China, among them, will have difficulty maintaining prosperity in the years ahead as the prime producing age-group shrinks. - North America isn't, at this point, heading for a demographic crisis like China largely because of immigration and higher birth rates among immigrant groups — BC

One of the catastrophic decisions that China made was the one-child policy.

It has been well shown that if the prosperity of the people rises, then people will have less children. It's not that they are anymore on a farm where they grow food to eat themselves, where it's wise to have children around to take care of you when you are old.

Unfortunately especially in the 1970's the vocal popular "scientists" warned about a future disaster because of the rampant population growth, and totalitarian systems like China and suprisingly Singapore went to limit births.

Canada is, or should we say should be, one of the countries that will have good economic prospects going further. Not only does it attract also talented people to emigrate there, it also has a lot of natural resources. It's a country that Europeans genuinely can think and will think of emigrating to. People can of course fuck up even the best future prospects. But doing something like a Brexit won't be enough. You have to start killing each other, have car bombs explode weekly on your streets weekly and lynch emigrants and presto: nobody will want to emigrate to Canada. But we will all ask what the hell happened to you?

Divide et impera!

My friend convinced me Canada intends to kill off its homeless and poverty-stricken citizens to make room for its current and impending foreign residents and working-class native citizens. — Bug Biro

Uhhh... :roll: Peraps you shouldn't go all in with the conspiracy theory.

Has anyone spotted the same circumstances in the city they live in? Is this strictly Canadian policy? — Bug Biro

Authorities intervening in the housing market usually backfires. This happens when they give subsidies and assistance which is intended to be beneficial, but have no regard (or understanding) how markets work. The welfare programs can at worst, if not run well, become rackets for some investors and officials to make money. Smart programs can work well.

The classic way is to subsidies housing for the poor people let's say giving a monthly assistance of X amount. This has the consequence that no flat will be lower rented than price X. Why rent anything lower than X, because it's free money?

Another is to fix limits to what rents can be. This can simply kill the rental business and investors opt to sell their flats rather than rent them out. My country (Finland) pretty much killed the rental market in the 1970's and caused a decades lasting huge structural inbalance between demand and supply. In the 1980's and 1990's if you decided to rent a flat, you had dozens of people lining up for the apartment. Only after they freed the market did supply and demand meet with even institutional investors and companies emerging to the market. Now in this Millennium there has been a steady supply of rental apartments on the market.

But coming back to Canada: do notice that the economic growth of your country depends very much on the increasing population. And that continuing in the future. Now refugees might be singled out, but the huge portion of people coming to Canada emigrant workers. Now if that influx stops, your economy really hits the rocks or sees anemic growth.

I don't have to discuss the role Russian politics played in initiating this war in order to understand the role Russian politics played in initiating this war. — Isaac

If you aren't willing to discuss the role of Russian politics, Ukrainian politics or other European countries, then just step aside then when others do.

Your views can be put into a nutshell with the following remark you made:

Yes. I'm ignoring (largely) the role of the Nordic countries, the Eastern European nations and the Ukrainians. Not because they don't have a role, but because it's not radically different to the US's. Big industry lobbyists push political agendas which serve their interests. they do so in the US, Europe, Sweden and Ukraine. Influence over media agendas manipulates a proletariat, the support of which is then used to justify the original objective. There's little point in discussing which flag they operate under, especially considering most are multi-national companies.

The notion of independent nation states with their own culture and unique objectives belongs to a colonial era of World Wars and imperialism. But it's hellish convenient when the arms industry needs another war.

So if you think it's an error, argue the case. Why do you still believe in nation states? — Isaac

We've heard your point.

So steer clear if others want to discuss the actions of nation state governments in this crisis. You yourself can delve in your tankist world of big industry lobbyists, multinational companies and proletariats. Others can debate about a world that actually does look quite similar to what it looked like in the 19th and the 20th Century with imperialism and wars between nation states.

I think we can describe things objectively without describing them on the pattern of natural science. — Jamal

I agree. Objectivity isn't limited to the scientific method used in natural sciences.

With an engineer, who designs a machine for some intended purpose and the machine works flawlessly doing that, it's a bit hard to argue that she's totally wrong, she has had the wrong ideas when designing the machine and in overall her thinking in engineering doesn't work. She can just point to the machine and say it works.

But with economics! We can argue all the above. We cannot even decide what is happening. It's not only the complexity, it's the vagueness of the concepts we use to describe the economy. What actually is gross domestic product and what is it's validity? What actually is inflation or stagflation? We can only find some definitions, but the reasons behind or the validity of the terms can be argued about.

Of course, this is not some iron clad law, if I felt a calling to become a political activist of some sort in Uganda or China or Russia or Saudi Arabia or Uzbekistan wherever, I could go do that, but if your carry the thought experiment out it would require a long learning curve to be of any effect. — boethius

Right, this argument is basically that the only thing important to us is to influence our own governments and since we aren't nationals of foreign countries, it's needless to talk about them, think about them at all and hence we can totally disregard them.

The problem with this thinking is that it leads simplistic navel gazing where absolutely everything evolves around in the end the US and everyone else is either a pawn or a victim of the Superpower. And people thinking like this don't understand just how condescending they are toward others and how it leads to faulty conclusions.

First of all, to have a good understanding of international relations, politics and the overall international situation is by itself a valuable thing. It's worth wile discussing by itself. Not to discuss Russia and it's actions, because we don't have a way to influence the country, is a quite absurd idea.

And if for you this thing, the war in Ukraine, is something comparable to being a political activist or caring about Uganda, the war in Ukraine is quite real for me as it has had effects on my life with the Finnish military training on an intensity never seen even during the Cold War. And I've never seen the Russian border here so empty of any traffic.

(Of course, they weren't thinking about Ukraine when they were writing this - they were thinking about Taiwan.) — SophistiCat

And with Taiwan, the question is about the Chinese civil war. Interestingly, only 13 countries (which are usually tiny states) have full diplomatic relations with the Republic of China.

To my mind, this was a really great OP on this forum.

Thank you, @Jamal

In the 19th Century they had a far more apt name for economics. They called it "Political Economy". And that's what it is, no matter in how much in mathematics you disguise it, it is political and part of politics. It's basically a straight lie to try to make economics to be something like a (natural) science and somehow apolitical. It simply isn't that. The dominant questions have been the same since Antiquity. The story of the Grachi brothers tells that the question about redistribution of wealth isn't something we started thinking about thanks to Marx and the 19th Century socialists.

For me, the simple reason why there can be "enchantment of magic" is that these questions are moral, not something objective, which using the scientific method can give us the right answer. If it's subjective, why not have some magic in it?

Ah! Wishful thinking. Or should I say that you have an optimist view of the US justice system? Well, belief in the system keeps it up, as they say.

This might happen if the Republican populace simply grows tired of the Donald. And that can happen. Otherwise, imagine the life of the judge afterwards who puts Donald Trump into jail.

Perhaps Donald can have a ghostwriter then writing his "My Battles" book while in prison!

My fairly incautious guess, at this point, is that DeSantis beats Trump in the primary, the latter forms his own independent party sabotaging the Republican vote in the general and Biden cruises into another four terms. — Maw

Trump not getting the candidacy of the GOP and then going third party and making sure that the Dems win would be a very likely, logical way how things would unfold. I agree that this is a genuine possibility.

Let's see in 2024 if you are a fortuneteller, @Maw.

(Page 2 of this thread is allways easy to find, even when it's running in over hundred pages).

It is therefore the actions of primarily Western governments about which we protest. That's how politics works. — Isaac

So everyone that opposes Western governments is put on a pedestal and hailed, because they oppose Western governments and their actions are "understood". Right.

Then your outrage is meaningless, because you don't have universal values that you judge people and nations by, but everything is just politics driven by an agenda.

By the looks of it, every week the invaders wreak havoc, forgive-and-forget becomes harder for the defenders, and the invaders have been at it for a year now. — jorndoe

Above everything, it's Ukraine's leaderships choice to come to an agreement of a cease-fire or terms for peace. Naturally Russia portrays Ukraine as a lackey of the US and would want to negotiate with the West.

Putin might hope in his wildest dreams he can get something similar "peace-deal" like the Taliban got from the Trump administration: agreement that the Ukrainians aren't part of. That would be devastating for the Western alliance. I guess there would those extremely eager to portray then the Ukrainian government as being "the warmongers" in this scenario and the .

* * *

I have to say that I feel a bit disappointed at my government as they have gotten (I forget how many times it has already happened) promises from both Turkey's Erdogan and Hungary that the will put forward in their parliaments the membership of Finland. So Erdogan has basically now separated the membership bids of Sweden and Finland. I think there was no need for this. That some members opted to haggle about membership process of the two countries was NATO's problem, not actually a problem for Sweden and Finland. The simple fact is that for NATO both Sweden and Finland give to the collective defense, not be just on the receiving end. The more that the two countries waited would have been more ackward to NATO, not the countries that already have been given security assurances for the time of the membership ratification process.

Let's not pretend we're now having an actual conversation. — Isaac

I have known for a long while that you don't want an actual conversation. I think others have noticed it too with you.

You know full well that many experts far more qualified to judge than you or I — Isaac

Again an example of your curious worship of experts. Haven't you gone to the university or why do you have such an inferiority complex? This is international politics we are talking about.

why you believe your experts. Why you choose the ones you choose. — Isaac

Again this expert-worship. Look, why is it so hard to understand that you can agree or disagree about the opinions and conclusions that people make? Scott Ritter as an weapons inspector gave a thorough analysis of the Iraqi weapons inspection process and I believed and agreed with his conclusion that there was no Iraqi WMD program anymore when Iraq was attacked. And that was before the Iraqi invasion, which later was shown to be the truth. He doesn't have similar insight into the war in Ukraine and his opinions are his opinions. It's you who is making this absurd classification of experts and not simply look at what they are saying. It's you who disregards certain information just from the source...not even bothering to say just what is wrong in what they are stating. Besides, it's totally normal to agree partly with a commentator and disagree with other opinions or conclusions he or she makes.

demanding a full Russian retreat is a non-starter. — Isaac

And then comes the perfect example of the Putin apologist of the forum.

Nobody here on this forum has the idea that a US withdrawal from Iraq, or the Saudis withdrawing from Yemen, or Israel withdrawing from the occupied territories is a "non-starter". Nobody is defending them with the reason given by the countries. Nobody is "understanding" the reasons for these military operations as you are with Russia. It's simply hypocrisy to demand what is morally right on some occasion, but then to turn to "realpolitik" when it comes to other nations. If you are critical about the US when it does something bad, you ought to be critical when some other country does something bad.

U
Well, the real issue here (from anti-war.com article):

As we mark the 20th anniversary of the devastating Iraq invasion, let us join with Global South leaders and the majority of our neighbors around the world, not only in calling for immediate peace negotiations to end the brutal Ukraine war, but also in building a genuine rules-based international order, where the same rules – and the same consequences and punishments for breaking those rules – apply to all nations, including our own.

...is just what those peace terms are. Russia simply should exit from Ukraine, including Crimea, and respect the territorial integrity of the country what it has accepted starting when the country became independent.

Having any problem with that?

Oh. we're back to just posting stuff we agree with, with only trite vapid commentary (if any). — Isaac

I agree with this. — Isaac

Your modus operandi.

The future is the only thing real, along with the fleeing moment that we call present. The past, well, it's existence is defined differently.

We are just such prisoners of our own subjectivity that we have problems to think about this, because somewhere quite close to the present we will not be anymore around to be subjects pondering this question, but decaying human remains. If our relatives (or someone) doesn't choose to cremate us, that is. And that's the problem: we can only guess what happens to our remains, because obviously that is out of our hands.

Yet the future is quite real. Our own limitations don't make it unreal. That we don't know the future, that we can change ourselves what happens in the future creates us many deep philosophical questions, but that doesn't undermine the existence of future present moments.

Garry Kasparov hitting the point when it comes to Russia:



Especially what he says starting 12:50 should be listened to.

Also, an interesting historical take on why Crimea is important to Russia, also culturally:



Of course, what is still a possibility is that Putin can win the war ...or at least hold onto the landbridge to Crimea and declare victory over the West (as in Russian propaganda it's fighting the West).

I've not presented a single argument here that isn't backed up by academics with relevant qualification in their fields. — Isaac

Oh that's your argument for how you judge comments: from thei relevant academic qualifications.

Well, that what I call putting people on a pedestal and then worshipping all they say.

I would look at the facts and the opinions they have from the issues themselves.

Glenn Grant made a thorough and good critical article about the weaknesses about the Ukrainian armed forces (see Glen Grant. 2023 – a time and chance for military change in Ukraine)

Several other military advisors and also remarks from volunteers that I've raid have similar findings. There's much variance in the abilities of the officer core. Ukraine suffers from it's Soviet past. Also what has been noted that maneuver warfare, which needs high level of cooperation and initiative, is difficult for Ukraine. If Russia has lost a lot men, so has Ukraine too. Usually Russia has learnt from it's mistakes, even if it takes a lot of time.

You (and the others I've mentioned), seem to weigh evidence which is provided (or confirmed) by official sources as being of a higher grade than evidence which is not. — Isaac

Again nonsense. You have to check the sources and verification and not judge / dismiss them just by looking at what the source is. US has it's agenda, but the US and Western intelligence sources were correct about Putin attacking Ukraine. Some cherished "alternative" sources were saying that Putin wasn't going to attack.

Official sources are directly involved in the war and have a proven track record of lying. — Isaac

Hence you have to be critical about them. But that doesn't mean, like you seem to exist, that they cannot say anything true. The US lied about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, they exaggerated the losses that for example the Serbs suffered during the Kosovo war. Hence you have to have critical reading skills.

You can't argue that the US might just happen to be right sometimes (despite a track record of lying) without at the same time conceding that Putin might just happen to be right despite a similar track record of lying. — Isaac

Putin can and has been totally right on certain issues.

That's were gathering sources, reading and understanding history and how the states operate come handy. That's why knowing how they operate and reading history of past events is very valuable. The propaganda of countries tries to mold current events, but seldom they have incentives to mold past events, especially of past administrations of politicians that aren't anymore players. Hence

Sy Hersh was just a good recent example. — Isaac

Especially when I have not opposed his remarks of the West being responsible of the pipeline sabotage. It's a possibility. But seems that you make your mind what people think without much reading what they actually say. Hence it's really a good example here.

The question was obviously about the relative credibility of the hypothesis, but since answering that would cast shade on the US you have to deflect to some pedantic drivel about whether it's physically impossible for someone to place explosive on a pipe underwater if they're not a government. — Isaac

As I've already said, even earlier than the last response to Tzeentcn, I think the probability of the attack being a private entity is unlikely.

Who's suggesting it's impossible? — Isaac

The question was, would you really need a state actor to do this sabotage or not. If only a state actor can do it, I guess then that means that no private entity could not do it. (Like shoot down a satellite, as I gave as an example). Diving to that depth and planting explosive is possible

What have your governments done recently to deserve such unreserved faith? I just can't fathom it. — Isaac

Stop right there, you are just carried away to you own condescending imaginations of other people in this forum.

If there's something to be critical about, I will be. I've said enough times that there's a lot to be critical about the West, including my own country. Just to give one example are actions taken in Afghanistan. Unfortunately with the war in Ukraine happening, this important discussion of the whole War-against-Terror hasn't been discussed and especially the US is quite mute about the disaster of Afghanistan.

It's more you that have this tribal attitude that you cannot say anything that could be remotely be positive to what you are basically critical about (NATO, US and UK, the West in general).

I don't have that limitation. I've said many times that Russia played for example extremely well it's cards in Central Asia: it simply waited for the US to botch things up. You had US bases all over Central Asia, you had US training nearly all the military of the -stans. And now, nothing. Prior to the Ukraine war, all the Central Asian states were having close relations with Russia, basically fearing what the re-emerged Afghani Emirate will do or have an effect on them.

And it's you who seem not to understand that as countries have agendas, they can easily also go with the truth when it fits their purpose. Russia Today had very good coverage of Occupy Wall Street when it happened. Good journalism helped their agenda back then. Yet the naive way to put some on a pedestal (Mearsheimer?) and totally dismiss others isn't the way to go.
.

You don't know anything about diving, do you? — Tzeentch

I've tried scuba diving. Naturally not as deep.

But this is a discussion about hypotheticals, so? The original question that Benkei raised was if it's possible for a non-state entity to do the operation, meaning it's impossible to plant explosives at that depth by anybody else than nations.

Our modern ideas about life and death are largely artificial, based on technology, not biology. — Vera Mont

Modern medicine has indeed changed our attitudes, the most perhaps in that infants are very likely to stay alive and not die at childbirth or at early age. Our attitudes toward early deaths of infants has changed.

Meant by whom? — Vera Mont

The usual lifespan would be so that parents die before their children or their grandchildren. Besides, people don't think an 90-year old dying as a huge tragedy. They usually do in the case of a 9-year old, especially it's hard for the parents.

What is too young to die, and what is the age after which most would accept that they probably lived a full life? — TiredThinker

Too young to die is an age younger than the person making this remark, who likely remembers that he or she was quite vibrant and full of life in that age.

I've notice that usually people talk about people that have died before 50 or in their 50's as having "died young". After 60 dying starts to become quite normal and it becomes more ordinary and normal as the age increases. Nobody assumes an 100-year old to live decades more.

Also when parents have to bury their children, I would say then the normal rhythm of life has broken and you could say the children have died too young. Children are meant to bury their parents, not vice versa.

I assume the number refers to actually the possible group that made the attack. Possibly. Not the sponsors and those who got them together. But the idea of a private non-state actor doing it is in my view remote. But not impossible.

It indeed would be quite incredible if six divers would be having a beer and one of them thought: "You know, we could go and blow up Nordstream 2."

With hard meaning as you referred to only a nation-state having the ability for the strike, sabotage on the high seas is still possible for a private entity to do. It is possible. For example shooting down a satellite is something that only nation-states can do (perhaps with the exception of Elon Musk focusing the attention of SpaceX on the mission, but that wouldn't go unnoticed).

. All the intelligence agencies are saying this is a very difficult operation with either state-level actors or those with state training. — Isaac

Yet not impossible for someone without the training. Professional Scuba divers on the private market exist. Yet there come the difficulties of just who would gather them without state backing. The motivation of someone else than a non-state actor would be confusing.

Operating in that depth isn't impossible. For example the CIA-operation of trying to lift a Soviet nuclear submarine from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean in 1974, Project Azorian, was partly successful. The sub K-129 was at the depth of 4900 meters. The pipeline on the bottom of the Baltic Sea is something like 54 to 75 meters, at the deepest 210 meters or so (and not so deep where the sabotage happened). Hence Project Azorian would be an operation that you need a state-level actor, and an Superpower actor, even if Howard Hughes was brought as a disguise to the CIA operation.

Your desperation is showing. — Isaac

Yeah right. I think we know who is desperate here...

Well, if it really would be private individuals or entities, then I guess it's an issue for the police to solve. Depth? Recreational diving limit is around 30m or so, but for instance with an atmospheric diving suit, a diver can go to 2000 ft (610 meters). Getting explosives? That's not a problem, steel in concrete casing isn't so difficult to break with explosives. Shaped charges etc aren't technically so difficult to do anyway. Hence it's not so hard to destroy a pipeline.

(Parts of Nordstream 2: this picture shows how thin the pipeline actually was)


Definately such underwater thing could be done privately, you just have to have professional divers and not your average mentally unstable terrorist. Yet if this was a "private venture", still the motivation is a question.

Interesting, even if a bit off topic, which mini-series come to mind?
(As history and war-movie friend Band of Brothers come to mind.)

Great OP, and I am still grappling with it. I think where you lose me is the notion that computation and causation are somehow equivalent. — hypericin

I would say in the other way: if you think that computation and causation are equivalent, then you think that mathematics and physics are equivalent. Not just that physics is accurately modeled using mathematics.

First of all, there do exist mathematical objects that are true, but not computable.

when the story is that this is "Putin's war" that no one in autocratic dictatorship Russia actually supports? :chin: — Tzeentch

I think there are some that do support Putin and do think it's time to "make Russia Great again". Or as it's put: "Defend Fortress Russia from the evil West". Just as there are those who oppose his policies.

There's evil in there somewhere, isn't there? What do Ukrainians think when they see Russian soldiers coming their way? — frank

Yes there is. The worst is when you get people to think that you can make the World a better place by killing certain people and with that radical act create a better society. That you have to eradicate the subhumans. Or the rich. Or whoever and then you will have a new better society. That I think is really evil.

And I can understand just why people will fall for this kind of thinking. The injustices of the present can be so enormous and it can create hate.

Or then you kill the people and want to turn the landscape into a field where your horses can graize. Or you create an artificial desert to win an insurgency. No people, no insurgents.

I don't think the individual soldier is evil.

Yes. That's right. I do think those things. That'll be why I said them.

Have you got anything more than your incredulity to offer? — Isaac

I'm just quoting what you have said. What's wrong with that?

Oh, I could add that you think the Donbas republics are independent whereas somehow Ukraine, after many free elections and ruled by a party that didn't even exist in 2014 is somehow is related to "a US staged coup" and pawns of the US, just like Putin says.

So if I disagree that the People's Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk aren't independent and without any resemblance to democracy, or that there would have been a huge toll that Ukrainians would have had to suffer if they would have surrendered, you will likely go off with your ad hominem attacks.

I just simply disagree with what you say about the situation in Ukraine, which you have said repeatedly doesn't interest you much.

He's a good example of how we each have the potential for evil and good. He was an American soldier on the wrong side of history, so evil, — frank

I assume that many here would be far more harsher on John McCain.

Being in uniform for your country doesn't make oneself evil in my view. If you perpetrate war crimes, that's evil. If those that served in the Vietnam are evil, then I guess all that served in the War on Terror, invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq are even more evil. At least there was a South Vietnam, which was attacked by North Vietnam, which you didn't have with Afghanistan and Iraq.

Our society has compartmentalized war and warfare to quite an extent.

It doesn't help the victim to stand fast to the narrative of helplessness. — frank

Victimhood points to helplessness (or as @unenlightened said, needs help), someone subjected to oppression, hardship, or mistreatment or being duped or tricked.

I agree that the way being a victim is presented or portrayed can be quite annoying passive-aggresive behaviour, especially those declaring themselves to be a victim. And many times the target of violence isn't helpless or shouldn't be helpless.

Yet if we talk for example about someone being or ending up as a casualty, it doesn't have these connotations: if a soldier ends up as a casualty, being wounded or a fatality in war, there isn't this nuance. This can be seen from the way in the US a veteran having a Purple Heart is quite respected. Nobody (perhaps with the exception of the draft-dodger Donald Trump) will think a Purple Heart receiver is a loser. Or a helpless victim.

Grown ups are discussing how best to end a bloody and dreadful war.

If you children want to discuss who "the baddies" are perhaps you could do so on a more suitable forum. Don't Disney have a little chat room you could use. — Isaac

Says the "grown-up" who thinks that Ukraine should have surrendered, blames Zelensky for not surrendering, because he himself sees no difference in what flag flies over Kiev, Russian or Ukrainian. And says that there wouldn't be much bad consequences for that surrender.

Zelensky bears some moral responsibility for the deaths if he chooses to continue fighting when he could have take a less harmful other option. — Isaac

I'm pointing out that the terms offered by Russia are in this specific case, not applying to every single case in the world (which you bizarrely assumed), are such that it's not worth thousands of lives and huge indebtedness just to avoid them. — Isaac

As such it's not correct to say that we ought to support the Ukrainians in whatever they choose. We don't have any obligation to share their concern about their national identity, we do have an obligation to share their concern about their welfare.

This is relevant because if ceding territory to Russia ends the war and if there's no good reason to think that doing so will create a major loss in welfare, then we ought to support such a solution, even if the Ukrainians themselves don't. — Isaac

Ukrainians are not an homogeneous mass, we don't even know if they all support Zelensky's current strategy, and even if we did all the measures usually in place to ensure well-informed mandates are missing. There's no reason at all to assume 'Ukrainians' are calling the shots here and even if they were, there's no moral incentive to act on their expressed preference. — Isaac

I have no interest in why (some of) the Ukrainians want to remain outside of Russian control. — Isaac

What's up with Lavrov? Lying? Following the script? Bullshitting? Propagandizing? Expressing his belief? — jorndoe

Russia is really taking the historical discourse from the Soviet Union: the Lithurgy. The Lithurgy is the official line and you talk the official line to show that you are totally on with the official line. It can be a lie, it can be just nonsense or nothing, but you repeat it to show that you are an ardent backer of the regime.

Actually to make people to talk about a "special military operation" and make it illegal to talk about a war when this truly a war in every way, is a power play. The objective is to show the power Putin has and for people to show their unwavering faith to the leadership. The objective is to make people think twice what they say and avoid certain words like a white American avoids using the n-word. Hence when Putin declares that this war was basically started by the West and the Ukrainian henchmen working for the West against Russia, then the foreign minister naturally repeats the line. Anyone not repeating this can be problematic.

This is quite similar to when Soviet Union attacked Finland. Then it was actually Finland that attacked Soviet Union. And then there was the People's government lead by Otto Kuusinen that the Soviet Union came to help to relieve the working class, the proletariat, from the evil capitalist imperialist subjugating Finland.

So if it worked under Stalin, why wouldn't it work now?

(BTW, Trump actually wanted similar thing from his subordinates right from the start when he declared that on his inauguration day the crowds were larger than Obama had. A good spokesperson that Trump wanted would have followed that line and wouldn't have cared about actual pictures showing this isn't true.)

Social constructs suggest a consensus and a collaboration, and I doubt such a thing has occurred. — NOS4A2

Well, I think for many today, to be a citizen of their country doesn't mean so much if anything. You can see it from the comments even here. But there is enough consensus about citizenship around: just try to go to another country that you need a visa without one (or passport). Outside of your country, you will be looked as an US Citizen, irrelevant how much you relate to being one.

One can understand the self-identification with a race, though, especially in America, where these distinctions have been pounded into our heads our whole lives, even after the unspooling of the human genome has discredited them. For many it was a matter of life and death. But nowadays it's just de rigueur. — NOS4A2

Even if it's a bit different in Latin America, it's the same problem in the continent. Class division has become a race division, which makes the issue so toxic. The correlation with poverty and races shows this. In Latin America it's quite obvious with the divide between the Native American (Indian) population and those that have European ancestry. And the Spanish caste system has made it as bad in Latin America.

Desperately trying to see something wrong when their isn't.

Actions are important. Like who actually attacked whom. And then what here the attacker says is also important. Even if understandably he portrays the culprit for the war to be the one attacked. Just like Stalin's Soviet Union declared that Finland had attacked the Soviet Union. Or Poland German with Hitler.

You should be given some kind of a strawman-prize.

I am against what they say. I would call them “social impositions” because they were born of pseudoscience and imposed upon entire peoples. Besides, the pseudo-scientific justifications for applying these labels have long been discredited. — NOS4A2

Social constructs are a good way to think about these issues. Let's first define it:"A social construct or construction is the meaning, notion, or connotation placed on an object or event by a society, and adopted by that society with respect to how they view or deal with the object or event."

Someone defining himself as "American", meaning being a citizen of the US, or "British", is a clear social construct. We can easily understand that if history wouldn't have gone the way it did, those definitions would be different. And obviously they carry a lot legally in our societies and citizenship and the nation which people belong to means a lot to many. The naively stupid view is that when these are "just" social constructs and "invented", they are either false, irrelevant and don't matter.

Just talking about classes can get some angry as they either understand the term as castes, or then think it's just leftist nonsense. The juxtaposition between "white-collar" and "blue-collar" workers isn't so politically motivated, but basically again it's a social construct.

For me it seems that race relations have become a similar issue to Americans like Hitler and nazism to the Germans. It's obvious that slavery, segregation, Jim Crow and lynchings aren't the brightest side of American history. As the old saying goes, if you are losing a debate to a German, you can always go for the "Hitler-card". And if you have a Hitler-card, well, it comes to be so easy. And some do use them..

You call Putin a liar in one sentence and take his word in the next. — Tzeentch

Wrong, What I say what he speaks is important how Kremlin portrays this war, what is the narrative fed to the Russian people. And it's telling how he sees the West.

So if a politician lies, which they can, then it's irrelevant what he says at all???