Rottcodd

I think the clearest indicator of the philosophical and moral bankruptcy of the entire matter is the fact that anyone believes for even a second that Israel has a meaningful opinion on whether or not a Palestinian state can or should exist.

In any sane and rarional world, Israel would not be seen to have the right to make that decision, or even to hold a meaningful opinion on the matter. It should be ENTIRELY a matter to be decided by the Palestinian people.

But this is not a sane or rational world.

So as is generally the case with this sort of story, I find myself wondering if he's such a monster that they can't sweep it under the rug or if he just happened to piss off the wrong people.

Sexual assault in the military - like church pedophilia, police brutality and political corruption - is one of those crimes that is deplorably common and almost always ignored. So when they do prosecute someone for it, there has to be something else to it. It can't just be that he's thought to be guilty of the crime, since hundreds or even thousands of others are at least as likely guilty of the same crime, and are not even under threat and quite likely never will be. So what's special about him?

It's not really relevant to anything, and it's certainly not as if he should be spared just because so many others are allowed to get away with it (exactly the opposite in fact - each and every single one of them, without exception, should face the full force of the law, and the fact that so many don't is a prime example of why and how this country is going to shit).

Still though, I find myself wondering, as I often do.

Because people are miserable and desperate and they want to blame someone or something, and bigotry is simple and superficially satisfying.

And because some number of those who actually are to blame for their misery and desperation have self-servingly encouraged them.

By "peace" what they actually mean is "submission."

Russia's already getting a return on their investment.

The next year or two is just going to be an orgy of face-eating leopards eating faces.

There was a time when I would've sympathized with and supported the Israelis.

But that was 40,000 murders ago.

While the decision to stop publishing the six books was made by Dr. Seuss Enterprises, right-wing outlets like Fox News mischaracterized it as a book ban.

Unsurprisingly, it has actually been Republican-backed laws like Tennessee’s that have resulted in the banning of Dr. Seuss books from schools.

And that's the way it works pretty much without exception - private individuals and businesses and such make independent decisions and the Republicans scream that they're being oppressed, then they pass laws in the name of freedom.

Even with as insane as the Republican agenda is, and as deluded as their supporters necessarily must be, that particular aspect of it really stands out to me. It's just so perfectly Orwellian.

Exactly - that belief is not supported by the evidence

Yet they continue to call for increasingly punitive punishments anyway.

Why?

Certainly there are some who are just parrots (and they might even be the majority), but I don't think that's generally the case with those who are out there competing with each other to call for the most egregious possible punishments. I think the parrots tend more to be relatively passive consumers of that content rather than active participants. The ones who are actually in there competing to be the most vindictive are self-evidently more motivated than the passive consumers, and I think that that additional motivation comes from an overt pleasure taken in the suffering of others.

Yes, I've noticed that. It's hard to miss really.

I assume it is, exactly as you say, virtue signaling.

Virtue signaling isn't just an end in itself. It's often (generally?) a feedback loop - the person is not just trying to demonstrate that they're virtuous, but to reassure themselves that the standards upon which they're measuring their nominal virtue are legitimate.

So calling for ever more draconian punishment is not so much the point - more, the point is to call for draconian punishment, then have somebody else applaud and even amplify that call. That helps to solidify the sense of moral superiority since it's not just that I believe that I'm morally superior because [X], but other people do as well. We all agree that this is the morally superior position, so we must be right.

But underneath it all, what it really is is just foul, vindictive, hateful assholes who enjoy the thought of people suffering, and try to excuse it with the belief that, by whatever standard, this person deserves it.

Though they'd be the last to admit it, the nominal crime isn't the point. They just get off on the suffering of others, and the nominal crime is just an excuse.

And since their whole position is a lie - because their real motivation is just a sick pleasure in the suffering of others and their moral posturing is just cover for their loathsomeness - they need constant feedback to convince themselves that they're in the right. And conveniently enough, there are plenty of other people in the same situation, so they can, and do, reassure each other.

What he's actually saying is that Trump intends to ally with Russia against Ukraine and, if necessary, against Europe as a whole.

And he's right.

Trump, and more to the point, his handlers, intend to turn the US into an openly corrupt and oppressive oligarchy (that's rather obviously the explicit point of Project 2025) , and they're going to ally with the world's other openly corrupt and oppressive oligarchies, including Russia and Hungary.

I'll never stop being cynically amused by the fact that the self-styled American patriots are letting the Russian government tell them how to vote.