Lord Ratner

The US can initiate sanctions and demand compliance from other nations. Reference Iran. So in the case of Mexico, should they choose to go their own way, then we take another look at NAFTA, or maybe cut off personal bank wire service between the US and Mexico. Not a difficult country to pressure. Is it the concept I'm not communicating well, or merely the exact detail? Either of us could come up with many options using examples from the past. I'm not sure how them being ops normal with Russia right now is relevant. I'm not the president, so obviously they aren't doing what *I* would do.

First off, they don't have to sanction them, merely comply with the sanctions. But no, the second order sanctions would not have to be punitive (such as seizures or exclusion from SWIFT). But immediate suspension of trade agreements, preferable tax treatment, termination of joint military exercises. It's not particularly hard to exert pressure. We did it with the European countries with the Iranian sanctions, much to the dismay of France and Germany. We're not going to take your wealth (in your example), but your wealth creation through interaction with the United States will suffer. We are the big kid on the block. If you want to live under our security umbrella, you don't get to play with the villains. And as before, the direct violation of national sovereignty, genocide, or nuclear use are clear definitions of villainous activity.

It's amazing how they literally just argue that inflationary things are actually deflationary. No. I expect hyperinflation (already happening) to be reflected in the official numbers, especially as rent increases from last year start making it into the metrics. They are going to get slaughtered.

No worries. How what? How would we stop the slaughter or respond to nukes?

My line is the unprovoked slaughter/domination of one recognized nation by another. Sovereignty is a fundamental to the modern world order. That is a vital interest, especially as the eastern European countries continue developing into formidable economic powers, which benefits any Western-aligned nations through trade. And our biggest adversary world *love* the new precedent of "borders are... Flexible." What about Moldova? Taiwan? Finland? Sweden? Indonesia? Bari Weiss hosted a great debate on her podcast "Honestly" between Matt Taibbi and Bret Stephens about interventionalism. I like Taibbi a lot, but his selective ignorance as to the many success stories of US intervention is very similar to attitudes being expressed here. And no, I don't think we should be boots-on-the-ground in Ukraine, nor should we have a NFZ. Yet. First we should *actually* cut all financial connections with Russia. Zero transactions, full asset seizures, and no tolerance for other nations who support Russia. You want to do business in the US, you don't get to work with the enemy. But if the intentional targeting of civilians becomes the rule, or a tactical nuke is used, then we absolutely should.

Of course I have, but I'm also not dumb enough to think personal purchasing is equivalent to foreign policy. I do go out of my way (and spend more) to avoid Chinese goods where I'm able. Where has it gotten us? Literally the free-est and most prosperous the West (and the rest of the world largely) has ever been. South Korea and Taiwan are certainly better off. Germany, the rest of the EU, and Japan are looking pretty great too. I'm sure Israel appreciated our intervention. Sitting out Rwanda, however, was a bad look, and one of Clinton's biggest regrets. And when we pulled out of Vietnam there was an unfathomable slaughter in Cambodia. Afghanistan isn't looking to great, but I suppose zero deaths in the year prior to the withdrawal was too high a price for the "no more foreign wars!" crowd. It's trendy right now to act like our history is some comedy of errors. It's intellectually hollow and incredibly self-righteous to retroactively interpret history in the most negative light. The world is immeasurably better for billions of people as a direct response to US power projection. "The better part of a century" with American "interventionalism" has been pretty fucking good compared to the better part of a millennium without it.

There is a huge difference in supporting a military effort for a nation that *clearly" yearns for freedom, and the Team America world police bullshit we've been involved in for my entire adult life. The Ukrainian crisis is shaping up to be exactly the type of conflict the do-gooder American spirit is tailored to support. At a certain point, when you tolerate evil that you have the capacity to impede, you are being immoral yourself. We aren't there yet, but we are getting closer. Ask yourself, is there a line the Russians could cross in Ukraine that would justify direct military intervention by NATO/USA? If not, you need to get your morality sensors recalibrated. I'm sure the relativists here will disagree, but that's a morally bankrupt philosophy by design.

Is anyone disagreeing with what Putin believes? We get it. He views the West as aggressive. Cool. Who didn't know that? Prove to me that if we didn't entertain the idea of Ukraine in NATO, Russia would have been content to maintain their present borders forever. You can't, which is why, despite your exhaustive repetition, you are merely repeating a theory. And you are using a class of people (who you hilariously claimed "win wars") who are wrong *constantly* when they make concrete predictions. I'm 100% positive there are idiots in Washington who believed we can invite anyone we want into NATO and Russia would do nothing. But I don't think you're arguing with any of those people here. I've expected Russia to do this everyday since they made their intentions clear with crimea. And I decided long ago that should they proceed, we should stop them. That is an opinion, much like yours.

Yes absolutely. We should have stopped a while ago. We are literally funding our destruction. And the cheap tvs and phones of the past 30 years let the government run rampant with spending that is going to wipe out all the benefits of the three decades of globalization. So what the fuck was the point, besides the destruction of the American middle class? And you're incessantly quoting a class of people who have been obsessed with a cosmopolitan conception of the world for the past century. Yet every time they are proven wrong by reality, they have a new theory for why they were actually right and will get it right next time. Yes, your cherished academics told us that Ukraine could never be a part of NATO. That Russia would attack. And the Russian cherished academics explicitly call for the reincorporation of Ukraine. Not just if Ukraine joined NATO. You are clearly okay with that. The rest of us believe in a fundamental right, of humans, to freedom *if they want it*. And there is a direct correlation between the flourishing of free societies and the increase in the percentage of people across the globe that are part of free societies. A lot of brilliant academics told us that if we just embraced China they would turn into sitcom loving fast food eating freedomphiles. They had some pretty hilarious takes on Stalin too. And the academics were pretty gung ho about the democratization of the Middle East. Let's not forget how much they nailed the covid pandemic. Or that time they told us that carbohydrates were better for you than fat. There is a huge difference between forcing freedom and democracy on a people, protecting their right to pursue it themselves. You're trying to make your opinion more than what it is. But at the end of the day your opinion is that it is worth avoiding a war if it costs denying 40 million people the pursuit of freedom. I disagree. My opinion is that war with belligerent nations is inevitable, and allowing more people into the Free world has the long-term effects of reducing the likelihood of war.

They fully know it. It's just incompatible with their desire for empire building. The Russian/Chinese conception of world affairs is incompatible with the West. Either they adapt, or there will be war. My bet is the latter. But the longer we navel gaze, as you are doing, the longer they have to prepare for the fight. This is the epitome of "don't dress like a slut if you don't want to be raped." Does that mean we strike first? No. But it does mean we don't allow for any trade or economic interaction with countries that won't follow the rules, and we definitely put our full economic weight behind innocent countries (West aligned) that are attacked. We have, and continue to finance our enemies. You're dangerously close to relativism here, and relativism is always a losing philosophy, both in geopolitical outcomes and in general. There *is* a right and wrong. This is wildly illogical. America won the war. Turing and Einstein wouldn't have gotten much done without Patton and Macarthur, who wouldn't have gotten much done without Ford and Kaiser. Only an academic with major insecurities (i.e., academics) would make such an absurd claim. You have to be pants-on-head stupid to think we are going to negotiate Iran out of nukes. But you also thought we would be able to negotiate Russia and Putin out of imperialistic ambitions, so I guess that's consistent. The parallels between the appeasement of Hitler and the appeasement of Putin are getting clearer by the day. I fear the progression of conflict will follow a similar path. If not with Russia, assuredly with China. How do you appease a regime that identifies your downfall as a precondition to their success?

Yup! It was like the very first ils clearance in pilot training. You knew exactly what was coming, prepared for it, rehearsed it, then: ATC: Iron 73 fly heading 150, maintain 3000 feet until established, cleared the ILS runway 13 right. Me: Iron board 737, cleared to land 3000 feet, heading 13, good OBOGS. The other mind fuck is your first experience with ramp. Imagine trying to drive a 737 through a six-lane roundabout in Kabul during rush hour. That's pretty close to CLT ramp.

Incorrect. Many, many people have and do. You simply disagree with the argument. While absurdism is very useful in determining the realistic bounds of an argument, it's still absurdism. So the line is between your absurd hypothetical and the reality of conscription. You are conveniently leaving out a core component of individual freedom, which is the ability to opt out. Leave, go somewhere that doesn't have conscription and respects individual freedom to the maximalist level you are suggesting. You may find it difficult to locate such a society, because such a society most likely exists only in hypothetical conversations. Just as my personal freedom to live on the moon is limited by the physiological realities of a lunar atmosphere, your desire to live in a society that both honors individuality and personal choice while shunning conscription in times of existential threat is limited by the sociological realities of human nature. What you want is simply impossible with the tools you have. Therefore it is absurd. Perhaps one day it will not be. Retroactive takes on history always seem to compare what was done many years ago with what would be done today, or even worse, and a hypothetical society of peak enlightenment. This is the same nonsense mindset that is used against the founding Fathers for participating in slavery, Churchill for his views of colonialism, or comedians for their sexist jokes in the 80s. What was the alternative in the 1930s and 40s, and what would have happened in conflicts before then? How many multicultural societies existed or had existed to the extent the United States had already diversified by then? What was the playbook for having a large population of citizens from a ethnically homogeneous country that had just declared absolute war and attacked your homeland? It's incredibly conceited to use modern norms to judge the past, just as it's incredibly small-minded to use hypothetical best-case outcomes to compare to actual outcomes of previous campaigns. Slavery and genocide are wrong, but it takes a long time to overcome the brutality of nature and reach very unnatural philosophical conclusions. We are gradually working our way towards a set of ideals that are even today are still hypothetical. Just as Olympic runners get closer and closer to the 2-hour marathon, there is no reason to believe 2 hours is just a step on the way to 90 minutes. Your Rand-ian belief in absolute freedom is a yet-unproven theory. We've done quite well getting closer to that goal, but many libertarians miss the irony in castigating socialists for seeking Communist Utopia while promoting an impossible utopia of their own. In your case, a land of absolute individual freedom that somehow survives the predations of the surrounding illiberal societies.

Because society simply doesn't work without it. Not yet at least. Libertarianism is a fantastic philosophy if you already live in a society that values individual liberty and freedom. There aren't a ton of those societies today, and historically the number of them is vanishingly small. They have not, and do not create themselves using the very values they end up instilling. This is fairly obvious, as the United States has relied on conscription while being the undisputed champion of individualism and freedom. Libertarians fall into the same trap that progressive elites fall into. There are a lot of people who are not, under any circumstances, going to face real risk in support of libertarian values. They aren't like you. You joined the military. But those very values that make their lives unfathomably better cannot survive defenseless, and they're simply aren't enough people like you willing to voluntarily defend them. So would the world be better off without free societies at all? Or is this just another instance where black and white thinking fails upon first contact with reality? And if your answer is still "it's not worth defending if people won't defend it voluntarily" then I see no point in considering your philosophy at all, as the alternative to not defending them is a barbarism that is obviously worse than the "slavery" of conscription.

Yeah, almost like conscript and slave are not the same thing.

Could you provide an example of societies that promote freedom and liberty, but did so without conscription? Honestly, this is starting to sound like a libertarian children's story rather than a realistic assessment on human nature and societal construction.

Yep. Hard to imagine this incredible level of incompetence on display hasn't found its way into Russia's nuclear Enterprise.

So we shouldn't defend them, and they shouldn't be forced to defend themselves? This is where libertarianism always hits the wall. Our "restraint" has led to this escalation of tensions. And the solution is more restraint? We have an incredibly vested interest in a stable world. How libertarians continually forget this is a mystery to me.

I actually think this is a ridiculous take. The entire nuclear enterprise is predicated on no one launching a nuke. If Russia launches a nuke, it may not result in a nuclear response, but it will result in a complete reframing of the worldview of nuclear deterrence. In particular, I suspect it would lead to the West determining that nuclear weapons can no longer be allowed in any number amongst our enemies. That is an outcome that China most assuredly does not want. A nuclear attack makes any economic sacrifice suddenly palatable, and you would expect the West to completely isolate both China, North Korea, Iran, and Russia from the world economy in the event it is decided that no one can have nukes anymore. If, and I think it is a spectacular if, Putin were to use nukes against anyone, I think you would see China immediately ally with the United States and the West for the purposes of utterly and completely decimating Russia as a global player. We may seem weak in this new and sensitive world. But our enemies have not forgotten what happens when the United States finds resolve, and our adversaries have been very careful over the last 30 years to avoid crossing any lines. Nuking and innocent country would bring out the best in Americans, which would be the worst possible outcome for anyone in our way.

I'm going to call this "Ratners razor" from now on: Never attribute to strategy that which can be adequately explained by ego.

If you could get the probability of success up to 99%, I'd say go for it Megalomaniacs who are also competent, strategic, disciplined, and eloquent are not a dime a dozen, and part of they mojo is getting level-headed and otherwise conciliatory people to join in their domination crusades. The reason cutting the head off the snake works is because there are not many heads out there to replace them. But if you miss...

That's not the sentiment at all, and it's incredible that you could delude yourself into thinking it.

Yes, I've noticed that about the Democrats for my entire adult life (with the exception of Hillary), they tend to prefer people who say the right thing over people who do the right thing. Words over results. This phenomenon seems to be a manifestation of the character-trait differences between liberal-minded people and conservative-minded people. Both traits are vital to a vibrant and successful society, but only when working in concert. The hyper polarization of the past decade seems to have broken the symbiotic relationship. So now we have liberals like yourself, happy to idly watch the world burn around them so long as they feel good about the people leading them. And conservatives who no longer feel the need to communicate or "war-game" their status-quo-preserving policies with differently-thinking people before implementation. The policies are weaker as a result, and often misunderstood. I'm talking voters here, not politicians. There is a huge difference in motive between the two. And with trump, conservatives finally broke and chose a president based on the same math that Democrats have used for years... Say what I want to hear, even if you won't do it and especially if it isn't true. The great tragedy of the modern age seems to be that Democrats have completely abandoned liberal values (freedom of speech, limited government, etc) and Republicans have abandoned objective truth. And each side has convinced themselves that they have taken over the other side's former values, but in truth, no one has.

He was president for four years after the Russians took Crimea, and Putin did nothing but wait. Biden steps in and Afghanistan turns into a national disgrace and in less than a year Putin moves. Trump was a clown, but he was a clown who understood power and narcissism. Biden is a dunce, surrounded by a bunch of Obama staffers who have never once stepped outside of their elite Georgetown/Harvard/Yale undergrad study groups long enough to realize the rest of the world doesn't think like they do.

Could you elaborate?

You won't even know what you don't know with your contract until at least a year in. If you find the hustlers and pick their brains you might have a good hustle by your third year. I'm at 4 years now and I probably qualify as an expert in the contract (from the perspective of a line pilot, not a union negotiator). Top 5% for sure. You will be comfortable as an airline pilot quickly. Don't let your comfort in the cockpit translate to comfort with the work rules. The more effort you put into learning the game, the better the job will be.