I don't hate Jews. But I don't want Israel controlling US foreign policy, either. Israel is not a part of the US. It's not a US State or territory. Israel is an independent nation, if they want to bomb Iran that's their business. I don't agree with it, but it's not my country. But Israel wants to have the US on a leash, like we're their own personal attack dog. That does affect me. That's MY fucking government they're controlling. That fucking pisses me off. I don't fucking care that they're Jews. It would piss me off if they were Muslim or any other religion or ethnicity. Israel needs to stay the fuck out of my government. They have their own government. Go back to your own government and get the hell out of mine.
“An important caveat, however, is that the acceleration may prove temporary,” said Beaulieu, who has published on the topic but was not involved in the new study. She added that the strong El Niño of 1998 also produced a period of apparent anomalous warming.
“The relative slowdown that followed was interpreted as evidence of a pause in global warming,” she said. “Continued monitoring over the next several years will be essential to determine whether the accelerated warming rate identified here represents a lasting shift or a transient feature of natural variability.”
It might be temporary. It might be transient. Then again, it might not be. We'd be taking a huge risk by proceeding on the assumption that it will only be temporary. If we're wrong the consequences could be severe. Maybe some people are willing to risk the future on hope, but I don't think that's a wise decision.
You ever hear the saying: hope for the best, prepare for the worst? We're not prepared. Not even close. It's true the worst case scenario isn't likely, but it is possible. And worse case, though not necessarily worst care scenarios are also possible, and more likely. We're not prepared for those either.
Yeah, "civility" and decorum aren't solutions to our problem. They can help mask over ideological divisions, but only ever temporarily. The fact is, it's not possible for the United States to adopt contrasting, mutually exclusive ideologies simultaneously.
The US cannot be, for instance, both fully socialist and fully capitalist at the same time, or fully autocratic and fully democratic at the same time. It is possible for a compromise to be struck, in which parts of each ideology are adopted to form some kind of "hybrid" model, and that might seem reasonable, but that almost always results in half measures and policies that are knee capped from their inception, making them ineffective at achieving their stated goal.
And not all ideologies are equally capable of achieving the same goal, assuming they even have the same goal. Again, autocracy and democracy are mutually exclusive. The goals of autocracy supporters and the goals of democracy supporters are in direct opposition to one another. I suppose you could try and form some kind of hybrid between the two, but, besides being ridiculous and nonfunctioning, it wouldn't fully satisfy either the autocrats or the democrats, and they would be constantly looking for ways to undermine the other with the aim of fully implementing their system.
And then of course not all ideologies are equally ethical. No rational person is going to claim that a violent, genocidal fascist government is as ethical as a democracy that protects basic human rights for all.
That being said, humans are complicated, and it is often the case that no ideology fully captures all of those complexities, regardless of how ethical it is, in theory or in practice. And we should strive to be intellectually honest enough to recognize when our preferred ideology falls too far short of capturing enough of our human complexity to be viable. But still, that means the solution is a better ideology, not necessarily ideological plurality.
The practical incentives are there already, but far too many people are too greedy and shortsighted to recognize them. There are long term negative consequences to prioritizing short term individual gains over long term, sustainable prosperity for all. And achieving that sustainable prosperity does not require people to replace self interest with altruism, it requires that people to adopt a more enlightened, forward looking self interest. It's getting people to understand that overindulgence and a zero sum mentality today, without thought for the consequences tomorrow is not self interest, it's self destruction.
I don't want a driver. Even if I had enough money to pay a personal chauffeur, I wouldn't want one. I prefer to drive my own car.
But maybe I'm in the minority on that one. Maybe most people would prefer self-driving cars. That's fine, I guess, but I just hope someone keeps making regular cars, because I ain't interested in being driven around by a robot.
Ideally I'd be able to live in a city or town designed around people, not cars. So I wouldn't have to own a car, autonomous driving or otherwise, to get around.
Yeah, but the whole point of a car is autonomy and independence. The person's, not the car's. If you're looking for someone, or something, to transport you places, buses and trains are much cheaper and safer.
Pretty sure they didn't have autonomy for quite a few decades now.
That's true. The Iranian nation hasn't had its own autonomy for some time. I didn't mean to imply otherwise.
In you're little analogy is the abusive dad always saying he wants to kill me and was handing out guns to people in the neighbourhood, telling them to take shots at me, which resulted in one of my kids getting killed? Then the abusive dad starts putting together a bazooka, all the while saying he's going to kill me?
I mean, if you want to expand the analogy, let's talk about how the neighborhood vigilante has been interfering in the affairs of the family of the abusive father, long before the abusive father was even in power. Like in 1951 when the family's parliament voted to nationalize their oil industry and as a result the vigilante and his old friend helped carry out a coup of the family's democratically elected prime minister (operation Ajax), and replaced him with an autocrat. Or in 1980 when the vigilante aided another abusive dad, a fella by the name of Saddam Hussein, in his invasion of the home of the abusive father and his family. An invasion and war that resulted in half a million deaths, and that Hussein guy using chemical weapons against the poor family.
It's dishonest to talk only of the crimes of the abusive father but not acknowledge the crimes of vigilante. And that's the thing about vigilantism: answering crimes with crimes is not a viable or moral solution. It's lawlessness and chaos, and a self perpetuating cycle of violence.
Very bizarre to attempt of some analogy to be all "think of the children" over a guy that was such a terrible person.
Well, that terrible person is dead. Now what? You gonna take care of those kids? Or are you just going to wait until another abusive father comes and takes the places of the one you just killed?
"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference."
It frustrates me beyond words that we can't even get 51% of Americans to agree on something like this, which I think is so obvious. But, that's where we are as a country. I suppose I need to have enough wisdom to accept that.
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.
I'm drinking my dinner plans right now. But I drive by a Culver's all the time. I'll definitely stop in someday soon and give it a try.