CharlesDarwin1809

In the article it shows a tweet by the bookshop, about the footballer Marcus Rashford:

His dad is a Jamaican and his mum is a Kittitian. He cannot be English.

By that logic, someone whose parents are English can't be Australian, or Canadian, or a New Zealander. Yet I don't think white nationalists are ready to declare that white Australians aren't actually Australian, for example.

I guess I see Ukraine as the "lesser evil" by far:

• Russia is invading and trying to dominate its smaller neighbours, while Ukraine isn't
• The Russian state has seemingly carried out assassinations of people it didn't like (Alexei Navalny, Alexander Litvinenko, Zelimkhan Khangoshvili) - I think Ukraine has only carried out assassinations of Russian military figures, and only after Russia launched a massive invasion of Ukraine
• Ukraine seems to allow protests which are critical of the government, while Russia hands out severe punishments, including long prison sentences, for activists who disagree with the Russian government
• According to the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe), of which Ukraine and Russia are both members, Ukraine's 2019 presidential election "was competitive, voters had a broad choice and turned out in high numbers", although it notes some criticisms of the process, while in Russia, the OSCE wasn't even invited to the 2024 presidential election, perhaps because Russia knew they'd be rigging the vote

I've noticed that tankies like to point out that far-right figures exist in Ukraine. Yes they do. But they exist in Russia too. In fact, some Russian far-right figures have influence over the Russian government. Perhaps that's why Russia is pursuing an imperialist foreign policy.

Edit: I just want to point out that I'm not saying the Ukrainian people or the Russian people are worse or better than the other side. I'm only talking about their governments. To me the current Ukrainian government seems like the "lesser evil" compared to the current Russian government.

It's certainly the general gist of what tankies say.

I don't think it's the EU buying Russian energy though, I think it's particular EU countries buying Russian energy, like Orban's Hungary did.

I noticed that Clive Lewis challenged Tom Watson to a public debate about Palantir which I thought was quite funny.

Clive said:

He can defend Palantir's ethos, while I set out the case for democratic control and public accountability.

But tankies told me that Russia is a peaceful democratic country, and that Russia has no will whatsoever to act aggressively towards its neighbours, even on the internet.

In fact, tankies told me that westerners are the only people in the world who are ever aggressive, malicious, or evil.

A lot of the attitudes of the Russian government definitely worry me. It's worrying to think how they might behave in the next few years. If the chance of a Russian "victory" in Ukraine starts looking slimmer, maybe they'll lash out. Obviously I hope they don't though.

Definitely a good point about the popular vote, I noticed that in the past that he never got a majority of the popular vote.

And yes I think the Electoral College is too flawed. I'd like to see it abolished, personally. I don't see why voters in less populated states should get more say than voters in more populated states.

Hopefully the US and Europe can be on good terms again in the future, but who knows. I guess it depends a lot on how the 2028 election turns out.

Ah yes, the evil EU, maliciously expanding itself by accepting new members who democratically want to join the EU

Source for image:

I think some Europeans (certainly in my country of the UK) are still quite naive about Trump. Maybe they think "sure, Trump can be a bad person to some countries, but he'd never be a bad person to MY country"

One day, whoever is in the White House will choose to act immorally towards a particular European country (whether it's Ukraine, or the UK, or Poland, or Finland, or whoever) and that European country, on its own, won't be able to do much about it

TLDR: If Europe unites, it protects Europe from potentially hostile big powers, such as the US, China, Russia. A big entity like the EU has more leverage to say "no" than any individual EU country does.

We have different ways of looking at it, so no I don't think there's a lot of point in more discussion. Sometimes people have different views.