The Shah became quite autocratic by the early to mid 70s or so. But I think a fair number of Iranians today feel the Monarchy was preferable to the Islamist theocracy. And it should be up to the Iranian people. But if the Iranian people can't come to a consensus, the decision will be made for them, by the Islamists or the monarchists or the US and Israel, or someone else.
I would wait until you know who will replace Khamenei before celebrating. When despots are killed it creates a power vacuum and power vacuums tend to get filled. Maybe it will be filled with something better, maybe it won't. That's why killing and hoping isn't the best strategy.
1 in 4 Americans support this shit because it allows them to live out their own Punisher fantasies vicariously through the US military and State Department.
Oh, the debateintensifies, does it? And what follows this intense debate? A strongly worded letter? A vigorous finger wag accompanied by a stern, "no, no ,no," perhaps?
It doesn't matter whether a monster is killed by someone with noble intentions or a monster is killed by another monster.
It does matter. It matters. And it's so, so important that people understand that it matters. This attitude of, "the ends justify the means," is very dangerous. The Iranian nation has had their autonomy taken away from them, first by Khamenei and now by the US and Israel. They are powerless, subject to the whims of people more powerful than them. They don't make their own decisions about their own nation, the decisions are made for them by people who have enough guns and strongmen to impose their will on them.
Edit: think of it like this: let's say you're living down the street from a family with an abusive father. The guy is just cruel to his wife and kids. So one day you decide to take matters into your own hands and you go and shoot the dad dead. That's good, right? The cruel, abusive father is dead, so it's good and justified, right? But you didn't ask the wife or the kids if they wanted their father to be killed. You didn't care what they wanted, because you didn't do it for them. You did it for you. You did it because it was what YOU wanted. And if they get mad at you for it, you say oh they're just ingrates. They don't appreciate what I did for THEM. But, it wasn't for them. It was never for them. It was for you.
Edit 2: so what would the alternative be? What could we do to stop this cruel father that doesn't require us to take matters into our own hands? Law. We need the rule of law. What would any reasonable person in a modern society do in this situation? They'd call the police. That's what we need: the rule of law. Not countries deciding unilaterally who lives and who dies, but laws. Laws that apply to all of us, equally.
Anyone celebrating this, you HAVE to understand that the US and Israel did NOT do this because it was what the Iranian people wanted, they did it because it was what THEY want. Whether this will actually be good or bad for the Iranian people makes absolutely no difference to the US and Israel. They don't care about the Iranian people, they don't respect the Iranian people. This was a selfish act on the part of the US and Israel, not a selfless one.
So will the US and Israel wait and see what ends up filling the power vacuum they just created or will they just go right to installing a new, pro US/Israel regime themselves?
It's really, really important for people to understand that Iranians wanting Khamenei gone is NOT the same thing as Iranians wanting the US and Israel to bomb their country.
Yeah but that helped give the Iraq invasion the appearance of legitimacy, at least at first, which allowed it to go on longer and cause more harm.
The unethical act in both instances is the attack or invasion of another nation, not a failure to go through proper channels. If it were, that would imply that invading another country and killing innocent people is justified or acceptable so long as proper authorization is given first, even if that authorization was based on knowingly false information.
The differences and similarities between the current situation and the 2003 American invasion of Iraq are noted, with some arguing that Trump's actions are worse due to a lack of authorization from the United Nations Security Council and Congress.
I get that, but that authorization was based on lies. So, I'm not sure that's better.
“Crockett is testing out the coarser, insult-comedy-style attacks that the GOP has embraced under Trump, the general idea being that when the Republicans go low, the Democrats should meet them there,” Godfrey wrote at the time.
It might be our only option. If that's what a majority of Americans respond to, I don't see any other choice. Democrats have to win elections to accomplish anything. Taking the high ground and losing is meaningless. We can no longer be content with moral victories, the Democrats need to actually win elections. Some liberals and leftists get really irritated whenever I point that out, but it's the truth, inconvenient though it may be.
That being said, it all depends on whether or not this is actually what a majority of Americans will respond to. 77 some million Americans responded to it when Trump did it, otherwise he wouldn't have gotten reelected. But, that's only about 32% of eligible voters. Nowhere near a majority. The vast majority, 68%, of eligible voters didn't respond well enough to Trump's behavior to vote for him. However, only about 31% of eligible voters responded well enough to what the Democrats presented to vote for them. That's not good enough.
The Democrats may never be able to get 68% of eligible voters to vote for them, but it sure would be nice if they could get at least 51%. I mean, if the Democrats could get 51% of eligible voters to vote for them, the Republicans would not stand a chance (obviously).
Does anyone know what 51% of eligible American voters want in a candidate? Whenever I ask this question, I think people just tell me what THEY want in a candidate, apparently assuming that what they want must be what a majority of eligible voters want. I think it's natural for people to assume that they are indicative of the majority, but it's not necessarily true. Perhaps asking the American people would give us some needed insights.
But maybe 51% of Americans just can't agree on a candidate, or a party or an ideology. Maybe we're too fractured for any kind of majority political consensus to exist.
I'm ashamed he's my president but I'm more ashamed that a significant number of my fellow Americans don't just tolerate his words and behavior, they fully and enthusiastically support them.
A lot of Americans wouldn't only tolerate Trump fixing the election, they'd support it. Celebrate it, even.
Much of the rest of America doesn't fully appreciate the threat. Many are just oblivious, but others are complacently holding on to their faith in our legal and political institutions. They believe in our system, and they believe it will ultimately hold up against the threat of a fascist takeover. I hope they're right, but I don't share their conviction. I think our institutions are far more vulnerable than many of them realize. Frankly, I think they're unwavering devotion borders on hubris.
And my concerns about the integrity of our system are not baseless. I have seen our systems tested multiple times over the past few decades, essentially my entire adult life, and I would say the resiliency of our system has been... mixed, at best.
I've never quite understood this, because the birth rate is highest at the lowest income level. So, the people who are least able to afford child care have the most kids. I know people will say the reason is a lack of education or insufficient access to birth control, but if that's the case then what causes people to have fewer kids is a better education and more access to birth control, not unaffordability. And that seems to be supported by the fact that households making $50k to $75k have more kids than households making $150k to $200k. Yeah, they're both making less than $400k, but the people making $200k are much closer to $400k, yet they have fewer kids.
The answer to why powerful people in some other parts of the world face consequences, while in America they rarely do, is that elite impunity is now an American national project. ...this has been the priority for the wealthy and powerful, who have managed to convince a critical mass of Americans that they will be able to enjoy the same privileges. They won’t.
They've been able to do this by creating a culture of politics as a team sport. By assigning people a political identity, they guarantee the acceptance and compliance of the people in each identity group. It's nationalism but instead of nations its political parties. Anything and everything is acceptable in the name of our team winning and their team losing. They've convinced people that they shouldn't seek to hold their team's leaders accountable, because that would weaken the team and aid the enemy. But people should seek to hold the other team's leaders accountable, because that hurts their team and helps ours. To that end, manufacturing fake crimes to hold their enemies' leaders accountable for is acceptable, because, again, that helps our team win and winning is the point.
And what are those?