It's not a strawman, it's rephrasing what you said. Anyhoo, enough on this. People can read and realise you don't know what you're talking about from the entire exchange. It's just unfortunate that you can't seem to learn anything when it's handed to you on a silver platter.

Maybe it's just a good theory if you're seemingly so keen on disproving it but unable to?

What would disprove it of course is a long-lasting move towards peace between the US, Israel and Iran - a pipedream to be sure. The reason we don't see that, and we'll probably never see that, is because geopolitical realities put these countries at odds with each other pretty much by default. — Tzeentch

If you want a theory to be taken seriously, it needs to be falsifiable. So your position is that the JCPOA was done for shits and giggles to make sure it continues to fit your narrative. And this is of course nonsense.

The JCPOA was the product of 20 months of multilateral negotiations involving hundres of pages of technical annexes, inspections and UN SC Resolution 2231. It was also strongly opposed in the US itself. It wasn't a PR stunt or fake but a real policy.

The impact on Iran was significant. It shipped 97% of its enriched uranium out of the country, cut its centrifuges to a third and accepted the most intrusive inspection regime ever imposed. Nuclear-related sanctions were lifted by the US. To claim it was all “phoney” because US firms didn’t rush in fast enough simply ignores the chilling effect of the continued non-nuclear sanctions, secondary risk and the volatility of US domestic politics.

Retrofitting failure as proof of insincerity is of course silly. By that logic any diplomatic failure proves the diplomacy was fake.

As for Israeli rejection, the US pursued the deal in spite of it underlining the autonomy of the decision in the first place and proving the break with prior policy.

In other words, you don't have a theory but a narrative, which ignores actual facts but you're hellbent on constructing something that you believe is unassaillable. It will be fun to watch this narrative to become more ludicrous as time passes.

That's one of them yes.

The JCPOA does not align with your core theory that says letting Iran develop peacefully was never an option. If you want to claim the JCPOA was a “carrot” toward eventual suppression still contradicts the framing: that any development at all is intolerable. So which is it?

But seriously, what would disprove your theory?

From what you've written so far it doesn't seem to be possible which is what makes it "unfair" (but also not a theory; there's no theory of everything after all).

This is every reason why it's a good editor and first draft writer. Other than that, it has no role in anything.

It's amazing how much stupidity you manages to pack in a few paragraphs. I've decided to engage it one last time; after this I'm done. Probably forever.

Step 1: “The Iranian regime is wicked. This should be acknowledged.”
This is the opening move in every bad foreign policy argument: moral branding as strategic substitute. “Wicked.” That’s it. No context, no history, no understanding. Just a label slapped on like it’s a Marvel villain. What does wicked mean in this case? That Iran is authoritarian? Brutal? Repressive? So are most US allies in the region. Saudi Arabia executes people for witchcraft. Egypt jails journalists. Israel is currently flattening Gaza block by block. Are they all wicked too, or does “wicked” only apply to governments you’ve been trained to hate?

But more to the point: what are you proposing we do with this wickedness? Because that’s what this entire line of reasoning hinges on. If calling a regime wicked is just a rhetorical flourish, fine. But if it’s supposed to justify military action, then you’ve just advocated moral total war—foreign policy by exorcism.

Step 2: “If you can’t accept that, there’s no point talking.”
Of course there isn’t. Because your position is a closed loop. You demand agreement with your metaphysical assumptions before we can even begin to discuss facts or outcomes. You’re not interested in a debate. You’re interested in moral submission.

This is the intellectual equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting “LA LA LA THEY’RE EVIL.” You’re not debating Iran. You’re protecting your fragile little worldview from the contamination of reality. If someone says “maybe we should consider what actually works,” and your response is “I don’t talk to people who don’t believe in evil,” you’ve left the realm of debate and entered the sandbox of magical thinking. You’ve effectively said: I refuse to engage with people who ask questions I can’t answer without chanting moral absolutes.

That’s not a worldview. That’s a coping mechanism for people who find cause and effect too hard.

You’re not interested in whether a policy produces peace, stability, deterrence or even long-term advantage for your own side. You’re interested in moral catharsis. In punishing the wicked, smiting the evildoers and feeling clean afterward. It’s the foreign policy equivalent of burning witches.

And what makes this dumb, not just wrong, but actively disqualifying you from adult conversation, is that it refuses to process consequence.

Let’s break that down further:

Sub 1. You can’t reason with someone who treats disagreement as heresy.
When you say “I won’t talk to people who don’t believe in evil,” you’re admitting you can’t distinguish between disagreement and depravity. You’re saying: If you don’t share my metaphysical priors, you’re not just wrong, you’re morally defective.

That’s how ideologues and fanatics operate. Strategists and philosophers, however, deal with people who don’t share their assumptions all the time. That’s literally the job.

Sub 2. You're not asking what works. You’re asking what feels good.
This is the key distinction between policy and theater.

Smart people ask: “If I act, will it achieve my stated goal?”
You ask: “If I act, will it affirm my moral disgust?”

This is why people like you always support the next war.

Sub 3. It reveals an inability to hold multiple truths at once.
Yes, the Iranian regime is brutal. Also: indiscriminate military strikes tend to kill civilians, provoke retaliation and strengthen hardliners. These things are simultaneously true.

But your mind can’t accommodate that tension. You flatten everything into one big moral binary where once you label something “evil,” no further thinking is required. It’s cognitive offloading and it’s dumb because it rejects complexity in a domain that requires it most.

Sub 4. It treats politics as a religious war—without even the consistency of religion.
“I don’t talk to people who don’t believe in evil” is not a policy stance. It’s a self-imposed lobotomy. It means: I’m not here to think, I’m here to worship my disgust. But unlike religion, it offers no redemption, no coherence, no code. It's just about presumed righteous fury.

The dumbest part of this is you think this moral absolutism makes you wise. You think refusing to engage with anyone outside your moral tribe makes you principled. What it actually makes you is useless: to peace, to diplomacy, to strategy and to the very concept of accountability.

To continue with the rest of your so-called argument...

Step 3: “If the US became a repressive theocracy, attacking it would be reasonable.”
Ah, the hypothetical pivot. You just compared the most powerful nuclear-armed country in the world to Iran, then used that thought experiment to claim moral consistency. Let’s unpack how absurd this is.

First: the US has been repressive. It has funded death squads. It has dropped nuclear weapons. By your logic, someone somewhere should have attacked US nuclear facilities decades ago. And if you say, “No, because we’re a democracy,” then congratulations, you’ve admitted your logic is not moral, it’s tribal. It's not about evil, it's about who you see as evil.

Second: attacking Iran is not a thought experiment. You’re talking about actual military strikes on actual nuclear facilities in a country of 85 million people. And your justification is “well, I don’t hate Persians, just the regime.” Wonderful. That’ll be very comforting to the civilians who would die in the fallout. Tell the corpses it was all very morally sound.

Third: if any ideology you don’t like justifies pre-emptive strikes, then every state is a target. China. Russia. India. Turkey. The list goes on. But of course, you’re not applying this logic universally. You’re applying it selectively, because this isn’t about wickedness. It’s about who you think deserves to die.

Step 4: “I don’t care about facts. We need a paradigm shift.”
And there it is: the moment when the mask fully drops. You admit facts don’t matter to you. You just want to feel right.

Let me translate that: you don’t want to debate. You want moral license to believe whatever supports your pre-selected enemy narrative. When someone challenges you with history, evidence or strategic analysis, you ignore it. That’s how cults work. This is how warmongers talk right before the bombs drop. It's how people act when they know they’re wrong but don’t want to give it up.

Your “paradigm shift” is not visionary. It’s just you giving yourself permission to ignore everything inconvenient. Iraq? Libya? Doesn’t matter. Civilian death tolls? Doesn’t matter. Diplomacy? Doesn’t matter. You’ve made up your mind. The world must conform. Where have we seen that before? Oh right... Gaza.

Step 5: “If you don’t believe in good and evil, we’re talking past each other.”
No, we’re not talking past each other. You’ve just run out of arguments and retreated into cosmic language because your position has no leg to stand on.

Let’s be clear: the world is full of evil. But the presence of evil doesn’t mean we drop bombs until it feels better. That’s not morality. That’s cowardice dressed up as courage. It’s easy to scream about evil. It’s harder to explain how your cure won’t kill more than the disease.

And the irony is, you don’t actually believe in good and evil. You believe in your good and their evil. That’s why you’d never apply your logic to Saudi Arabia, to Israel, to the US under Trump, or to any “friendly” regime. Your whole worldview collapses the moment you apply it consistently.

This is why your political mumblings every time are like a child’s drawing. It pretends to be moral but it’s tribal and incoherent. It substitutes certainty for wisdom and posture for policy. And worst of all, it’s been tried but it’s called failure. Your ideas don’t need a “paradigm shift.” They need a burial.

As I said: You’re setting up a position that can’t really be challenged, because every shift in policy, whether engagement or hostility, is framed as just another method of containment. That makes your theory immune to contradiction, which is a problem if we want to understand history analytically rather than narratively.

That doesn't make it a strong theory at all as it cannot explain anything...

I only use PM to gossip or talk about personal stuff.

He seemed to attack all forms of it. — RussellA

Correct but I do go out of my way defining its key characteristics; so if there's someone out there calling something "radical individualism" but doesn't meet the 5 core observations, it is not "radical individualism" as treated here. Obviously, I have independent points against each core observation so any belief resting on any of those five observations is immediately suspect.

Lol. If anything, Christiana is a functioning illustration of how liberty is sustained by shared norms, internal constraints and community accountability.

You realise you are not being fair right? You’re setting up a position that can’t really be challenged, because every shift in policy, whether engagement or hostility, is framed as just another method of containment. That makes your theory immune to contradiction, which is a problem if we want to understand history analytically rather than narratively.

You say “letting Iran develop peacefully was never an option” but I say the JCPOA was exactly that: an attempt to reintegrate Iran through diplomacy, with strong backing from US allies. That effort failed for contingent political reasons, not because of an unbroken strategic line.

The idea that changes in method do not reflect changes in strategy assumes far more coherence and control than US policy typically demonstrates. We’ve seen containment, yes, but we’ve also seen drift, contradiction and decisions driven by domestic optics or lobbying pressure.

That’s not missing the forest for the trees. It’s recognizing that what looks like a forest from a distance often turns out, up close, to be a tangle of competing interests with no clear path.

You're talking about a regime that rapes female prisoners before execution so that when they die they don't go to heaven.

Also, not surprising that one of TPF's most obsessive Israel haters views the Iranian regime as seemingly reasonable and moderate. — BitconnectCarlos

Unsurprisingly, you bring no knowledge to the table. We are once again back at the "they bad, us good" myopic view of the world that brings us nothing but idiocy.

You actually went out of your way to defend attacking Iran because "you hate the regime" not the Persians living there. Well, maybe we should introduce that kind of foreign policy more broadly. Trump, for instance, is hated throughout the world. He has access to nukes and has shown himself to be irrational. Let's attack US nuclear facilities! Because, well we don't hate Americans (or Mexicans or Canadians) but hey "fuck them" that's "double effect" when invariably at some point there's going to be a nuclear fallout because it's totally legit and fine to attack countries just because you don't like them. Idiot.

I already did twice. You are ignoring a lot of facts to reach your version of real politik interpretation. What we've seen that deny a consistent, long term strategy of containment:

1. We've seen doctrinal shifts as follows: Bush's axis of evil, then we saw Obama's JCPOA, then Trump's withdrawal, Biden's wishy-washy approach and now again Trump going on the attack.
2. The 1953 coup was Cold War containment not aimed at suppressing Iranian power. Since the 1979 revolution I don't see a unified strategy, instead shifting between confrontation and limited engagement.
3. During the Iraq war, the US basically handed Baghdad to pro-Iranian forces.
4. Your analysis also ignores lobbying by regional states like SA and Israel. It's client politics not puppet mastery.

Iran's containment, for what it's been, has been tactical not an absolute goal. An alternative view (which I consider more likely) recognizes containment as a recurring motif but not a coherent doctrine. US policy toward Iran has been shaped and distorted by domestic political cycles, institutional fragmentation and pressure from regional allies. What results is not a clean or consistent strategy of suppression but a messy and contradictory exercise in reactive hegemony, where containment competes with other priorities like energy security, counterterrorism, alliance management and electoral optics. Iran’s rise has been resisted but never with the kind of strategic clarity your version assumes.

There hasn't been nuclear fallout, there won't be nuclear fallout. — RogueAI

That has been luck. Read the IAEA reports and statements on attacking nuclear sites.

Now, do Israel and America have the right to bomb Iran? Depends. What are Iran's intentions? What are they saying? What are their plans? Death to Israel and America! Well, then. What did Iran think would happen? — RogueAI

No. Also, you're assuming a lot of things Iran supposedly says but they've never said because you like to lap up propaganda instead of fact check things. First of all, Ayatollah Khomeini in 2005 said "This regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time." The original phrase (این رژیم اشغالگر قدس باید از صفحه روزگار محو شود) has been repeatedly translated as "wiped form the face of the earth" but arises from a wrong translation.

If someone keeps threatening to annihilate you, and has a clock on display counting down the days to your annihilation, maybe your enemies will take you seriously on that? — RogueAI

Ah yes, the symbolic clock that everybody loves to interpret as a military countdown. In 2015 Khameini said "I'd say that they will not see the next 25 years". It's counting down until 2040. The clock is internal propaganda rooted in their belief Israel's regional dominance is unsustainable.

Finally, Iran's official line is that the Zionist regime is illegitimate and should be replaced. What is meant by that becomes clearer if you look at the repeated calls for a referendum among all original inhabitants of Palestine: Muslims, Christians, Jews and Palestinian refugees as a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a dismantling of the "Zionist regime". (He's said this in 2000, twice in 2012 and most recently in 2020).

To be clear, Zionism is understood as the movement to acquire an Israel from the West Bank to the sea as included in Likud's charter (and Herut before it). If anybody in that area is hell bent on destroying anything, it's Israel with respect to the Palestinian lands and this should be resisted by everyone who cares about any type of international order.

Once again: prove they are suicidal or irrational and you have a case.

Ostensibly for power generation. Possibly to gain a nuclear bomb. But even the latter doesn't give Israel and the US the right to bomb nuclear facilities and risk nuclear fall out. It's also a totally irrelevant reply to my point that the purported existential threat Israel claims exists isn't there.

Again with the oversimplifications. Yes, Iran is a structural rival to US-aligned states and Israel. Yes, the US has often acted to constrain Iran.

But "all the rest is bullshit" is not analysis. US foreign policy is not the product of a unified long-term strategy. It’s the outcome of bureaucratic drift, lobbying, shifting administrations and often contradictory goals. At different times the US has supported and opposed Iran. It has sanctioned Iran while supplying arms to Iran (see: Iran-Contra affair).

If “preventing Iran from becoming a regional power” were the only goal, why allow Saudi Arabia to brutalise Yemen or flood the region with Salafi militias? Why oscillate on Syria?

Ah yes... the "they're 2 weeks away from a bomb" for decades pre-emptive canard. The idea Iran would go so far as to actually drop a bomb on Israel even if it had one is idiotic. There's no credible evidence Iran's leadership is irrational or suicidal as such an attack would guarantee its own annihilation. Israel has their own bombs and a lot more of them and the US would probably retaliate as well.

What is a common thread is how Israeli governments under Netanyahu have repeatedly used this so-called threat to unite internally, secure foreign aid and justify committing war crimes again.

If you're Iran, isn't the best move to give up on enrichment and take your chances with diplomacy? — RogueAI

Every illegal attack, like the two we've recently witnessed, is an argument for them to pursue a nuclear bomb as that is the only weapon that truly acts like a deterrent. That's rather obvious.

I don't agree with your more polemic statements. You might want to dial back on them to make it easier for others to charitably interpret them. That said there's plenty where we agree; especially the observation that US and Israeli interests align for now, but not forever. The US has a long history of shifting alliances based on strategic value. No partnership is sacred if the costs outweigh the benefits.

That said, I think it's a mistake to describe US policy as a singular, calculated engine of empire. American foreign policy is reactive, divided across institutions and often contradictory. There's strategy, yes, but it’s wrapped in election cycles, congressional theatre and real limitations. That’s not genius, it’s inertia.

And while regime change is often assumed as a goal, the political appetite for that kind of project has collapsed since Iraq. Iran is not an easy target. It is resilient, domestically complex and deeply embedded in regional networks. Sabotage and sanctions are likelier than a ground invasion or occupation.

If we want to critique US strategy in the Middle East, the most credible line is not that it's wickedly brilliant, but that it’s short-sighted, expensive and structurally inflexible in a world that’s rapidly changing.

Examples of shortsightedness are
1. the 2003 Iraq War on tha bsis of fake WMDs with long-term consequences such as regional instabiilty, ISIS and Iran's rise in Iraq. This was absolutely not adequately planned for.
2. Afghanistan was left without a stable government after 20 year; long-term presence does not equate to long-term planning.

The US has spent 8 trillion USD posy-9/11, primarily in the Middle East and then there's the indirect costs of veteran care, interest on war debt and diverted funding from what US people actually need.

We also see path dependency; one's a policy track is chosen, reversing it becomes politically and logistically difficult.

I'm not convinced it's as simple as applying the "proper lens." That phrase implies there’s one correct way to see things and that those who disagree just haven’t figured it out yet. It’s a bit condescending, especially when you're not offering actual argument; just a string of confident assertions.

More importantly, I have doubts about the idea that the US or any non-autocratic state consistently executes long-term strategic plans. Policy is usually shaped by competing interests, shifting administrations and short-term political pressures. Whatever strategy exists tends to be reactive and fragmented rather than unified or coherent.

That’s not to say power dynamics and resource competition don’t matter. But treating states as if they act with a single mind and long-term purpose can obscure more than it reveals.

If the claim is that these strikes are part of a broader plan to contain China by weakening Iran, then the burden is on you to explain who is driving that plan, how it is being implemented and why we should assume it is working. Without that, it’s just a story dressed up as insight.

Following Israel’s strike on Iran’s Natanz nuclear site, and now the US bombing of additional nuclear facilities, it’s worth asking whether anyone still takes international law seriously or if we’ve simply decided that nuclear safety is a matter of political discretion.

The IAEA has been unequivocal: such attacks are illegal, dangerous and risk catastrophic radiological fallout. That no disaster has occurred yet is luck, not justification. These acts undermine not just the credibility of the IAEA but the entire non-proliferation regime. You can’t uphold the rules while breaking them when it suits you. What’s being set isn’t just back Iran’s programme, it’s a global precedent: that military force trumps nuclear safeguards.

If the goal was to prevent proliferation, this isn’t strategy. It’s arson in the name of fire safety.

And why now? Iran has been weeks away from a nuclear bomb for decades if we have to believe everybody ever excusing these strikes on Iran.

Dear Vera, thank you for having graced this forum. It was a better place because of it. On a personal note also thanks for reviews on my own writing. :flower:

It's pretty insane they are bombing nuclear facilities accepting the risk of nuclear fallout.

I feel like I answered that already by saying I did not agree with the assessment that illegal immigration is harmless. There are many knock-on effects that aren't always apparent but are obvious to anyone that has lived with it. A good example is education: no one is being served well by having a glut of students in public school who do not speak the native language that divert already thin attention and resources. The immigrant students will almost always lag behind due to the difficulty of the language barrier, and it further increases already large classroom sizes with students who need special resources to learn. I have seen it first hand, both as a student and as an adult working alongside education. And again, if it's such a universal benefit, why was Abbott's bus campaign the most effective political stunt in decades? — MrLiminal

The concern about strains on public services, like schools, is a reasonable one. Rapid demographic changes can place pressure on institutions that are already underfunded or poorly managed. In education specifically, accommodating students who are not fluent in the native language does require additional resources: ESL teachers, individualized learning plans, etc. If those resources aren’t available or are spread too thin, both immigrant and native-born students can suffer. That’s a real issue, especially in under-resourced communities.

But that said, this concern is not unique to undocumented immigration. Refugees, documented immigrants and even internal migration (e.g. families moving from poorer to wealthier districts) can have similar effects. So the policy question becomes: is the problem the presence of undocumented immigrants, or the lack of adequate investment and planning in public infrastructure?

This is where things get more difficult. Let’s assume the worry is valid: classroom overcrowding, limited resources, unequal outcomes. The question is then whether deportation resolves this problem in a fair, effective or proportionate way.

Here are a few counterpoints to consider:

Systemic underfunding is the deeper issue. Many public schools are overwhelmed even in areas with low immigration. Removing immigrants doesn’t solve the political failure to fund education adequately. It simply scapegoats a visible population for a structural problem.

Educational investment in immigrant children pays long-term dividends. Children are not a burden indefinitely; many go on to become tax-paying adults, often outperforming peers once language barriers are overcome. Deporting them interrupts that process and increases long-term costs (both economic and moral).

Deportation is a blunt instrument. It doesn’t target those who are demonstrably harming public institutions. It removes people, including long-settled families, children born or raised in the country and productive members of society, based on legal status alone, not impact. That raises ethical and practical concerns.

You’re right that Abbott's buses were a highly effective political stunt in terms of media attention. But political success doesn’t equate to policy wisdom. It “worked” in the sense that it forced liberal cities to confront their rhetoric with real logistical challenges—but it also highlighted the failure of coordinated federal response and treated vulnerable people as props in a political game. That it was effective doesn’t mean it proved anything about the harms or benefits of immigration.

It’s fair to worry about real-world consequences of immigration. But to justify deportation, we’d need to show that it solves more problems than it creates, does so fairly and addresses the root causes of institutional strain. More often, deportation treats symptoms while ignoring systemic failures.

Yes, you've made it quite clear you don't understand double effect. It's not a stand alone concept. For people with a normal sense of morality, leveling nearly all civilian structures is disproportional even under the concept of double effect. Plus it buys into the propaganda that that is what they're doing when it's quite clear what they're really doing isn't going after Hamas targets but trying to get all Palestinians to leave. Which is genocide. Which is illegal. Which is what is in the Likud charter. Which has been reiterated by cabinet members repeatedly. Which you happily ignore because you "stand for something".

You're welcome to add what the problem is you think should be solved. My "feel free to add" was an invitation to come up with reasons to support what Trump is doing that are good reasons. So far, I don't see good reasons for deporting undocumented immigrants that are part of society and benefit the US as a whole. Criminals, for instance, were deported already.

I've written two substantive posts and make reasonable conclusions. Idiot walks by and calls it "virtue signalling" without any argument. Thanks for playing.

What's also a war crime is targeting a nuclear, civilian facility. Reciprocity excuses Iran's attack under rules of conflict but humanitarian law has been trying to ban it (not very successfully yet).

On the other hand, I suppose I should applaud you on discovering the principle parties shouldn't be attacking civilians. Now if only you could manage to apply it consistently.

I just do not accept your assertions, and I am beyond tired of hearing any opposition to illegal immigration as racist — MrLiminal

Just imagine how tired I am of people denying it when the proof is in the pudding. Funny how only Latinos are targeted no?

Reply to a Donald Trump thread. What makes you say they haven't been enforced?

Obama ~5.3 million 2009–2017
Trump 1 1.9–3.13 million 2017–2021
Biden >4.6 million 2021–2024

As long as the problem is fixed, I am willing to allow a lot. — MrLiminal

It's not clear what "the problem" is.

Is it crime?
But multiple studies and comprehensive data show that undocumented immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born US citizens at the national, state and local levels. Incarceration rates confirm this pattern (1,221 per 100,000 vs. 613 per 100,000 in 2023).

Job displacement?
Illegal immigrants tend to fill low-wage, labor-intensive jobs that are unattractive. They may have a small negative wage effect but overall impact on employment and wages are either minimal or slightly positive due to additional growth and job creation through their own demand. Agriculture, construction and hospitaly heavily rely on immigrant labour (including undocmented workers).

Mooching of the state?
They tend to pay billions in taxes and not receive benefits. Fear of deportation discourages them from reporting crimes, seeking medical care or particiapting in civic life. Relating this to your mention of "robust social programs, job security in the face of automation/AI, social cohesion and UBI", we can rest assured we can have them pay for the privilege to remain without getting benefits.

What's left?

• Blatant racism. Highly probable for a significant part of Trump voters.
• Dems the rules. Formulaic but morally vacuous.

Feel free to add.

Banned unenlightened for being a broken record.

So your point is that he isn't a neo Nazi?

What fact are you disagreeing with? That Martin Sellner is a neo-Nazi? Or that the letters between the participants referred to a "master plan"?

There's nothing "secret nazis" about these identarian statements and policies or how the average AfD voter understands them. Are you even aware of what Correctiv published in 2023/2024 as part of their infiltration of the Potsdam meeting? When the master plan of the neo-Nazi Martin Sellner was going to be discussed which turned out to be all about remigration? Are you even paying attention to what's happening or is it all just because you agree with the law & order line you get a hard on and stop thinking?

A previous poster already mentioned the Springer quote.

Some populist politician said something inflammatory - big whoop.

All this is is scrouging together circumstantial evidence to make the case that "secretly" the AfD is fascist.

Quit playing a sucker for the establishment. — Tzeentch

Because this was groundbreaking commentary on actual facts. :roll:

:up:

They're openly fascist. Springer is in the Bundestag. But good to know you're ok with fascists. Explains a lot of your other posts.

What's childish and boring is pretending "their site" is the only source of information and pretending what they say and do has no relevance. There's a reason the AfD acronym is to be confused with the Sturmabteilung slogan, that they repeatedly comment on Biodeutsche and Passdeutsche in speeches, interviews and on social media and in far-right media outlet. It's not an accident.

The AfD has publicly stated they want to deport millions. René Springer explictly stated: Wir werden Ausländer in ihre Heimat zurückführen. Millionenfach.

Das ist kein #Geheimplan. Das ist ein Versprechen.

Für mehr Sicherheit. Für mehr Gerechtigkeit. Für den Erhalt unserer Identität. Für Deutschland.

Quite simply, you will never arrive at their numbers for remigration unless you subscribe to the distinction. There's a reason the term circulates in other right-wing neo-Nazi groups. There's a reason the term circulates in other right-wing neo-Nazi groups and fora associated with the AfD. That reason is that it is a fascist party and we're back at the Aryan bullshit of German identity.

Wake up. It's not "threatening the establishment" unless you mean it in the same way as any other fascist party from the early 20th century.

I had a very long time to draft the responses, because I started with them when the comments arose. Gave me time to shave away all the acerbic comments I had and play nice for a change. :razz:

The fact you see no problem with remigration really says it all. As if it doesn't echo extremist and identitarian talking points of the (neo-)Nazis. Like most right-wing parties nowadays the nationalist and anti-immgrant positions are straight from the early 20th-century fascist playbooks.

The whole idea that AfD is not a fascist party, is about pretending the acronym doesn't refer back to the Sturmabteilung even when prominent leaders say it out loud. Björn Höcke has been fined twice for using the banned Nazi slogan “Alles für Deutschland”, which was the official slogan of the SA. Every German knows this. It's the most obvious dog whistle in the world; just like Wilders' seagull is a nod to the national socialist movement in the Netherlands.

EDIT: Just to make sure you are on the same page on wwhat kind remigration they are talking about. The AfD has an ethnicity- and ancestry-based understanding of what it means to be German. They differentiate between Biodeutsche and Passdeutsche, where the latter is meant to exclude Germans who became German through naturalisation. Their remigration idea includes the mass deportation of naturalised Germans...

@ucarr @Baden @Banno @Vera Mont @Amity Thanks for reading and your kind words! Also particulary Vera and Amity for arguing my case better than I could myself and the obvious charitable reading of my essay. Since there weren't any specific questions or critiques in your posts (or I forgot about them), the following tries to engage what I considered relevant comments or critiques of the essay. That's of necessity shorter than this paragraph but my gratitude to you is no less for it.

On that note, I'm only replying once, hoping to clarify some questions that arose and comments I thought were relevant enough to engage with. What I wanted to say is in the essay itself and I don't feel like revisiting it after having already spend so much time on it.

On another note, I would really have liked to have seen some comparisons with Popper's views. I would be really interest see the author's thoughts on what Popper had to say in regards to 'Open Society And It's Enemies'. There seems to be a direct parallel to what is being discussed in this essay. — I like sushi

I agree there are surface-level parallels with The Open Society and Its Enemies. Popper also warns against ideologies that, under the guise of grand principles (historicism, in his case), end up justifying authoritarianism.

That said, I have to confess: I don't like Popper as a political philosopher. While his falsification theory of science was groundbreaking, his reading of Plato is a caricature.

Even so, my essay shares some of his concerns. Especially the idea that freedom can collapse into its opposite but I approach it from a different angle. Popper was reacting to collectivist historicism; I’m critiquing an atomized conception of liberty that pretends to transcend power while covertly depending on it.



Thanks for this constructive reply. There’s a lot I agree with here and some clarifications I should probably have made more explicit.

First, you're right that Nozick often writes hypothetically and Anarchy, State, and Utopia is also a thought experiment. Nozick presents entitlement theory as a hypothetical and he’s explicit that it’s not a comprehensive vision for society. But my disagreement runs deeper than just how others have appropriated him; I’m also directly critiquing the structure of Nozick’s theory itself.

Here’s where I take (the most) issue: Nozick’s framework assumes that we can assess justice in holdings without attending to the prior social and historical processes that shape how property, status and capacity emerge. Even granting his “justice in acquisition” and “justice in transfer,” the theory has virtually no resources to address how initial entitlements are formed in practice. How power, history, violence and exclusion precondition what looks like a “voluntary” exchange. Nozick acknowledges the importance of historical injustice but provides no account of how to redress it. He offers no guidance how far back to look, what counts as evidence, if we're going to pay reparations or redstribute, who should pay and who should benefit. Justice in rectification is just a rest category for anything that doesn't fit justice in acquisition or transfer - which, unfortunately, is where almost every transaction lies.

The Wilt Chamberlain example is meant to dissolve patterned principles of justice by showing how free choice can lead to inequality. But it does so without questioning the background conditions that make some people Wilt Chamberlain and others anonymous ticket buyers. That’s not just an omission, it’s a profound limitation. Because once you bracket social embeddedness and historical injustice, the resulting model will systematically obscure domination as long as it's mediated by consent.

So I’m not just saying “people took Nozick too literally.” I’m arguing that even in its ideal form, entitlement theory builds in an atomism that cannot adequately account for structural injustice. And when that framework is imported into political discourse, it becomes a rhetorical shield for power: inequality becomes merit, and domination becomes choice.

I do take your point that my treatment of Nozick is compressed (and perhaps a little sharp). A more academic version of this argument would give him a more thorough and charitable reading. But I stand by the critique in its essence: not just of how he’s used but of what he proposes. And I believe it's a critique that becomes more urgent as these frameworks, however hypothetically introduced, bleed into real-world moral reasoning.

It's hard to see how a focus on three non-philosophers who the author dislikes amounts to anything more than ad hominem. A philosophy essay needs to avoid such strong reliance on ad hominem. The piece is more than that, but it is bogged down by it. — Leontiskos

I would agree if the essay would hinge too heavily on the critique of these public figures. I tried not to focus on personalities but principles, tried to connect their (sometimes implicit) assumptions to underlying principles and ideas and don't think I show particular disdain for them individually. From an academic standpoint, it is indeed not a purely technical exploration of liberty, statehood and liberal theory and can accept you would find their inclusion as distracting or even unrigorous but ad hominem seems to be a step too far.

I chose Musk, Trump and Peterson not because they are philosophers in the strict sense but because their public rhetoric, popularity and institutional power make them emblematic of a wider cultural phenomenon. Their behavior and speech illustrate how the celebration of personal liberty often relies on invisible structures of power and how individualism can slide into authoritarianism under the banner of freedom. The critique is of the logic they embody; not merely the personalities involved.



Thank you for your detailed and generous engagement. A few clarifications might help explain where I'm coming from and where I agree with you.

You're absolutely right that the figures I chose (Musk, Trump, Peterson) are not systematic philosophers. My intent was not to treat them as such, but to use them as emblems of a broader cultural logic: one where radical individualism is performed, celebrated and weaponized in ways that conceal structural dependency and authoritarian drift. They're not my targets as people; they’re case studies. They represent styles of political and cultural power that dominate media and public imagination and through which certain ideological patterns become visible. If anything, they are incoherent, and that’s part of the point: incoherence is a feature, not a bug, of the spectacle of liberty masking domination.

That said, you're absolutely right to point out that this ideological terrain is more fractured than the piece could cover. You may very well be correct about a "civil war" within the Right. I'm alas not fully aware of it in a way you seem to express it. I also think that it happens to be outside the scope of my essay. It isn't called Why the Right is Authoritarian, but rather about a paradox (that quite frankly annoys me): how certain forms of liberty, when stripped of institutional humility or shared obligation, collapse into their opposite.

Your observations about appeals to tradition, aesthetics and thymos are appreciated. I also agree that progressive liberalism shares in this paradox and I gesture toward that in the piece’s broader implication: that liberty, detached from collective structure and moral obligation, becomes cannibalistic wherever it shows up (Power is everywhere: when we call the Other "stupid" or "uninformed" or "voting against their interest" we are creating a basis for denying them a say by not having to take them seriously). I chose this specific style of right-wing libertarianism because it's particularly visible right now, steeped in structural contradictions and shapes global discourse disproportionately.

Thanks again for giving the piece such serious thought. I'd be interested in reading your version of this argument; perhaps one that dives deeper into the tragic tension between the individual and the polis in pre-modern sources. That’s a tradition worth recovering, not just referencing.

Thank you for reading and engaging with my essay. While thoughtful, I believe you're mislocating emphasis. It isn't a take-down of Nozick or about Musk ,Trump or Peterson but an attempt to expose a structural paradox.

Let me clarify the core argument, which I think is getting lost:

The paradox is not simply hypocrisy (people saying one thing and doing another), but that the ideological celebration of radical self-sovereignty requires the very collective institutions it claims to transcend. When “freedom” is defined solely as freedom from obligation, without a shared framework of norms, mutual responsibilities or institutional integrity, it ends up needing coercion to enforce itself, and thus paradoxically invites authoritarianism.

As for the use of the term "radical individualism"; you’re right that it’s deliberately strong. I'm not critiquing all forms of individualism or libertarianism but a specific tendency to treat the individual as metaphysically prior to society, as if freedom is a natural state threatened by interference rather than something cultivated through shared norms and institutions. That distinction matters because much of our political rhetoric today still draws from that myth, even when it’s incompatible with real conditions.

Finally, regarding evidence: you’re right that I don’t present detailed dossiers on Musk, Trump or Peterson, but that wasn’t the goal. This isn’t a biographical critique. It’s a philosophical argument illustrated by these public figures whose rhetoric aligns with the paradox. If I rewrote the piece for a more academic audience, I’d replace them with abstract types. But that would lose the essay’s urgency and resonance with the world we actually live in. Additionally, these figures are well known so a dossier might not even be necessary. Decisions decisions...

I think the tension you’re pointing to actually reflects the rhetorical arc of the essay, rather than a contradiction.

The goal wasn't to deny that radical individualism has an internal logic. On the contrary, I tried to lay out its metaphysical and moral premises clearly so that I could then examine how they play out in practice. The essay argues that while this worldview presents itself as a coherent political philosophy, it functions more like a performance: a posture of self-sovereignty that depends on the very collective conditions it denies.

So yes, I acknowledge the appeal and apparent coherence of radical individualism but only to show how it collapses under its own weight when mapped onto real-world politics, institutions and relations. The central claim is that this supposed coherence is theatrical: it has rhetorical force but neither philosophical nor political durability.

I hope that clarifies the structure.

No shit Sherlock. That one was easy! Had a hell of a time trying to cram my argument in 5000 words, the original when I was done was over 8000 words. Once I get started I don't shut up, which is why I try to not start. Ever.