Ah, ok. If we're going to be throwing in personal takes on geopolitics, then here's mine.
Less of the "democracies vs dictatorships". It's more like "western imperialism (essentially US & vassals) vs the rest of the world (who wants out of imperialism, endless sanctions, endless wars, the odd genocide or two)"
I don't think that's true. I see Europe and US and much of the rest of the world giving weapons and financial support to Ukraine. I don't see any other country giving weapons and financial support to Russia besides China, North Korea, Iran, and India who is buying more of Russian oil.
There is more than Weapons though. Brazil is supporting the Chinese peace plan - the plan that China built without talking to Ukraine and looks like give Russia everything they want. A lot of Africa nations are drawing closer to Russia - they don't have much to give now, but may in the future. (just them not developing is a win for Russia)
"vassals" is a common phrase/tactic used by netizens in China to try to drive a wedge between US and rest of its allies. Nevermind that they never mention their allies like Russia or Brazil/Italy who seeks economic alignment as vassals.
I think some number of them are probably just legitimately psychopaths living in the West. Though maybe they latch onto the term after hearing it as a PRC talking point. If you genuinely can't imagine mutually beneficial positive relationships based on consent, then it's only natural that seeing the US work together with so many other countries would be scary and look like "US & vassals".
"A billion people" and "thousands year old civilization" are also Chinese talking points I've noticed. Hence why I included it in my comment, to both call out the really degrading "vassals" narrative and also point out these dictatorships aren't as special as they like to pretend.
You can't post like this here. Since I believe you have a long history of abusing HN, and have reverted to doing so again, I've banned the account.
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
That "chinamen" reference was an allusion to your perverse sense of who's doing what to whom. It's your hat, it's your frame of reference, it's your worldview, so you get to wear the "dumb racist" hat - not the dude who pointed it out.
So hard cheese on that one. Oh, and I suppose I should say fuck you too (seeing as how you're playing that game), but ... I won't
You broke the site guidelines extremely badly and repeatedly in this thread. We have to ban accounts that do that, regardless of how other commenters may be behaving.
I'm not going to ban you right now because it doesn't look like we've warned you before, but please make sure to stay on the right side of the guidelines in the future—especially because this isn't the first time you've broken them. (For example, comments like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40734213 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38963324 are also unacceptable.)
dang, seriously. What is wrong with those posts you linked to. Please take a look at them yourself, and tell me. Genuinely asking.
Whenever I've engaged on this topic (not just this thread), there seems to be an unwritten rule somewhere that absolutely any vile stuff is acceptable, no matter how debunked by journalists, as long as it's on one particular side of this narrative. And any pushback is abused, downvoted, etc.
It seems almost impossible to present an anti-genocide case, on this site.
One is a personal attack: "we're living in 2 different realities", etc. HN's trigger for this is pretty light, and any time a comment verges onto "you" statements in an unflattering light this tends to be the case. I'm writing this comment carefully considering I pretty much have to use "you" and am considering how it might sound. As dang's explained many, many, many times in the past, how a comment is received is often orders of magnitude harsher than it is written. (I know he's expressed this many times, I can't remember how he phrases it or I'd link instances.)
The other is a nationalistic attack against "America's superior moral compass". Again, the trigger is lightly loaded, reason being that such comments tend to derail discussions.
(Not an HN mod, but I watch dang's mod comments closely and generally understand his reasoning, even where I disagree with it.)
You can make your points more substantively without those swipes. A recent example of my own:
No, they aren't. Having allied forces deployed on your soil by mutual agreement is not occupation.
> Once a US base gets established in your territory, you can never get it out.
There are quite a long list of counterexamples; the US has closed lots of overseas bases (both in countries that remain on good terms with the US and in those where the relationship soured.)
> Just ask the Iraqi's.
"Iraqis", and the US closed large numbers of Iraqi bases in the 2020-2021 drawdown and the US and Iraq are currently (last I checked) in discussions on a complete drawdown of US military presence which would close the remaining bases.
I would encourage you, if you claimed so in this thread that you are a US and UK citizen, to quickly move out of US and renounce your US citizenship. So the torture and rage that you're displaying here and the paradox of your identity doesn't drive you insane. Also you should renounce your UK citizenship, as UK and US are very close allies. Maybe try moving to Russia? I heard they're having another military mobilization, and is paying pretty well.
Yeah, I'm sure you would love to "encourage" all such dissenters to exile themselves. While simultaneously claiming you stand "for freedom". Because obviously, you're in charge, right?
The persecution complex is odd too. Calling themselves a "dissenter", and invoking "exile", because their hypocrisy got called out and their factual claims are easily disproved.
They are going back currently, as they're invited to. You know, because that's how consent works, when you don't see everyone else as objects in a conspiracy.
Actually, the US just finished leaving Niger this week:
Less of the "democracies vs dictatorships". It's more like "western imperialism (essentially US & vassals) vs the rest of the world (who wants out of imperialism, endless sanctions, endless wars, the odd genocide or two)"