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[Laterigrade]

I plead the third, your honor! I have few principles, but I stick to them.

496, such a good one.
I used to know some of them and even their numbers off by heart.

[EuchreJack]

Freedom of speech means the government can’t act against you because of what you say, it doesn’t mean other people aren’t allowed to suggest you stop being a prick.

People on a forum aren't the government. Nor are the forum admins. That's why people were banned for e.g encouraging genocide, like that Cheesie Honkers guy who I reported.

I am aware of this, and that was my point. I appreciate you putting it in a different way.

EJ does not seem to understand this.

Yeah, I was agreeing with you.

It’s morning where I am, I don’t do well in the morning. I can be slow at the best of times heh.

I'm impressed you're at least skimming what I'm posting, even if it's just to take pot shots at me.

I've already admitted no free speech exists on the internet.

[MaxTheFox]

Then why did you accuse people of infringing on it?

[hector13]

Another question would be why they used a large example of why it should exist on the internet, despite the internet being a collection of private spaces run by private individuals and the government only really gets involved when speech in those spaces involves criminality.

I’m also not taking potshots. That implies I’m insulting you, while the example you used does show a fundamental misunderstanding of the first amendment, which is usually what people mean when they start complaining about their freedom of speech being impinged.

[scriver]

Freedom of speech means the government can’t act against you because of what you say, it doesn’t mean other people aren’t allowed to suggest you stop being a prick.

This is what the American first amendment means. It is not the be all end all of freedom of speech, no matter show much Americans worship their constitution.

[Frumple]

I mean, it is in the ameripol thread, silly

At lesst from an enforcement standard, I guess.

[hector13]

Freedom of speech means the government can’t act against you because of what you say, it doesn’t mean other people aren’t allowed to suggest you stop being a prick.

This is what the American first amendment means. It is not the be all end all of freedom of speech, no matter show much Americans worship their constitution.

EJ did use a very American example in which freedom of speech should exist on the internet.

Even excusing the American constitution, they seem to think freedom of speech means freedom from the consequences of those speech, and that I was trying to stifle their speech despite asking a direct question in the post I was apparently trying to stifle them in, and while it’s way beyond it now, I was hoping to explore why EJ does not seem to want to engage in discussion on a discussion board.

Since then it’s been pretty clear EJ just wants to post their perspective and move on. I’m still interested in that perspective, so I’ll continue responding in the hope I can delve deeper at some point.

Edit: if nothing else I’m learning how much of a prick I can be, which is enlightening in and of itself, so I get some value on learning how to be less of a prick in future. Hopefully.

[TamerVirus]

It's time to place sanctions on EJ and stop buying their oil

[MrRoboto75]

Sanctions just geopolitical Twitter cancel culture smh

[EuchreJack]

Since then it’s been pretty clear EJ just wants to post their perspective and move on. I’m still interested in that perspective, so I’ll continue responding in the hope I can delve deeper at some point.

Look, a lot of shit is going on.  I can't recall what my perspective was a week ago.  If there was something I posted that interested you, let me know and I'll see what follow up I can do.

I've avoided the AmeriPol thread for several years, for what seems to me to be rather obvious reasons.
It was only because of this War that I've posted in this thread. 
I've posted here because I believe American could have prevented it if the current Government wished to do so.

It is a fact that Putin didn't invade Ukraine during Trump's time in office.  The last invasion of 2014 occurred prior to Trump's time in office.
Apparently, these facts don't fit into the Anti-Trump Pro-Democrats beliefs, so they seem to get ignored/obscured.  Democrats like doing that in my country.

Hell, Biden's victory was more because Trump pissed off the media (and everyone else) than any actual merits of Biden.  The media got so biased leading up to Trump's loss.

While my concerns about this tread being an Echo Chamber are minor, the whole mainstream media in the US has become an Echo Chamber.

Ironically, this thread seems pointless.  Most of you aren't living in the United States, so what is the point?
Maybe I should let you go back to complaining about Stupid Foreigners being Stupid (foreigners being Americans in this context), and I'll stick to the Bad European Jokes thread.

[MrRoboto75]

It is a fact that no metors struck the earth while Trump was president, yet no democrats praise Trump's ability to dodge falling rocks.  Curious.

[EuchreJack]

It is a fact that no metors struck the earth while Trump was president, yet no democrats praise Trump's ability to dodge falling rocks.  Curious.

See, even that is misleading.  It fails to acknowledge that Trump kept EARTH from getting struck by meteors.
It's also false, as meteorites strike Earth every year.
Apparently, you really did mean the earth-earth, not the atmosphere parts of the Earth.
Correction: Meteor struck Africa in 2018

...the fact I have to discuss Trump whenever I try to articulate my opinion is why I'm inclined not to bother.
To make my position clear, I'd almost prefer outright censorship as it would be obvious.  It's the misdirection that really pisses me off.
EDIT: Mentioned the root issue, which is that Trump is NOT the center of everything.  There are more important things to discuss.

[Duuvian]

Here is a Fareed Zakaria article on the oil situation. I believe it is worth reading.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/03/biden-west-must-sanction-putins-oil-and-gas/

It involves buying oil from countries that we currently do not, which I am in favor of, and also increasing extraction in the US.
Here is a portion of it:

I can hear all the objections from right and left. Let me address a few. Much of this oil and gas will simply be substituted for (banned) Russian energy, so it is unlikely to cause net-higher emissions. There is even an environmental benefit. U.S. gas leaks less methane than Russian gas, and U.S. oil production is also less environmentally harmful than Russian production. In many places, the increase in natural gas could mean countries like Germany could use less coal, a dirtier fuel in nearly every way. In fact, the best way to cut carbon emissions in the short term — with current technologies and at scale — is to replace coal with natural gas.

All of these measures have downsides — some symbolic, some real. But to govern is to choose, and to govern in a crisis is to make hard, painful choices. The country that has best understood this is Germany. It has suspended its Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, announced plans to build two new terminals to receive liquefied natural gas, and acknowledged that it might have to use more coal and extend the life of its nuclear plants that were scheduled to be shuttered. These policies are coming from a coalition government whose second-most-important partner is the Green Party, which has historically been tenacious in its environmental goals.

The Biden administration has said that the stakes could not be higher. And it is right. If Putin’s aggression succeeds, we will live in a different world. So let us make sure that he does not.

[Random_Dragon]

I mean, to be fair EJ, you ARE founding your argument on the correlation fallacy to begin with, so it's kinda suspect to attribute the lack of invasions to Trump regardless of what one claims the reason for that is. It's still possible that the Ukraine invasion only happened now because of the reasons you claim, but "Putin's popularity is in decline, especially due to the pandemic" is also a potential reason that's both equally plausible and would have nothing to do with the US.

Even if one wished to stick to Trump-related potential causes for this, I'd like to point out that the timing of this invasion also means that it occurred after Trump's efforts to deny Ukraine much-needed assistance with separatist issues that were already ongoing during all this. Which also underlines another flaw in your logic here, just because there was a shortage of Russian invasions during this period does not mean there was a shortage of Russian-funded conflicts for Ukraine to deal with.

Plus it was not even a true halt in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, making this claim inaccurate in the first place. The Kerch Strait incident occurred in 2018 for example, and resulted Russian ships firing upon and seizing Ukrainian ones.

[Starver]

I said (somewhere, either this thread or the notWW3 one) that Putin didn't invade while Angela Merkel was in power. Not because I believed it that much (though the timing of her retirement is somewhat close to the presumed lead-time to organise this thing), but it certainly was an interesting fact.

He also didn't invade whilst Bamber Gascoigne was alive! But that'd be a false equivalence. (Everyone knows that it was Barry Cryer who really held back that tide!)


Or maybe, rather than Putin being mentally-ill (from overuse of steroids, to ward off Covid), he's terminally ill, and once he found out he tried to plan his final legacy act to glorify him and get himself oh so gloriously embalmed in Red Square!



Maybe we'll eventually find out what's the real reason, but not any time soon. Though if it turns out Trump was the actual factor for which it was delayed until now then I would be very surprised, unless it was entirely to not make his asset look bad while he was still useful.

(Ninjaed by Random Dragon, in other words.)