I’m saying that this is very common in Eastern Europe. It’s not something only rich people do. Not that it’s fine or not.

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playing the piano with his penis.

Piped

The key words there are ‘US military spending’.

Canada spends approximately 26 billion a year on their national defense.

The US spends over a trillion, and Congress has approved around 113 billion (and that was way back in March) for Ukraine. That is, by any measure, not a drop in the bucket. It’s unreasonable to argue that all 50 states wouldn’t benefit more from having those funds distributed at the state level. Hawaii in particular comes to mind right now.

Considering how Eastern Europe is, 10k is probably the base price which can be negotiated down to whatever a person can actually afford to pay. The officer still makes money.

Why is irrelevant. Imagine if people argued over if a murderer killed someone because they felt like it or because they looked at them funny. See how pointless the question is? Do you understand how no sane person would argue about that?

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Cool, I’m not american, so I too disagreed with the invasion at the time, as did most people and governments in Europe and most American allies at the time warned the US not to do it. The american justification for invading was bullshit, as is russia’s. The difference is that nobody stood up to the US at the time and now there are a group of countries that at least have an interest in helping Ukraine uphold international law.

Between then and now, nothing changed in international law, I’m just applying it consistently. As you said, bullshit geopolitical reasons to invade a country can be brewed till the end of time, but starting a war with another country is objectively the greatest war crime, because it paves the way for the lawlessness that enables millions of other war crimes, like murder, rape, torture, forced deportation.

Just a different interpretation, bro.

Correction: The US spends more per-capita lining the pockets of health insurance execs than every other country.

What’s ‘tanky’ is arguing for your own impoverishment, which is what you’re doing when you try to defend our country spending a trillion a year on war in ten other countries.

And then another 100+ billion on another country’s war, that we’re not even fighting in. That 100 billion could keep people cool in a heat wave, or fix a state’s broken power grid, or put clean water in Flint, Michigan. But no, you’d rather we neglect our own people instead.

War spending is 100% why we don’t have universal health care in this country, and we are the only country dropping a trillion-plus a year.

Hm, I see how their comment can be interpreted that way, and it definitely makes more sense like that. They worded it extremely poorly tho, and thus is left pretty ambiguous. I think it would have been much more clear if they just spelled out “conscription” again instead of resorting to the pronoun.

That said, since I do agree with your interpretation I will edit my comment to reflect that

Correct, thanks. I guess I could’ve phrased it better but it was worth it for that dudes completely unhinged reply.

Is it more immoral than letting a murdering dictator dictate and murder in your home?

Society is not the State.

Only certain political subcultures in the United States and most absolute dictatorships (like China and Russia) think the State is Society.

States are just one form of organisation that naturally emerges in Societies to manage certain aspects of it. They’re not Society, just as Legal is not the same as Moral (i.e. sometimes what’s lawfull is imoral and what’s moral is illegal).

In fact I agree that people have no duty to the State.

And in Russia that does mean that they have no duty to obey the draft, because it was the Russian State that made the war and it’s not being done for the good of Society.

However in Ukraine people would be fighting for Society, not the State and in fact they would be fighting against the State: the Russian State, which is trying take over their land, their things and even control their lives and impose their will on them.

On the Ukranian side this is very much a fight for Freedom from a State which does not operate for the good of people and doesn’t even want them to be free.

In fact it even makes sense for some Ukranians to be against the Ukranian State as it operates and still join to fight because the Russian State would be even worse - they’re fighting for their families, their friends, their neighbours, even themselves, not for the Ukranian State.

I’m surprised so many people read your post without holding the simple truth that Society (all of us) is not the State (just a few people, sometimes not even elected and when elected, often only through lies and rules that mathematically rig the voting systems). I suppose there are a lot of politicans that want people to confuse such things as Nationalism and Patriotism, hence people who are constantly fed that political spin also end up confusing related elements such as the State, the Nation and Society.

(Also most actual Political Thinking has been killed in the last 4 decades and replaced by techniques from Marketing, so it’s unsurprising that most people haven’t really pondered by themselves on these things which were all the rage for ideologies back in the first half or the XX century, especially in the US where politics has long ceased to be about grand visions for the future of society).

Draftdoging an economic or offensive war is much different than draftdoging a defensive war.

Society is the return for contributing.

Those people happily enjoyed the benefits of their society, and now try to get around the contribution part - by spending money they got trough their position in this very society.

Everyone is free to dislike this deal, but then you should find yourself a country which doesn’t have a draft. It’s as simple as that. But they didn’t. They lived in their comfort zone and now try to get around the rules.

Last, this discussion should be about the officials who took the bribes.

That’s not at all what I said.

That you can read and write, have Internet and are alive past (I assume) the ripe old age of 20, is because of Society: anything that you cannot do with your own hands only exists because people have organised to achieve more than single individuals can by themselves and to protect what they achieved from other individuals that would take it by force.

Being outside Society would basically mean having the same rights as a wild animal: you can be killed at will by anybody, enslaved, own nothing that you cannot yourself protect, will be left to die if hurt, will likely be run over and/or killed if you enter communal spaces (such as road, parks). Forget about more complex rights than that such as the rights that come from citizenship: wild animals are not citizens.

It would be immenselly educational for people who parrot this kind of libertarian crap if there was indeed a way for them to be free of all duty to Society and Society free of all duty to them.

As there isn’t, if you want a (even partially so) place where people have little or no duty to Society, I suggest you move to a place like Somalia, though I expect that if you take such an extreme “I have no duty to the group” take as you wrote here you would be dead pretty quickly (or maybe just enslaved, who knows): even in a place like that which is pretty much an Anarchy when it comes to the power of the State, people still group up in large groups with a mutual duty of protection (a Society of tribes), and funnilly enough that is same kind of mutual duty of protection you want to evade in the “tribe” you are part of currently whilst enjoying all the benefits only made possible by that very thing you do not want to fight to protect.

Even cavemen had Societies, just very small and called tribes, only back then those who didn’t want to contribute to the defense of the group were pushed out and generally died.

Just contribute your life savings to the war effort in exchange?

Do you think what Putin wants to bring to Ukrain is any better? It’s what you describe multiplied by a thousand. So yes, we have the moral responsability to resist against the worse even if the current is not great.

I’m not from Ukraine.

You are forced to go to school, you are forced to work to earn your life. Are those slavery too?