And then the only country in history to drop not one but two nukes on civilians ended up being the US, not the USSR. Go back in history far enough and you'll find all kinds of atrocities. That still doesn't mean demonizing an entire country is justified.
Despite having dropped 2 nukes, we still
didn't kill as many Japanese people as Russia
has starved & executed of its own people.
Methinks you focus too much on the horror of
nuclear bombs from a 21st century perspective.
Nukes are just 1 kind of terribly fell weapon.
Our firestorms killed even more Japanese than
our nukes. Is even greater death by fire OK?
Had we not nuked Japan, thereby causing their
surrender, an invasion was next, in which far
more people were projected to die.
Winning that war as we did was good only cuz
it was better than the alternative.
You disagree, & see this as evidence that USA
& Russia are equally evil. Pish posh. You've
ignored
why we nuked. You've ignored the
alternative to nuking. You've ignored the lives
saved by nuking.
And now you use this to make it equivalent to
Russia threatening unprovoked nuclear war
against NATO? When it's in pursuit solely of
conquest, & not defense?
Again, this is just shameless vapid whataboutist
Russia apologetics.
What do you suggest, then? Should all countries with a violent history (such as the US and Russia) "cease to exist," or is Russia an exception in that regard?
You miss my specificity.
Russia brutally invaded Ukraine for the purpose
of conquest & acquisition. Russia has a history
of such brutality & avarice.
Based upon this, I said that it would be good if
Russia ceased to exist as a country with that
culture...& be replaced with more peaceful
descendants. I gave an alternative to killing
the Russians....something you should agree with.
You're welcome to object to this, but please...
Don't justify objections with empty arguments
that USA is just as evil.
They're comparable to me and almost surely millions of other people....
Beliefs aren't true just because they're popular.
If you want to argue that USA is just as evil as Russia,
then you need a complete cogent evidence based
argument....not merely listing some Ameristanian
wrongs....while ignoring even greater Russian sins.
...and I contend that it potentially dilutes the crimes of the US to say that Russia is "worse" even though the US has done many of the exact same things to multiple countries.
In the context of Russian talking of waging thermonuclear
war on NATO, your criticism is of US history. Again, this
is whataboutist apologetics.
We all know USA has done terrible things. The only reason
to list them in this context is to sanitize & defend Russia.
When I say thay they're comparable, I'm not downplaying Russia's crimes; I'm properly stating the extent of the United States'.
While you've listed USA's sins, your posts have
been silent on Russia's. This speaks volumes.
You're missing my point. Ever since the invasion of Ukraine, I have seen a lot of demonizing comments about Russians and Russia itself as if the country and its people were reducible to Putin's regime. I have even seen someone on this very forum suggest nuking Russia, and posts from you saying that Russian people deserve to "suffer."
Suffering by the people who fuel the engine of a
wrongful war is necessary to dissuade them from
this & subsequent violent expansion. Their soldiers
must die, & their economy must be punished.
When violently attacked, defense is necessarily
violent too.
BTW, I've not suggested nuking Russia.
Although, if Putin does what he threatens, & starts
nuclear war against NATO members, I would
advocate responding in kind. I certainly hope it
doesn't come to that.
If Russia does nuke NATO members, do you
oppose using nuclear weapons in defense?
So I'm bringing up this comparison because, if other people followed your logic here, they would similarly say that the US should "cease to exist" or that Americans deserved to suffer because of one regime's or a few regimes' crimes.
Then you're not applying "logic" properly.
You erroneously make USA & Russia so equally
evil that neither should exist. Bad premise.
Countries are far bigger than these reductions and oversimplifications. By bashing an entire country and its culture, one moves on from promoting peace and aid to Ukraine all the way to supporting jingoistic and dehumanizing rhetoric instead.
Accusations of being "jingoistic" are ironic, given
your extremely hostile & negative portrayals of USA.
There we go: you're bringing up socialism as the big evil. I did say I noticed Red Scare overtones.
Socialism is indeed evil. It results in the loss of
both economic & social liberty. We saw this in
USSR & every other socialist country, eg, PRC,
Cuba, Khmer Rouge, N Korea.
You misunderstand the nature of the Red Scare
(perhaps because you didn't live thru it here).
It was a political movement. Instead, I criticize
the economic system & the centralized power
necessary to enforce it.
I'm continually surprised that liberals fail to
understand the difference between Red Scare
mentality, & criticism of socialism's political
economy.
Perhaps it's easier to paint me as a McCarthyite
than address analysis of economic systems
& their emergent properties, eh.
Leninism and Stalinism are brutal ideologies that have killed millions, and this is something I have said in multiple other threads. But equating socialism in general with either is like equating all of Christianity with the Inquisition or Crusades.
Bad analogy.
Christianity has existed in countries without
their becoming authoritarian & beset by
famine due to economic lethargy.
Socialism is different. Every single country
in history that ditched capitalism for socailism
has been brutally authoritarian & economically
weak.
