Merged Gaza just launched an unprovoked attack on Israel

[southernhybrid]

Trump and Netanyahu certainly are dictators or perhaps I should say dictator wanna bes. Anyone with half a brain who lives in the US knows that Trump is rapidly heading us towards an autocracy. Plus there are different levels of dictatorship. We aren't quite fully under total autocratic rule, but tRump is heading us in that direction. Trump is going after his own citizens if they disagree with him. He's a dangerous, mentally incompetent man. I've never seen anything like this in my life and I'm old. Sadly, he has the entire Republican Party in his dictatorial cult, and they don't have the courage to stand up to him. He's done plenty of things that are unconstitutional and/or illegal and he disobeys the courts, and ignores things that were passed by Congress, like cutting out programs to help the poor in other nations, cutting out money for scientific research, among a long list of other things. Go read the site Right wing watch to get a taste of where the cult is trying to lead us. They want a strict Christian theocratic form of government. They even want to take away the right of women to vote, make birth control illegal, ban religious minorities from coming into the country.

And, imo, watching what Netanyahu is doing to Israel sure makes him look like he had tendencies to act like a dictator. He's very unpopular but a lot of the citizens of Israel are afraid to speak up. Some Israeli soldiers have spoken to reporters about how they feel about what Nettie is doing, but they usually remain anonymous out of fear. He may not be as crooked as Trump, but he certainly seems to act like a dictator or a dictator wanna be.

Get off your high horse. Your moral stance would doom us all to be slaves under amoral authoritarian regimes. If the liberal regimes (ie pro democracy) aren't willing to fight for what we believe in we will lose it.

Hand wringing and clinging to impossibly high moral standards (which you are doing) would condemn us all to passivity and helplessness. Its not being a good person. Its being an enabler of evil

You talk like the U.S. during the War on Terror—saying we had to defend freedom, then torturing detainees, drone-striking weddings, and invading Iraq based on lies. That wasn’t strength. It was a moral collapse disguised as strategy.

Did we stop terrorism that way? No. We radicalized entire regions, destroyed our credibility, and made the world more dangerous. That’s the cost of “fighting evil” by abandoning principle.

Clinging to moral limits isn’t passivity—it’s what keeps democracies from becoming what they claim to fight. If you think we save civilization by bombing it into submission, you haven’t learned a thing from history.

NHC

Let's agree to disagree. I'd just prefer it if more in the west are willing to fight for our democratic freedoms.

Or as an Iranian friend said recently, right now Europe doesn't deserve its freedoms. We seem to prefer cruising on the work of our ancestors and whine pathetically about the state of the world.

Yes, some times interventions fail. That doesn't mean it wasn't worth it. Dictators need to fear the free world. Or we are fucked

How ironic. What free world are you referring to, when both Trump and Netanyahu are more like dictators then leaders of the free world? The so called free world is under attack from its own leaders. If these two can't be removed from their positions, we are fucked!

I think this is the attitude my friend was talking about. I suggest you live a while in a dictatorship. I think you'll change your attitude real fucking fast.

If you feel safe to express your opinion on this forum, then you are privileged today.

Iran punishes people for things they say in private chats. Stuff vaguely critical of the regime. Having a private chat hidden from the government is illegal. If they catch an expat Iranian express something they don't like online, they'll punish the family

Trump and Netanyahu are not dictators. That's just ignorant.

No. I think you must be ignorant regarding what's happening in my country. There are numerous articles online that give evidence of Trump being or trying to be a dictator. Our democracy is under threat. You have no idea what's happening here. We are not yet in full blown autocracy, but unless we can stop the maniacal psychopath who is in charge of our government, we are on the way to it.

I'll give you an example and maybe if I have the time to waste, I'll add some more later.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/can-anything-stop-a-donald-trump-dictatorship

There are certainly levels of dictatorship but Trump is leaning heavily into one where he criticizes anyone who disagrees with him. To you really think deporting immigrants, including many who have legitimate visas and/or have been seeking asylum, to countries like El Salvador or South Sudan would be done by anyone who wasn't a cruel dictator. Sadly our fucking Supreme Count just upheld his right at least for now to send these people to countries where they never lived or have even visited. Trump is a dictator as his actions meet almost every characteristic of how a dictator is defined. He hasn't yet cancelled any elections, but like many dictators, his Republican cronies have and are doing their best to suppress the vote in areas that lean left. Some want to take away the vote of women. You obviously don't know much about what's happening in the US. Wise up and do some DD regarding the threat that Trump is to my country.

The courts, Congress, and the military are unlikely to resist the Trump administration’s tidal wave of illegality.​

President Donald Trump, in his second term, is rapidly moving the United States away from liberal democracy and toward authoritarianism capped by unrestricted one-man rule.


He has repeatedly and flagrantly disregarded the law. The disregard has included the gutting and disestablishment of agencies whose existence and budgets are based on acts of Congress. It has includedmass firings and targeted dismissals of officials while ignoring legal requirements to show cause and ensure due process.


The law enforcement powers of the government have been blatantly weaponized, politicized, and deployed against anyone Trump considers a political or personal adversary, even in the absence of a prosecutable crime. Despite the president’s duty under Article II of the Constitution to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” Trump has refused to enforce regulatory laws that he does not happen to like.

With some undocumented immigrants being thrown into a notorious prison in El Salvador, Trump has talked openly about extending similar treatment to US citizens. US citizens have already been swept up, whether inadvertently or otherwise, in the administration’s mass deportations.


In a further affront to freedom of speech, Trump has ordered criminal investigations of former officials because they said something publicly that disagreed with Trump’s assertions, such as his lie about the 2020 election. He has attacked freedom of the press, such as by punishing a wire service over a mere choice of words.


He has eliminated most checks within the executive branch against arbitrary and illegal behavior. This has included the wholesale firing of inspectors general and sidelining the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice.


He has extended his power grab to institutions that are not even part of the executive branch. He has guttedfederally chartered research institutions and subjected them to crippling takeovers. An assault on private universities is intended to bend them into submission regarding their curricula, hiring, and admissions policies.

 

[southernhybrid]

https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2019/06/08/israel-is-a-dictatorship-not-a-democracy/

Netanyahu also has characteristics of a dictator. There is plenty of evidence for that. The following piece is from 2018 and from my perspective, he's gotten worse since then.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has elevated himself to dictator in part to immunize himself from prosecution.

W​

e hear every day that “Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East,” but is Israel a democracy or a dictatorship?
In a democracy even the highest members of the government are accountable to law, but this isn’t the case with Netanyahu. After a two-year investigation the Israeli attorney general announced his intention to indict Prime Minister Netanyahu on charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust.
This is like Mueller indicting President Trump for colluding with Putin to steal the US presidential election. All would be over for Trump, but not for Netanyahu. Netanyahu simply removed the Israeli justice minister, Avichai Mandelblit, and appointed himself to the post, thus immunizing himself from prosecution.
As prime minister, Netanyahu had already assigned himself the ministries of Defense, Health, and Education. Now he is Justice minister as well. How much of a government can be in the hands of one person before that person becomes a dictator? Think about it this way: If President Trump were also Secretary of Defense, Attorney General, Secretary of the Treasury, and Secretary of Homeland Security, would he be a president or a dictator?

 

[DrZoidberg]

Trump and Netanyahu certainly are dictators or perhaps I should say dictator wanna bes. Anyone with half a brain who lives in the US knows that Trump is rapidly heading us towards an autocracy. Plus there are different levels of dictatorship. We aren't quite fully under total autocratic rule, but tRump is heading us in that direction. Trump is going after his own citizens if they disagree with him. He's a dangerous, mentally incompetent man. I've never seen anything like this in my life and I'm old. Sadly, he has the entire Republican Party in his dictatorial cult, and they don't have the courage to stand up to him. He's done plenty of things that are unconstitutional and/or illegal and he disobeys the courts, and ignores things that were passed by Congress, like cutting out programs to help the poor in other nations, cutting out money for scientific research, among a long list of other things. Go read the site Right wing watch to get a taste of where the cult is trying to lead us. They want a strict Christian theocratic form of government. They even want to take away the right of women to vote, make birth control illegal, ban religious minorities from coming into the country.

And, imo, watching what Netanyahu is doing to Israel sure makes him look like he had tendencies to act like a dictator. He's very unpopular but a lot of the citizens of Israel are afraid to speak up. Some Israeli soldiers have spoken to reporters about how they feel about what Nettie is doing, but they usually remain anonymous out of fear. He may not be as crooked as Trump, but he certainly seems to act like a dictator or a dictator wanna be.

Get off your high horse. Your moral stance would doom us all to be slaves under amoral authoritarian regimes. If the liberal regimes (ie pro democracy) aren't willing to fight for what we believe in we will lose it.

Hand wringing and clinging to impossibly high moral standards (which you are doing) would condemn us all to passivity and helplessness. Its not being a good person. Its being an enabler of evil

You talk like the U.S. during the War on Terror—saying we had to defend freedom, then torturing detainees, drone-striking weddings, and invading Iraq based on lies. That wasn’t strength. It was a moral collapse disguised as strategy.

Did we stop terrorism that way? No. We radicalized entire regions, destroyed our credibility, and made the world more dangerous. That’s the cost of “fighting evil” by abandoning principle.

Clinging to moral limits isn’t passivity—it’s what keeps democracies from becoming what they claim to fight. If you think we save civilization by bombing it into submission, you haven’t learned a thing from history.

NHC

Let's agree to disagree. I'd just prefer it if more in the west are willing to fight for our democratic freedoms.

Or as an Iranian friend said recently, right now Europe doesn't deserve its freedoms. We seem to prefer cruising on the work of our ancestors and whine pathetically about the state of the world.

Yes, some times interventions fail. That doesn't mean it wasn't worth it. Dictators need to fear the free world. Or we are fucked

How ironic. What free world are you referring to, when both Trump and Netanyahu are more like dictators then leaders of the free world? The so called free world is under attack from its own leaders. If these two can't be removed from their positions, we are fucked!

I think this is the attitude my friend was talking about. I suggest you live a while in a dictatorship. I think you'll change your attitude real fucking fast.

If you feel safe to express your opinion on this forum, then you are privileged today.

Iran punishes people for things they say in private chats. Stuff vaguely critical of the regime. Having a private chat hidden from the government is illegal. If they catch an expat Iranian express something they don't like online, they'll punish the family

Trump and Netanyahu are not dictators. That's just ignorant.

No. I think you must be ignorant regarding what's happening in my country. There are numerous articles online that give evidence of Trump being or trying to be a dictator. Our democracy is under threat. You have no idea what's happening here. We are not yet in full blown autocracy, but unless we can stop the maniacal psychopath who is in charge of our government, we are on the way to it.

I'll give you an example and maybe if I have the time to waste, I'll add some more later.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/can-anything-stop-a-donald-trump-dictatorship

There are certainly levels of dictatorship but Trump is leaning heavily into one where he criticizes anyone who disagrees with him. To you really think deporting immigrants, including many who have legitimate visas and/or have been seeking asylum, to countries like El Salvador or South Sudan would be done by anyone who wasn't a cruel dictator. Sadly our fucking Supreme Count just upheld his right at least for now to send these people to countries where they never lived or have even visited. Trump is a dictator as his actions meet almost every characteristic of how a dictator is defined. He hasn't yet cancelled any elections, but like many dictators, his Republican cronies have and are doing their best to suppress the vote in areas that lean left. Some want to take away the vote of women. You obviously don't know much about what's happening in the US. Wise up and do some DD regarding the threat that Trump is to my country.

The courts, Congress, and the military are unlikely to resist the Trump administration’s tidal wave of illegality.​

President Donald Trump, in his second term, is rapidly moving the United States away from liberal democracy and toward authoritarianism capped by unrestricted one-man rule.


He has repeatedly and flagrantly disregarded the law. The disregard has included the gutting and disestablishment of agencies whose existence and budgets are based on acts of Congress. It has includedmass firings and targeted dismissals of officials while ignoring legal requirements to show cause and ensure due process.


The law enforcement powers of the government have been blatantly weaponized, politicized, and deployed against anyone Trump considers a political or personal adversary, even in the absence of a prosecutable crime. Despite the president’s duty under Article II of the Constitution to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” Trump has refused to enforce regulatory laws that he does not happen to like.

With some undocumented immigrants being thrown into a notorious prison in El Salvador, Trump has talked openly about extending similar treatment to US citizens. US citizens have already been swept up, whether inadvertently or otherwise, in the administration’s mass deportations.


In a further affront to freedom of speech, Trump has ordered criminal investigations of former officials because they said something publicly that disagreed with Trump’s assertions, such as his lie about the 2020 election. He has attacked freedom of the press, such as by punishing a wire service over a mere choice of words.


He has eliminated most checks within the executive branch against arbitrary and illegal behavior. This has included the wholesale firing of inspectors general and sidelining the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice.


He has extended his power grab to institutions that are not even part of the executive branch. He has guttedfederally chartered research institutions and subjected them to crippling takeovers. An assault on private universities is intended to bend them into submission regarding their curricula, hiring, and admissions policies.

I agree that Trump is bad news. He's still not a dictator. Nor is Netanyahu.

FYI, Netanyahu is wildly unpopular in Israel. Why? Because the 7/10 attack happened on his watch. Israelis want a prime minister who can deliver peace. Netanyahu can't. He's not going to be reelected and he knows it.

The fact that both of these guys have limited terms help inform their actions. That's why they're aggressive and focused on short term gains.

Dictators play the long game. The opposite of these guys

 

[southernhybrid]

https://www.axios.com/2025/04/29/prri-poll-most-americans-trump-dangerous-dictator

I felt like adding more article that spoke of Trump's dictatorial traits. Fuck. He promised he'd be dictator on day one, but too many people didn't take him seriously, so they voted for the asshole. Now, many are regretting their vote and those who didn't bother to vote are also sorry. Stupid fools!

A majority of Americans say President Trump is a "dangerous dictator" who poses a threat to democracy and believe he's overstepped his authority by actions such as the mass firing of federal employees, a new survey says.

Why it matters: The wide-ranging poll released Tuesday, on Trump's 100th day in office, is the latest sign of him losing support for his immigration and economic policies — the two issues that largely fueled his election.



Zoom in: Only four in 10 Americans expressed favorable views of Trump after his first 100 days in office, according to the survey by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI).

• And 52% agreed with the provocative statement that Trump "is a dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy," the survey said.
• That question provided a big warning sign for Trump: Most independents (56%) agreed that Trump is a "dangerous dictator," suggesting that middle-of-the-road voters who helped put him back in office are abandoning him.

Zoom in: The survey is among those that have shown the most dissatisfaction with Trump's push for mass deportations, sweeping tariffs, more control of colleges, and firing or laying off more than 100,000 federal employees.

• Those priorities have led the new administration to unilaterally end diversity and equity programs, cancel student visas, and continue to keep at least one mistakenly deported man in a notorious El Salvador prison despite a court order to return him.

The big picture: The survey found that 83% of Republicans — a relatively low number for Trump — had favorable views of him and his actions, while 35% of independents and 8% of Democrats did.

• Many respondents expressed alarm over his moves to reshape government, impose his tariffsand deport people without due process.
• A majority of Black Americans, Latinos and Asian Americans agreed that Trump is a "dangerous dictator," compared to 45% of white Americans — a reflection of the racial divisions Trump and his actions engender in such surveys.

What they're saying: "Most Americans view Trump in dictatorial terms, and I think most Americans are concerned that American democracy is on the line," PRRI CEO Melissa Deckman tells Axios.

 

[southernhybrid]

Trump and Netanyahu certainly are dictators or perhaps I should say dictator wanna bes. Anyone with half a brain who lives in the US knows that Trump is rapidly heading us towards an autocracy. Plus there are different levels of dictatorship. We aren't quite fully under total autocratic rule, but tRump is heading us in that direction. Trump is going after his own citizens if they disagree with him. He's a dangerous, mentally incompetent man. I've never seen anything like this in my life and I'm old. Sadly, he has the entire Republican Party in his dictatorial cult, and they don't have the courage to stand up to him. He's done plenty of things that are unconstitutional and/or illegal and he disobeys the courts, and ignores things that were passed by Congress, like cutting out programs to help the poor in other nations, cutting out money for scientific research, among a long list of other things. Go read the site Right wing watch to get a taste of where the cult is trying to lead us. They want a strict Christian theocratic form of government. They even want to take away the right of women to vote, make birth control illegal, ban religious minorities from coming into the country.

And, imo, watching what Netanyahu is doing to Israel sure makes him look like he had tendencies to act like a dictator. He's very unpopular but a lot of the citizens of Israel are afraid to speak up. Some Israeli soldiers have spoken to reporters about how they feel about what Nettie is doing, but they usually remain anonymous out of fear. He may not be as crooked as Trump, but he certainly seems to act like a dictator or a dictator wanna be.

Get off your high horse. Your moral stance would doom us all to be slaves under amoral authoritarian regimes. If the liberal regimes (ie pro democracy) aren't willing to fight for what we believe in we will lose it.

Hand wringing and clinging to impossibly high moral standards (which you are doing) would condemn us all to passivity and helplessness. Its not being a good person. Its being an enabler of evil

You talk like the U.S. during the War on Terror—saying we had to defend freedom, then torturing detainees, drone-striking weddings, and invading Iraq based on lies. That wasn’t strength. It was a moral collapse disguised as strategy.

Did we stop terrorism that way? No. We radicalized entire regions, destroyed our credibility, and made the world more dangerous. That’s the cost of “fighting evil” by abandoning principle.

Clinging to moral limits isn’t passivity—it’s what keeps democracies from becoming what they claim to fight. If you think we save civilization by bombing it into submission, you haven’t learned a thing from history.

NHC

Let's agree to disagree. I'd just prefer it if more in the west are willing to fight for our democratic freedoms.

Or as an Iranian friend said recently, right now Europe doesn't deserve its freedoms. We seem to prefer cruising on the work of our ancestors and whine pathetically about the state of the world.

Yes, some times interventions fail. That doesn't mean it wasn't worth it. Dictators need to fear the free world. Or we are fucked

How ironic. What free world are you referring to, when both Trump and Netanyahu are more like dictators then leaders of the free world? The so called free world is under attack from its own leaders. If these two can't be removed from their positions, we are fucked!

I think this is the attitude my friend was talking about. I suggest you live a while in a dictatorship. I think you'll change your attitude real fucking fast.

If you feel safe to express your opinion on this forum, then you are privileged today.

Iran punishes people for things they say in private chats. Stuff vaguely critical of the regime. Having a private chat hidden from the government is illegal. If they catch an expat Iranian express something they don't like online, they'll punish the family

Trump and Netanyahu are not dictators. That's just ignorant.

No. I think you must be ignorant regarding what's happening in my country. There are numerous articles online that give evidence of Trump being or trying to be a dictator. Our democracy is under threat. You have no idea what's happening here. We are not yet in full blown autocracy, but unless we can stop the maniacal psychopath who is in charge of our government, we are on the way to it.

I'll give you an example and maybe if I have the time to waste, I'll add some more later.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/can-anything-stop-a-donald-trump-dictatorship

There are certainly levels of dictatorship but Trump is leaning heavily into one where he criticizes anyone who disagrees with him. To you really think deporting immigrants, including many who have legitimate visas and/or have been seeking asylum, to countries like El Salvador or South Sudan would be done by anyone who wasn't a cruel dictator. Sadly our fucking Supreme Count just upheld his right at least for now to send these people to countries where they never lived or have even visited. Trump is a dictator as his actions meet almost every characteristic of how a dictator is defined. He hasn't yet cancelled any elections, but like many dictators, his Republican cronies have and are doing their best to suppress the vote in areas that lean left. Some want to take away the vote of women. You obviously don't know much about what's happening in the US. Wise up and do some DD regarding the threat that Trump is to my country.

The courts, Congress, and the military are unlikely to resist the Trump administration’s tidal wave of illegality.​

President Donald Trump, in his second term, is rapidly moving the United States away from liberal democracy and toward authoritarianism capped by unrestricted one-man rule.


He has repeatedly and flagrantly disregarded the law. The disregard has included the gutting and disestablishment of agencies whose existence and budgets are based on acts of Congress. It has includedmass firings and targeted dismissals of officials while ignoring legal requirements to show cause and ensure due process.


The law enforcement powers of the government have been blatantly weaponized, politicized, and deployed against anyone Trump considers a political or personal adversary, even in the absence of a prosecutable crime. Despite the president’s duty under Article II of the Constitution to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” Trump has refused to enforce regulatory laws that he does not happen to like.

With some undocumented immigrants being thrown into a notorious prison in El Salvador, Trump has talked openly about extending similar treatment to US citizens. US citizens have already been swept up, whether inadvertently or otherwise, in the administration’s mass deportations.


In a further affront to freedom of speech, Trump has ordered criminal investigations of former officials because they said something publicly that disagreed with Trump’s assertions, such as his lie about the 2020 election. He has attacked freedom of the press, such as by punishing a wire service over a mere choice of words.


He has eliminated most checks within the executive branch against arbitrary and illegal behavior. This has included the wholesale firing of inspectors general and sidelining the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice.


He has extended his power grab to institutions that are not even part of the executive branch. He has guttedfederally chartered research institutions and subjected them to crippling takeovers. An assault on private universities is intended to bend them into submission regarding their curricula, hiring, and admissions policies.

I agree that Trump is bad news. He's still not a dictator. Nor is Netanyahu.

FYI, Netanyahu is wildly unpopular in Israel. Why? Because the 7/10 attack happened on his watch. Israelis want a prime minister who can deliver peace. Netanyahu can't. He's not going to be reelected and he knows it.

The fact that both of these guys have limited terms help inform their actions. That's why they're aggressive and focused on short term gains.

Dictators play the long game. The opposite of these guys

Netanyahu has been in office for about 17 years, so who will take over when he dies? I doubt his reign will end without a struggle. I hope Israel's democracy will return and I hope ours will as well. Trump may die before the end of his term, but the MAGA cult has some new leaders, so we can only hope that Trump will be short a term dictator and MAGA Germany had a dictator for a short term, so dictatorships aren't always permanent. They are often temporary, but they can do a lot of damage in the short term. I have some hope that our democracy will be restored but it will take a lot of work, activism and contributions to organizations that are working for democracy. We shall see. Due to my age, I may not live long enough to see what happens, but I am certainly concerned for my grandkids and their generation.

Now back to the seemingness endless argument regarding regarding the deaths of innocent civilians in Gaza, regardless of it being due to being bombed or being denied aide, food and water.

 

[southernhybrid]

Trump and Netanyahu certainly are dictators or perhaps I should say dictator wanna bes. Anyone with half a brain who lives in the US knows that Trump is rapidly heading us towards an autocracy. Plus there are different levels of dictatorship. We aren't quite fully under total autocratic rule, but tRump is heading us in that direction. Trump is going after his own citizens if they disagree with him. He's a dangerous, mentally incompetent man. I've never seen anything like this in my life and I'm old. Sadly, he has the entire Republican Party in his dictatorial cult, and they don't have the courage to stand up to him. He's done plenty of things that are unconstitutional and/or illegal and he disobeys the courts, and ignores things that were passed by Congress, like cutting out programs to help the poor in other nations, cutting out money for scientific research, among a long list of other things. Go read the site Right wing watch to get a taste of where the cult is trying to lead us. They want a strict Christian theocratic form of government. They even want to take away the right of women to vote, make birth control illegal, ban religious minorities from coming into the country.

And, imo, watching what Netanyahu is doing to Israel sure makes him look like he had tendencies to act like a dictator. He's very unpopular but a lot of the citizens of Israel are afraid to speak up. Some Israeli soldiers have spoken to reporters about how they feel about what Nettie is doing, but they usually remain anonymous out of fear. He may not be as crooked as Trump, but he certainly seems to act like a dictator or a dictator wanna be.

Get off your high horse. Your moral stance would doom us all to be slaves under amoral authoritarian regimes. If the liberal regimes (ie pro democracy) aren't willing to fight for what we believe in we will lose it.

Hand wringing and clinging to impossibly high moral standards (which you are doing) would condemn us all to passivity and helplessness. Its not being a good person. Its being an enabler of evil

You talk like the U.S. during the War on Terror—saying we had to defend freedom, then torturing detainees, drone-striking weddings, and invading Iraq based on lies. That wasn’t strength. It was a moral collapse disguised as strategy.

Did we stop terrorism that way? No. We radicalized entire regions, destroyed our credibility, and made the world more dangerous. That’s the cost of “fighting evil” by abandoning principle.

Clinging to moral limits isn’t passivity—it’s what keeps democracies from becoming what they claim to fight. If you think we save civilization by bombing it into submission, you haven’t learned a thing from history.

NHC

Let's agree to disagree. I'd just prefer it if more in the west are willing to fight for our democratic freedoms.

Or as an Iranian friend said recently, right now Europe doesn't deserve its freedoms. We seem to prefer cruising on the work of our ancestors and whine pathetically about the state of the world.

Yes, some times interventions fail. That doesn't mean it wasn't worth it. Dictators need to fear the free world. Or we are fucked

How ironic. What free world are you referring to, when both Trump and Netanyahu are more like dictators then leaders of the free world? The so called free world is under attack from its own leaders. If these two can't be removed from their positions, we are fucked!

I think this is the attitude my friend was talking about. I suggest you live a while in a dictatorship. I think you'll change your attitude real fucking fast.

If you feel safe to express your opinion on this forum, then you are privileged today.

Iran punishes people for things they say in private chats. Stuff vaguely critical of the regime. Having a private chat hidden from the government is illegal. If they catch an expat Iranian express something they don't like online, they'll punish the family

Trump and Netanyahu are not dictators. That's just ignorant.

No. I think you must be ignorant regarding what's happening in my country. There are numerous articles online that give evidence of Trump being or trying to be a dictator. Our democracy is under threat. You have no idea what's happening here. We are not yet in full blown autocracy, but unless we can stop the maniacal psychopath who is in charge of our government, we are on the way to it.

I'll give you an example and maybe if I have the time to waste, I'll add some more later.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/can-anything-stop-a-donald-trump-dictatorship

There are certainly levels of dictatorship but Trump is leaning heavily into one where he criticizes anyone who disagrees with him. To you really think deporting immigrants, including many who have legitimate visas and/or have been seeking asylum, to countries like El Salvador or South Sudan would be done by anyone who wasn't a cruel dictator. Sadly our fucking Supreme Count just upheld his right at least for now to send these people to countries where they never lived or have even visited. Trump is a dictator as his actions meet almost every characteristic of how a dictator is defined. He hasn't yet cancelled any elections, but like many dictators, his Republican cronies have and are doing their best to suppress the vote in areas that lean left. Some want to take away the vote of women. You obviously don't know much about what's happening in the US. Wise up and do some DD regarding the threat that Trump is to my country.

The courts, Congress, and the military are unlikely to resist the Trump administration’s tidal wave of illegality.​

President Donald Trump, in his second term, is rapidly moving the United States away from liberal democracy and toward authoritarianism capped by unrestricted one-man rule.


He has repeatedly and flagrantly disregarded the law. The disregard has included the gutting and disestablishment of agencies whose existence and budgets are based on acts of Congress. It has includedmass firings and targeted dismissals of officials while ignoring legal requirements to show cause and ensure due process.


The law enforcement powers of the government have been blatantly weaponized, politicized, and deployed against anyone Trump considers a political or personal adversary, even in the absence of a prosecutable crime. Despite the president’s duty under Article II of the Constitution to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” Trump has refused to enforce regulatory laws that he does not happen to like.

With some undocumented immigrants being thrown into a notorious prison in El Salvador, Trump has talked openly about extending similar treatment to US citizens. US citizens have already been swept up, whether inadvertently or otherwise, in the administration’s mass deportations.


In a further affront to freedom of speech, Trump has ordered criminal investigations of former officials because they said something publicly that disagreed with Trump’s assertions, such as his lie about the 2020 election. He has attacked freedom of the press, such as by punishing a wire service over a mere choice of words.


He has eliminated most checks within the executive branch against arbitrary and illegal behavior. This has included the wholesale firing of inspectors general and sidelining the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice.


He has extended his power grab to institutions that are not even part of the executive branch. He has guttedfederally chartered research institutions and subjected them to crippling takeovers. An assault on private universities is intended to bend them into submission regarding their curricula, hiring, and admissions policies.

I agree that Trump is bad news. He's still not a dictator. Nor is Netanyahu.

FYI, Netanyahu is wildly unpopular in Israel. Why? Because the 7/10 attack happened on his watch. Israelis want a prime minister who can deliver peace. Netanyahu can't. He's not going to be reelected and he knows it.

The fact that both of these guys have limited terms help inform their actions. That's why they're aggressive and focused on short term gains.

Dictators play the long game. The opposite of these guys

Netanyahu has been in office for about 17 years, so who will take over when he dies? I doubt his reign will end without a struggle. I hope Israel's democracy will return and I hope ours will as well. Trump may die before the end of his term, but the MAGA cult has some new leaders, so we can only hope that Trump will be short a term dictator and MAGA will die out. Germany had a dictator for a short term, so dictatorships aren't always permanent. They are often temporary, but they can do a lot of damage in the short term. I have some hope that our democracy will be restored but it will take a lot of work, activism and contributions to organizations that are working for democracy. We shall see. Due to my age, I may not live long enough to see what happens, but I am certainly concerned for my grandkids and their generation.

Now back to the seemingness endless argument regarding regarding the deaths of innocent civilians in Gaza, regardless of it being due to being bombed or being denied aide, food and water.

 

[pood]

The moment we stop being grateful for the freedoms we have, why would anyone make an effort to protect them for us?

People protect their rights.

If Trump would have won, but was forced to give healthcare according to how Democrats like it, that would be an example of a failed democracy

Nonsense. Trump did not get more than half the cast votes. The only way Trump could be forced to sign into law (outside of a tape from an Epstein orgy or Rusdian hotel room) a Democrat preferred healthcare bill is if the bill was passed a veto proof majority in the House of Representatives and jn the Senate - successful democracy in action.

In any democratic system votes are usually weighted in various ways, to make sure one group can't dominate the parliament. That doesn't make it undemocratic. If I recall correctly, the current US vote weighting has something to with the civil war, and avoiding another one of those.

It has nothing to do with the civil war.

The democracy in USA works as intended. It's fine.

It does not work as the founders intended. The founders specifically set up the electoral college to keep people ike Trump from being president.

The American system has loads of ingenious checks and balances, to curtail abuses of power. I think its great.

It works sometimes, others not.

There's no democratic system that is perfect

True.

 

[bilby]

I agree that Trump is bad news. He's still not a dictator.

He's only been in power for 155 days. It's a bit early to be suggesting that he has failed to hit that target.

 

[TomC]

There are several threads where this would be entirely on topic.
Tom

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

There are several threads where this would be entirely on topic.
Tom

The first rule of thread derails is: Do not talk about thread derails.

 

[scombrid]

Back to the genocide then.

 

[scombrid]

Get off your high horse. Your moral stance would doom us all to be slaves under amoral authoritarian regimes. If the liberal regimes (ie pro democracy) aren't willing to fight for what we believe in we will lose it.

Hand wringing and clinging to impossibly high moral standards (which you are doing) would condemn us all to passivity and helplessness. Its not being a good person. Its being an enabler of evil

You talk like the U.S. during the War on Terror—saying we had to defend freedom, then torturing detainees, drone-striking weddings, and invading Iraq based on lies. That wasn’t strength. It was a moral collapse disguised as strategy.

Did we stop terrorism that way? No. We radicalized entire regions, destroyed our credibility, and made the world more dangerous. That’s the cost of “fighting evil” by abandoning principle.

Clinging to moral limits isn’t passivity—it’s what keeps democracies from becoming what they claim to fight. If you think we save civilization by bombing it into submission, you haven’t learned a thing from history.

NHC

Let's agree to disagree. I'd just prefer it if more in the west are willing to fight for our democratic freedoms.

Or as an Iranian friend said recently, right now Europe doesn't deserve its freedoms. We seem to prefer cruising on the work of our ancestors and whine pathetically about the state of the world.

Yes, some times interventions fail. That doesn't mean it wasn't worth it. Dictators need to fear the free world. Or we are fucked

How ironic. What free world are you referring to, when both Trump and Netanyahu are more like dictators then leaders of the free world? The so called free world is under attack from its own leaders. If these two can't be removed from their positions, we are fucked!

I think this is the attitude my friend was talking about. I suggest you live a while in a dictatorship. I think you'll change your attitude real fucking fast.

If you feel safe to express your opinion on this forum, then you are privileged today.

Iran punishes people for things they say in private chats. Stuff vaguely critical of the regime. Having a private chat hidden from the government is illegal. If they catch an expat Iranian express something they don't like online, they'll punish the family

Trump and Netanyahu are not dictators. That's just ignorant.

The GOP wants to deny healthcare based on marital status, political affiliation, and gender. They are deporting people and imprisoning people without regard for actual status. I am muzzled as a state government employee. But hey, at least I’m not in Iran.

And let us all who don't live there be grateful for it. You sound ungrateful for the rights you have.

The moment we stop being grateful for the freedoms we have, why would anyone make an effort to protect them for us?

Any society has to make rules for how health care is distributed. That's not oppression. That's the reality of having finite resources. You can influence it by voting. Which actually works. Trump won the election, and by the sound of it, delivered on his campaign promises. That's a democratic system when it's working.

If Trump would have won, but was forced to give healthcare according to how Democrats like it, that would be an example of a failed democracy

An elected ruler is allowed to ignore the laws written previously because of one party rule. Said ruler is attacking groups protected by statutory and constitutional law. What do we call that?

 

[DrZoidberg]

Get off your high horse. Your moral stance would doom us all to be slaves under amoral authoritarian regimes. If the liberal regimes (ie pro democracy) aren't willing to fight for what we believe in we will lose it.

Hand wringing and clinging to impossibly high moral standards (which you are doing) would condemn us all to passivity and helplessness. Its not being a good person. Its being an enabler of evil

You talk like the U.S. during the War on Terror—saying we had to defend freedom, then torturing detainees, drone-striking weddings, and invading Iraq based on lies. That wasn’t strength. It was a moral collapse disguised as strategy.

Did we stop terrorism that way? No. We radicalized entire regions, destroyed our credibility, and made the world more dangerous. That’s the cost of “fighting evil” by abandoning principle.

Clinging to moral limits isn’t passivity—it’s what keeps democracies from becoming what they claim to fight. If you think we save civilization by bombing it into submission, you haven’t learned a thing from history.

NHC

Let's agree to disagree. I'd just prefer it if more in the west are willing to fight for our democratic freedoms.

Or as an Iranian friend said recently, right now Europe doesn't deserve its freedoms. We seem to prefer cruising on the work of our ancestors and whine pathetically about the state of the world.

Yes, some times interventions fail. That doesn't mean it wasn't worth it. Dictators need to fear the free world. Or we are fucked

How ironic. What free world are you referring to, when both Trump and Netanyahu are more like dictators then leaders of the free world? The so called free world is under attack from its own leaders. If these two can't be removed from their positions, we are fucked!

I think this is the attitude my friend was talking about. I suggest you live a while in a dictatorship. I think you'll change your attitude real fucking fast.

If you feel safe to express your opinion on this forum, then you are privileged today.

Iran punishes people for things they say in private chats. Stuff vaguely critical of the regime. Having a private chat hidden from the government is illegal. If they catch an expat Iranian express something they don't like online, they'll punish the family

Trump and Netanyahu are not dictators. That's just ignorant.

The GOP wants to deny healthcare based on marital status, political affiliation, and gender. They are deporting people and imprisoning people without regard for actual status. I am muzzled as a state government employee. But hey, at least I’m not in Iran.

And let us all who don't live there be grateful for it. You sound ungrateful for the rights you have.

The moment we stop being grateful for the freedoms we have, why would anyone make an effort to protect them for us?

Any society has to make rules for how health care is distributed. That's not oppression. That's the reality of having finite resources. You can influence it by voting. Which actually works. Trump won the election, and by the sound of it, delivered on his campaign promises. That's a democratic system when it's working.

If Trump would have won, but was forced to give healthcare according to how Democrats like it, that would be an example of a failed democracy

An elected ruler is allowed to ignore the laws written previously because of one party rule. Said ruler is attacking groups protected by statutory and constitutional law. What do we call that?

And what do we call people who are legally bound to respect constitutional and statutory law?

 

[DrZoidberg]

Here's a good one




I can recommend looking up the guy. He's not just a guy. He’s a Gazan journalist who got exciled from Gaza for criticising Hamas.

Here's the thing, he's also critical of Israel. But sensible critique. Because he knows what he's talking about

I'm so sick of the black and white partisan nonsense in this thread.

You don't have to pick a team. You can support Israel in its fight against Hamas, and still think Netanyahu is a cunt. Which I do.

You can support USA's bombing of Iran, and still think Trump is a cunt. Which I also do.

 

[ZiprHead]

Here's a good one




I can recommend looking up the guy. He's not just a guy. He’s a Gazan journalist who got exciled from Gaza for criticising Hamas.

Here's the thing, he's also critical of Israel. But sensible critique. Because he knows what he's talking about

I'm so sick of the black and white partisan nonsense in this thread.

You don't have to pick a team. You can support Israel in its fight against Hamas, and still think Netanyahu is a cunt. Which I do.

You can support USA's bombing of Iran, and still think Trump is a cunt. Which I also do.

That incident had been brought up previously.

And shove the "pick a team" bullshit. No one is supporting Hamas.

 

[scombrid]

You don't have to pick a team. You can support Israel in its fight against Hamas, and still think Netanyahu is a cunt. Which I do.

But don't criticize Israel's tactics against the non-Hamas Palestinians or you are a Hamas supporter. That's a narrow fence to tippy toe on.

 

[DrZoidberg]

You don't have to pick a team. You can support Israel in its fight against Hamas, and still think Netanyahu is a cunt. Which I do.

But don't criticize Israel's tactics against the non-Hamas Palestinians or you are a Hamas supporter. That's a narrow fence to tippy toe on.

In this thread I have seen zero nuance from the posters criticising Israel. I'd go further and say that, of what I can tell, most, (if not all) have just been signal boosting western leftist arguments, that in turn come straight from the Hamas propaganda department.

Its not like conservative news sources are much better

There's a vacuum of accurate information in western press. In this conflict you got to make some effort to inform yourself

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I'm so sick of the black and white partisan nonsense in this thread.

Then stop doing it.

You don't have to pick a team.

Then stop doing it.

 

[ZiprHead]

You don't have to pick a team. You can support Israel in its fight against Hamas, and still think Netanyahu is a cunt. Which I do.

But don't criticize Israel's tactics against the non-Hamas Palestinians or you are a Hamas supporter. That's a narrow fence to tippy toe on.

In this thread I have seen zero nuance from the posters criticising Israel.

Willful blindness is not a medical condition.

I'd go further and say that, of what I can tell, most, (if not all) have just been signal boosting western leftist arguments, that in turn come straight from the Hamas propaganda department.

Yeah, like the United Nations, Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, etc. Straight from Hamas.

Its not like conservative news sources are much better

There's a vacuum of accurate information in western press. In this conflict you got to make some effort to inform yourself

Besides your hind quarters, what sources do you use?

 

[laughing dog]

You don't have to pick a team. You can support Israel in its fight against Hamas, and still think Netanyahu is a cunt. Which I do.

But don't criticize Israel's tactics against the non-Hamas Palestinians or you are a Hamas supporter. That's a narrow fence to tippy toe on.

In this thread I have seen zero nuance from the posters criticising Israel. I'd go further and say that, of what I can tell, most, (if not all) have just been signal boosting western leftist arguments, that in turn come straight from the Hamas propaganda department.

Its not like conservative news sources are much better

There's a vacuum of accurate information in western press. In this conflict you got to make some effort to inform yourself

And that information leads you to the conclusion that Israel is “super nice” to the Palestinian people?