gearhog

It matters insomuch as your ability and willingness to do anything about it. Therefore, it still does not matter. Keep voting.

I'm cancelling my subscription.

The destruction of Democracy is necessary to defeat Russia.

I've used the word "fantasy" multiple times in this thread to describe these completely unrealistic positions/goals. You're explicitly telling me you're fantasizing. You're not going to be king. Nobody who thinks like you is going to be in a position to decide in favor of the things you want to happen. Some of you need to step back and consider the totality of the circumstances. You're focusing on variables that aren't going to change. Allowing oneself to dwell on pipe dreams and delusions is unhealthy.

Because it's a hilariously overly simplified comparison. For starters, we were a stronger power fighting a conflict 6-9 thousand miles from home. Russia/Ukraine are fighting a conflict 0 miles from their border. There are thousands of other variables, (social, language, economic, ideological) that make this situation different, just as in the earlier WWII examples. It's lazy to attempt to frame this conflict as the same as any other just because you can claim there is a strong player and a weak player, one was somewhat more committed, one was somewhat less committed. Nonsense. You could say Israel cannot win against the Palestinians because they're super committed. Your rule of thumb doesn't seem to apply there, does it? You're cherry picking a single argument. That's just one of my points in a post with several others. If you want to talk commitment, I would like for just one of you to explain to me how your individual support for Ukraine goes beyond pecking a few keys to whine about how we (collectively) are not dumping hundreds of billion$ more into this fiasco.

You quoted me and said "I literally answered this the other day", but the only question I had asked was if you were just going to complain every time reality doesn't align with what you wanted to happen. What is it that are you so intent that I reply to? Quote it or repeat it. So you're listing our military failures as justifications as to why we should give military support to Ukraine? Well, I'll give you credit: that's a completely new and unexpected way to look at this. I don't think anyone has ever made that argument. It might be the least intellectual point attempted in this thread, but at least it's original. I got nothing for you. If Ukraine has plenty of international volunteers, why do they have conscription? Why are we seeing countless vids of them abducting their own citizens from the streets? Again, this is just basic logic. Your points are really, really bad. "I'd totally help if it weren't for my ADSC." "I'd totally help if I were allowed to fly airplanes." Funny how all of the ways you say you want to help conveniently have conditions, while all the ways you can actually help have none. Show me one receipt. Let's reel it back in to reality: Your SQ isn't getting called. You're not going to help or make sacrifices. Russia isn't just going to pack it up and put it in reverse. There will be a negotiation. Both sides will make concessions. The killing will stop. Life will go on. We'll look back just as we do on AFG, IRQ, Vietnam and say, "Well...that was f'n stupid".

Never saw it. Russia should just quit? How does that even enter into your mind as a realistic solution let alone as being in the realm of remote possibility? What a mind-numbingly ignorant position. That's something you'd expect to hear from your average TikTok account, not an educated military officer. How does Ukraine attain a position of strength? Their population is being drained of warfighters. The world can supply them unlimited weapons and money, but no one is willing to replace Ukraine's soldiers with their own... including you.

CBS poll regarding President Trump's joint address to Congress. It was shocking to see how many people disapproved. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-speech-joint-address-congress-poll-2025/

It's not discernable to you because the senseless killing of hundreds of thousands (millions?) is inconceivable to you as a valid reason to cease hostilities. Name once instance, from anywhere, of anyone here who has said Russia was an ally. You can't. All of your reasonable justifications to continue war have been defeated, so it seems the lot of you must resort to inventing false positions or statements to argue against. Logic, not wishful thinking, will always dictate the ultimate outcome of an event. What are you going to do, make a post every time reality doesn't jive with your position? Fortunately, most people are not like you. Most people believe protracting a foreign conflict where millions continue to die is not in our best interest nor Ukraine's best interest. Thank goodness for real democracy. Events are clearly going to diverge at an increasing rate from your poorly considered desires. I suggest you surrender to the fact our support for this conflict is ending, or you're just going to be yet another in a long line who whine a lot, but never actually do anything to contribute to your cause. You win some, you lose some. Pickyourbattles.

Zelensky bends the knee. Makes public concessions after his meeting with Trump and says he’s “ready to work under President Trump’s strong leadership.” Please whine about it and cope below 👇

Wrong. I've covered this multiple times in this thread. Ypu're regurgitating something you saw on the internet without even bothering to verify it. Their "constitution" was abridged in 2015 by a statutory law that allows them to suspend elections in a time of war. After the coup. The original constitution was not written with a provision for suspending elections under "Martial Law". Here is the link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_law_in_Ukraine Just because a document outlining a system of government is called a "constitution" does not mean it is in the same class or category as the US Constitution. As I said before, we held elections during the Civil War and WWII, two of the most consequential conflicts in our nation's history, and we were better off for it. A democracy isn't just about people voting for frivolous policies about what potholes get filled or where people can smoke weed. A true democracy exists when a nation's citizens can decide the direction of their country in it's most important and pivotal moments. The Ukrainian people are denied the opportunity to decide if their citizens continue to die. Don't speak of idiocy while also not knowing the history of martial law in Ukraine. No one here ever said it's ok. You can understand something without condoning it. Another BS Straw Man fallacy argument. The world is full of crimes and injustices and we simply do not have the money and resources to correct them all. And they're not all a direct threat to us. Shit happens. And don't play it up as if you're hyper-sensitive to the plight of Ukrainians. Like most of those wringing their hands over how a sacrosanct piece of foreign dirt got trampled upon, you'll argue for 200+ online discussion forum pages about what a tragedy this is while not doing anything of substance to help. You even have the means and ability yourself to help Americans suffering within a few miles of you. Think about how much of that you're doing. It's all virtue-signalling and no substance. Check out the concept of "Suicidal Empathy" in Gad Saad's upcoming book. You can be manipulated to become so deeply empathetic to a cause while having absolutely zero first-hand exposure to it, that you'll knowingly or unknowingly harm yourself for its benefit.

Today. AM: PM: How far away is it now?

I've already said: I don't care if you did or you didn't seek help online to create a reply. But I do appreciate the recent human responses. Now we're getting somewhere. So you want direct conflict between the US military and the Russian military. However (and this is a big however), you're not ready to commit ground troops. Just a little limited near-peer engagement in the air. Delusional. Acceptable to whom? What percentage of the threats in your vault are manufactured in Russia? I'd hope if you're ready to send Airman into direct conflict with the Russkies, you'd have something a little more solid than some off-the-hip hypotheticals that it won't escalate. Do you really think there are any plans for a scenario where our aircraft attack Russia and Russia just takes it and elects not to lob a few tactical nukes our way? Silly. "Why should the world exist without Russia?" That's always their response when asked about strategic defeat. Do you hear yourself? Would you say this to any Ukrainian? "Here's some money. We need you, as a former second world country, to fight an adversary of the first world. Try not to die." I'm not going to admit it's not straightforward. It absolutely is. Stance A. Stance A. You think we need to start WW3 because your "world order" is under some sort of perceived threat. It's not. The Cold War was cold because we avoided a hot war and defeated the USSR by just being a better country. We were economically, socially, morally, and diplomatically superior. Countless lives were saved, perhaps the whole planet, because cooler heads prevailed. You're like a modern day Buck Turgidson.

Haha. You specified ChatGPT when I said "or any other LLM" but whatever. I don't really care. I can argue with AI or Google as well as anyone else. It's kinda disappointing, though. There is nothing new under the sun. I can't forget things that I read. So when you say you Googled logical fallacies, I know exactly when I've had this conversation before. You're just repeating what everyone does. All arguments end up being the same. It's not original. And it doesn't work. There is literally no tactic you can use in this thread that hasn't already been used by someone else, probably multiple times. Moving on... I asked if you would go to fight, and you qualified it with "I would fly a fifth generation fighter". Of course, who wouldn't?The people that you support being prod into the front lines don't have 5th gen fighters. You could go fight with whatever they have to fight with, right? I also asked another question. If Ukraine does run out of soldiers, do you believe the USA should supply them? This is probably my most avoided question. No one wants to answer this one. Do you vote to send Americans to the front line? Again, you're not the one making the sacrifices, so it's incredibly easy for you to say that others should.

You avoided the question. Did you use ChatGPT or another LLM to help create a reply? That's all I want to know. It's either Yes or No. It's not a personal attack. It's not an emotional question. It's just a statement of fact.