this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2025
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So does US one in Palestine. So does UAE, and many more. It's not a matter of "everyone bad" is the fact that legitimately if the criteria is no paying anybody in a country that is involved in killing people, or that uses services from such a country, you reach everyone. And in this case it would be not using kagi directly as a US company.
The war in Ukraine is much closer to me, but if we are talking principles I need to understand that a person from Lebanon or Palestine, or other places might have different perspective and they would demand that "we don't do business to X" has a different "X". So to accommodate most or all of these perspectives, you need to necessarily include more countries, as the Russian invasion of Ukraine is not the only active war at the moment.
There are no US troops in Palestine
What about weapons? Money buy those too. Or that doesn't count for your moral principles?
US weapons are defending Ukraine as we speak.
So they cancel each other? Do you get a choice when you pay a US company to state that those taxes will need to go to Ukraine and not Israel?
Also there is a quantitative difference:
Can you please elaborate what causes for you to perceive these two facts as completely different?
Russians directly kill, rape, and torture Ukrainians. To compare this to a country that only sells weapons to Israel (and Ukraine too) is real dishonest.
It's a false equivalence
US gives (incl. donating) weapons to Israel with the precise purpose of those being used in the current massacres. Also let's not forget this is an absolutely momentary perspective. US was invading, torturing and bombing civilians until few years ago.
Now, I won't claim it is equivalent, because it's not and frankly doesn't matter: if your morals say that one is OK and the other is not then I will simply disagree with those morals.
To me a moral argument is based on principles: if I don't want my money to be spent on killing people, it doesn't matter much if the killing happens slightly indirectly. Solid principles don't hide behind thin layers of deniability.
So, I would expect someone with ironclad morals that want to avoid a small and indirect amount of money that to end up to Russia to also recognize that if the money go to the US government they have a pretty nice chance to also to result in people being killed (or right now to fund deportations etc.). However, I am interested in your perspective. You have stressed a lot on the two things not being equal, maybe you can explain how this difference changes everything for you, and makes one okay while the other unacceptable.
But the money going to the US also prevents Ukrainians being killed. Not to mention that wiping out Hamas and Hezbollah actually makes Israeli civilians safer.
In both cases, the US gives weapons to the country attacked by another party. In a more global context, Israel is fighting against Iranian proxies in the Middle East. Iran has been giving drones to Russia that kill Ukrainians.
So the US being involved indirectly in conflicts against the "Central Powers" of Russia, Iran and North Korea is actually a positive contribution.
Ufff that's a brave moral stance to have. You do you, I completely disagree with it though.
Thanks for elaborating anyway.
I hope you can at least see how a person from another country might have a similar perspective as you, but reversed, therefore demanding kagi (or other companies) not to give money to US. Not everyone will have this US-centric perspective.
I have a Ukraine-centric perspective, not US-centric
Fair enough, hopefully you can see how someone from - say - Lebanon would see it differently.
Lebanon was taken over by Hezbollah that was actually stronger than their nation's military
Iran's proxies did not have popular support everywhere
Sure bro, and if you are a lebanese civilian who sees bombs killing your family I am sure you think of all the good impact that those have and thank Israel and the US.
I will close it here, I have no intention to convince you and there is no chance that someone who supports Israel will convince me of any moral argument.