MinotStateBeav said:Signed,sycasey said:MinotStateBeav said:Who cares...go after the argument, not the person. If you're just going to attack the poster, why even argue on here?sycasey said:golden sloth said:Cal88 said:dajo9 said:golden sloth said:Unit2Sucks said:What we are seeing across the Putinverse is a sloppy desperation matched by Putin's descent into the Howard Hughes phase of his life. As Putin falls further and further into his Hitler-in-a-bunker paranoia, Russian disinformation has become even more and more detached from reality. For example, Putin no longer travels by air and only by armored train.sycasey said:golden sloth said:
So it was the Americans that convinced the Russians they had to De-Nazify Ukraine. It all makes no sense now!
Did the Americans force Russia to illegally annex Crimea? What about invade Georgia? Or put down the Chechen rebellion?
The important thing to remember is that Russia has always been forced into every bad thing they appear to have done. They're basically wild animals, just reacting to stimuli. They can't make any decisions for themselves.
At least this appears to be the argument, when you lay it all out.
After years of being lied to about the strength of his command-less military, he is unwilling to accept reality so his handlers are forced to paint a pretty picture for him and we are seeing that mirrored across the various disinformation channels that they employ. I have no doubt that they continue to lie about the disproportionate casualties they have taken because they cannot tell him the truth.
We've also seen a shifting narrative play itself out repeatedly during this war. They would have us believe that Russia has purposefully accomplished nothing to date in this war but is about to crack the big one because of some new thing. They've been saying this from basically day one and it hasn't come true yet. The reality is that Russia is trying to win this war but has been unable to for a multitude of reasons. They didn't decide in some sophisticated war room to trot out an incompetent and unprepared military force for 400+ days in order to set the table for some new thing. They promised a big winter offensive but now pretend that there never was a winter offensive and that they were just preparing for UFA's spring offensive. If you go back and look at what the Russian propagandists (now with blue checks!) have been saying about the war the last few months, it's hilarious. They told us Bakhmut was turning in favor of Russia in last fall and then earlier in winter and then again in February (without admitting that it meant that things weren't in Russia's favor before then). And then again in March. And now here we are in April but this time it's real. No seriously! We were told by Ritter Mcgregor that Bakhmut fell a few weeks ago. And so on and so forth.
It's all pointless and unconvincing but they are still delusional enough to think it works. But, here in the real world, Russia is further from winning this war than they were 1 year ago and they have no path to a lasting victory as enemy occupiers.
Well said.
Having been born in the early 80's most of my life and all of my critically thinking life occurred after the cold war ended (I vaguely remember seeing the images of the berlin wall and the coup attempt in moscow, though I didnt understand their impact then). The last 30 years has been mostly voided of great power conflict and until recent years the authoritarian regime of Russia aided by the much stronger authoritarian regime of China began to challenge US authority and the pre-eminence of democracy as the government of choice.
Therefore, I am only seeing the true strength of democracy as a form of government in practice now. Yes, its messy and it looks like the US is tearing apart, but the visibility of the issues is its the greatest strength. All the reasons you cited about Putin and the Russian war effort are prevalent in authoritarian regimes and ultimately cause it's own failure. In a democracy short-comings are exposed and addressed this allowing for change and improvement.
In Democracies, the flexibility and ability to adapt is a feature, not a bug.
Cal alum Eric Li, a Chinese citizen on this subject, said that you can change parties in the US, but you can't change policies, whereas in China you can't change parties but the policies adapt and change, providing economic success to their people.
The US is failing in a number of key sectors, like providing affordable education, healthcare, building infrastructure, addressing urban issues (crime, poverty, broken families etc), maintaining its large middle class and weening itself from the MIC. And on top of that, we have had a loss in liberties that are presumably enshrined into the Constitution.
China has done all these things better over the last two decades. That's why today they are seen as the model for the developing world.
That is wrong.
China's housing market is in shambles and is aided by a shrinking population. Their healthcare system completely failed the covid pandemic to the pointt they stopped collecting data. The best and brightest still go abroad for schooling.
But the cherry on top is when you stated that China is preserving the liberties of their citizens better than the USA?
The uighars, the Hong Kong protests, and everyone locked in their house for months on end disagree.
Notice how Cal88 always sticks up for authoritarian countries over liberal democracies.
Okay. His arguments are usually bad and when they are it's always in one direction. I'm just pointing that out.
Also, who cares about supporting authoritarians over democratic leaders? Not sure how to answer that.
Current Year University
I don't know what this means.
