious. Also funny that you say "we let the regime slaughter thousands," yet now you are claiming we are making it worse by... killing the regime. Which is it? Is you true complaint that we didn't attack earlier? Your neighbor analogy is stupid. If he killed my daughter and tried to rape my wife, you bet your ass I'd kill him. And if his family has a problem with that, I'd kill them too. I already addressed this. Where you see policy failure, I don't. Which specific policies are failing again? Tariffs were supposed to collapse the world economy. They haven't. We were told that stopping illegal immigration would make groceries quadruple in price. They haven't. Hell, my whole life the Doomsday scenario for the oil markets has been the closing of the strait of Hormuz. Yet it's only doubled? Oil isn't even remotely close to the inflation adjusted highs of previous decades. What gives? Keeping trans athletes out of girls sports and bathrooms? Weren't there supposed to be mass suicides? Nope. I'm hoping for a catastrophic stock market collapse and an entire restructuring of the domestic economy. But in the meantime, the stock market is near all-time highs, and unemployment is still near all-time lows. So I asked you very specifically, what policies are failing, and how? You define an ally as someone who says they are an ally. I define them based on their acts. The European Union has taken economic advantage of us for a long time. You can call that retribution for the advantages we had following world war II. I called that ancient history. Just because I don't consider them in the enemy doesn't mean they are by default an ally. We haven't had shared goals in a while. Talking about what NATO was during the Cold war is not the same as talking about what NATO is now, over 30 years later. Comparing the per capita lives lost during the war on terror is interesting yet completely irrelevant. Unless you can find me part of the NATO charter that discusses how many lives each country is supposed to put up. It does not matter what they have done in the past. What matters is what they are doing now. And Ukraine proves unequivocally that they are not remotely pulling their weight. Can you honestly say with a straight face that if Western Europe were attacked today, they would have anything to offer? I worked with them, they could barely put together enough planes to practice refuelling. The "alienated" allies are putting more into defense thanks to Trump than they have in decades. I'd rather they be upset and lethal than harmless dependants. In the first few words you already miss the point. The "economic benefit" is only part of the picture. Is the middle class family of four better off with iPhones, large TVs, and fancier vehicle options if both parents must work out of necessity, and they will rent forever because a home is out of their reach? Are we better off having power pharmaceutical supply chain almost entirely at the whims of the Chinese? Even the manufacturing we retained, such as automobiles, we're ground to a halt because we don't even have the capacity to make 27+ nanometer chips, ancient technology by today's standards. Just because something was good yesterday doesn't mean it's good tomorrow. Opioids reduced the physical pain of millions of Americans over the past couple decades. Now we have a crippling addiction problem because of it. And why? Who decided that pain was bad? Who decided that pain was so bad it was worth any risk to mediate it? Do you think it's a good thing that our rare Earth mineral supply chain is functionally entirely in the hands of the Chinese? Please explain how we are better off for that. Poetry is not policy. Are the rest of your political opinions informed by poetry written for a fundraiser? I'm confused. When I say "Politicians aren't respectable war veterans anymore, they're profit-seeking sociopaths," and you point out that Trump is a draft-dodging sociopath, that just sounds like you're agreeing with me. And once again, arguing a point I never made. "Our government is better off with a spectrum of backgrounds and experience." Agreed, of the many thousands and thousands of people that make up our government, a spectrum of backgrounds is desirable. For the very specific position of the president, military experience is an invaluable ingredient to the literal head of the military. I watched Trump do multiple multi-hour unscripted interviews. Harris could barely make it through 5-minute softball session with friendly interviewers without spouting literal gibberish. Why do you think Kamala couldn't do a single podcast? Joe Rogan is literally a Bernie Bro. I never said Trump was telling the truth or demonstrating some sort of incredible knowledge base. He knows very little. But it's laughable to try to compare Biden and Harris, who even while hiding from any sort of press scrutiny couldn't remain coherent for longer than 2 or 3 minutes, with Trump who subjected himself to every single microphone that he could get in front of, friendly or foe. You guys are so desperately trying to frame us as Trump sycophants, justifying away his every flaw and failing. We're not. We're simply pointing out that of the options we were given, this was the best shit sandwich, and objectively better for our policy preferences. Obviously you guys are just smarter and more capable and more honorable than everyone else here and in Washington DC. Great. I can't wait to see your names on the ballot. It's clear that you are the first people to realize that honor and truth and cooperation are valuable components of domestic and foreign policy. It should be pretty easy then for you to make your pitch to the American People and get voted in. We need you! I'm sure they'll vote for the "better way" as soon as you, the first ever to put it in words, share your genius with the rest of us. Surely the Russians and Chinese and Iranians and Venezuelans will set aside their violent ambitions as soon as they hear the siren-sing of your logic and poise. Or maybe, just maybe, that's not how the world works.

You don't live and let live with enemies. You destroy them. One of the things that makes the United States stand above the rest is that we have historically defined our enemies only as those who seek to do us harm, rather than those who have land or resources we want. The enemies we tolerate are the ones we cannot easily destroy. We're pretending like China and Russia aren't enemies, using the justification that they don't want to do us harm, they only want power within their own region. I think we know that's not true, but at least it's plausible. With Iran, only the most fearful, ignorant analysis of reality can lead you to believe they aren't our enemy. It would be bad enough to have them chanting death to America at every turn, but they put their money where their mouth is. For decades. You don't make deals with that type of enemy unless you have no other choice. We are the United States. And the last month is shown we definitely have another choice. The administration has been relatively consistent on what we're doing there. Right now there's no "deal," and everyone posting the Iranian demands are shoving their heads so far up their ass to pretend this represents some sort of settled failure, that I'm surprised they aren't being canceled for wearing blackface. Trump has given a lot of "two week warnings." Often it's a TACO. Other times worldwide tariffs jump 10x, or the president of a country gets kidnapped, or nuclear facilities get bombed, or the entire country gets bombed. I think what we're seeing here is more about personality differences than anything else. Some people are words focused, other people are deeds focused. The group here hyperventilating about Trump day in and day out are repeating how "we" keep downplaying how Trump is making everything worse. But they won't stop shouting long enough to understand that we don't think it's worse, because we aren't comparing it to a hypothetical world that no longer exists. Our European allies aren't allies anymore. Just like NATO isn't an alliance anymore, it's a European insurance policy and the Europeans haven't been paying their premiums. Free trade hasn't been free for a long time, and what we got in exchange for a bunch of cheap electronics is a national defense nightmare (the loss of manufacturing) and a social catastrophe (the destruction of the middle class). Immigrants don't make America, America. Values do, and we're no longer assimilating those values into immigrant populations. Politicians aren't respectable war veterans anymore, they're profit-seeking sociopaths. Then when they are confronted with the concept of trade-offs, we get: oh you're just saying the ends justify the means!! Well, yeah, sometimes. When the "means" are ugly and undignified hyperbole and rhetoric, sure. If the "means" become war crimes or racial discrimination or some other horrible act, then the "ends" will no longer justify the means. I don't like the term TDS which is why I never use it. More accurate would be "Trump Fixation Syndrome" where the detractors can't look past the man long enough to intelligently argue the policy. That's not unreasonable, he's insane and becoming more insane. Maybe his brain is finally going through the same old-man collapse that Biden experienced shortly into his term. We'll see. But the Biden administration didn't do anything that broke our democracy, even with an invalid at the helm. So far this administration hasn't done anything to break our democracy either, even with a madman at the helm. Alternatively, we could have had a moron who couldn't string 10 words together despite decades of political experience. Bad choices all around. But comparing the policy preferences of the three (Biden, Harris, Trump) both domestically and internationally, it's not even close for me.

How is it no matter how many times we have this conversation, you are only willing to argue with "his supporters" who aren't on this website? Do I take any of his tweets literally? How many times do I have to say that I don't like the way he talks, before you stop calling it hand waving? Or are your political ideologies so simple as to say: if what I want does not exist, then I choose nothing. It's pretty easy to say, but it was result in catastrophe. I don't care what he says. Not because I don't care what anybody says, but because that's just the politics that I have been delivered. For the millionth time, I don't have the option of choosing between an honest man who gets things done, and a liar who gets things done. The choice I have been given is between a lying politician who acts honest and dignified, and gets nothing done, and a lying politician who acts depraved and unhinged, and gets some things done. It's a shitty choice, which every Trump supporter on this board had said over and over and over and over, but you can't hear it because it's easier to argue with someone who isn't actually here to respond to you. The elusive 30% I suppose. Perhaps the biggest difference here is that you think Trump is causing all of this. I do not. I believe that the corrupting influence of comfort and security have created a society that is more content avoiding tough questions and tough realities. They do not consider the dangers of electing or unserious politicians, because they have never experienced those dangers. Overwhelmingly most people are just bad preparing for things they have not lived. Those people, we the people, elect clowns who promise what can not be delivered. I don't support Trump because I think he's going to save us from the ugly yet inevitable consequences of a society going soft. I support him because he appears to be moving pieces on the board in a way that will increase our odds of winning the epic conflict that always arises when societies break down. He will not be the leader that wins that conflict, nor will any of his acolytes. Because once Americans are reintroduced to fear and danger, they will elect men capable of leading them through it. But by all means, please continue explaining to me and the other supporters here what our views actually are.

From The Atlantic back in September of 2016: "It’s a familiar split. When he makes claims like this, the press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally." Almost 10 years later and you guys haven't figured it out. Would I prefer a president who says what they mean and speaks with poise and strength, instead of lobbing rhetorical bombs in every direction to keep the news cycle in a constant state of catastrophe and, more importantly, to keep him front and center of every single camera? Sure. But I react to the world I'm in, not the world I desire. His supporters ignore his insane rambling and unhinged posting because he delivers where others have not. Please don't waste our time with the many examples of Trump failing to deliver. That's every president ever, and humans don't care about every issue. Only one president treated illegal immigration as illegal. Only one president has scraped the trans insanity out of the government ranks. Only one president has given the 2A community a supreme court that actually believes in the 2A. Only one president has told our "allies" to put up or fuck off. On and on. You don't like those things. That's fine. If you don't like what he's doing, you'll definitely latch on to what he's saying as more evidence of his whatevertheaccusationoftheday is. But to the Americans who are finally getting their policy priorities met, his obvious lies and bluffs are just the cost of politics. That doesn't mean Iran is going to end well, but I'm not going to suddenly start caring about his rhetoric now. I want a non-nuclear Iran. I want the regime that routinely kills Americans and Israelis to die, or live in perpetual fear of dying. I want the Chinese to have as few allies as possible for when we end up in a war with them. I want Europe scared of their self-imposed weakness and South America stable and productive. I would *love* to get those things from a president that spoke like Obama and appreciated our history like Bush Sr. But I can't. I'm not going to pretend that his favorable policy results make him a good man. I think Trump is a piece of shit. But I'm also not going to pretend like he's the first piece of shit in Washington. Or the first liar. Or the first politician to take classified information home. Or cheat on his wife. Or enrich his family. I hate those things. But I also hate mosquitoes, yet neither one is going away anytime soon. And personally I kind of like having politicians look as ugly on the outside as they act behind closed doors.

Yeah telling the death cult that they are going to die probably isn't going to have the desired effect. Just kill them.

Incredible for an actor with his portfolio of work to branch out into playing a homosexual trying to survive in a Muslim-dominant country.

We're getting close to the "put up or shut up" phase of the operation. We've set back the Iranian war machine decades. We've killed the leaders who targeted our people. We can still take the oil island, I'm fine with that, but it's not realistic to actually extract resources from Iran, it would just be another form of crippling economic pressure. Pretty soon we need to leave and let the people of Iran earn their reputation. If they do, then they can welcome us in as partners to help rebuild. They have enough oil and gas to make it worth our efforts. If not, then we pull back and give Israel whatever they need to keep mowing the lawn while the regime withers away.

Hands down the most wild thing ever said by a president.

Well the bar was set pretty low with Noem. At a baseline anyone who gets addicted to plastic surgery probably shouldn't be running a federal organization.

It's also literally *the* difficult part of making a nuke. The rest is largely simple (for a country with advanced manufacturing capabilities like Iran) and extremely easy to hide. The massive array of centrifuges is the tricky bit. It's amazing to hear people argue that "Iran shouldn't have nukes, but we can at least let them get close." There's not a single use for Uranium enriched to 50% aside from weaponry. It can be perfectly logical for Iran to want nukes for deterrence. It's more likely they would use it to wipe out Israel, but who cares? Just because it's logical doesn't mean we should allow it.

Take a breath, kid. Suggesting that a fighter pilot wouldn't find a way to make a joke out of anything is a dead giveaway that you aren't anywhere close to the pointy end of the spear. What exactly do you think these lunatics were going to do with a nuke? They've done everything they can slaughter their great foes, Israel and America. Despite bringing on immeasurable pain and suffering to their people and themselves each time, nothing stops them from their great jihad. This is fundamentally a domestic problem. We've had it so good for so long that it seems a whole lot of Americans, even ones in the military, forgot how world peace is secured. I suspect it's gotten bad enough that there will be no off ramps to the great war, but at least someone is willing to move pieces around on the board to give us a better shot at winning. It's mind-blowing to me that "someone" is a borderline delusional reality TV star, but here we are.

You're not actually this... simple, are you? - It's already a 20 year boondoggle. This is the regime that made our misery in the middle east 10x worse. They have terrorized our allies and slaughtered our servicemen. This is the end of the boondoggle. - I said we could, not we would. It's merely an honest assessment of our economic and military capabilities. You know, define what's possible before you decide on what to do. - Preventing the most fanatical, violent regime on Earth from getting nuclear weapons is all the moral high ground I need. Jesus, as far as bad-faith arguments go, you're worse than my ex wife.

You mean like the missiles they've been lobbing all over the place for a few years now? Pointless hypothetical. We're obviously capable of holding the island. Casualties are part of the job. A shitty part, but not a surprising one. We've already found out that the Iranians have a much longer range missile capability than previously believed, what other secrets do we wait to find out until our cities getting hit? Marines die so the civilians don't have to. This is nothing new. Yup. And at the end, Iran has no nuclear program. We've already discussed how that's not worth it to you. It's absolutely worth it to me. Absolutely no part of this has to escalate into nation building. You just don't see any other way because that's been our reality for decades. But we are perfectly capable of murdering Iranian politicians, sanctioning their economy, and blowing up their factories, especially with the Israelis providing the Intel, for the next hundred years. And there's no way that they can have a nuclear program if we keep doing that. It's not just unlikely, it's impossible. We were not escalated into Iraq or Afghanistan. We proudly marched into that Quagmire, still furious from 9/11. This is not then.

They would. I would consider it materially the same as parking a bunch of warships around Iran. At a certain point you have to accept the semantic limitations, and get to the point. And for me, the point is we should not take over Iran and attempt to transform it in the way we did Afghanistan or Iraq. Taking Kharg Island is about taking resources with strategic geopolitical consequences and applying pressure. Kind of like taking Maduro. Outside of starving the regime of money, it does nothing to give the Iranian people a better future, something that I consider their obligation, not ours.

I committed war crimes or followed orders I know to be unlawful because my family could only be supported by a military salary. That's a hot take. To your broader point, I agree with officers being generally critical of the nature of their service, but it only takes a quick AI prompt to articulate the inherent conflicts between section 8 of article 1 of the Constitution, the War Powers Resolution, and the Chadha ruling. We've been struggling with it since Jefferson went after the Barbary Pirates. The Congress still had afterbirth on it and already it was coming up with ways to avoid its war-declaring responsibilities, inventing the AUMF. The most consistent interpretation of current law, which I think applies here, is that the president has 90 days to either get congressional approval to keep attacking Iran, or wrap it up. Past that, I personally would believe the operation is exceeding statutory authorization. However I don't think any officer below the rank of general has any moral or legal authority whatsoever to concern themselves with that. An unlawful order is not the same thing as an unlawful campaign. And an order given during an unlawful campaign is not an unlawful order.