In other news

Most of this post isn't true. The Assad regime was much more friendly to Kurds/Rojava than HTS/Turkey are. HTS/Turkey have already stated they intend to over-run Rojava, and it is entirely within the realm of possibility Trump gives the green light for this in return for other concessions.

Or maybe Trump states we will protect Rojava and HTS will back down. But that seems less likely, as Trump wants Turkey's cooperation wrt to ending Ukraine and Israel wars, so it seems logical he would be willing to give up Syria for this.

Also, HTS are basically the descendants of Al Qaida/ISIS (who claim to have moderated and will respect human rights more), who we have been directly fighting for decades. For the last couple decades we have chosen the Assad regime over Sunni extremist groups like HTS.

We certainly did not fund the overthrow of Assad, unless you are stating we support Israel who weakened Hezbollah/IRI so much that it created a power vacuum HTS was able to fill. But that is on Hezbollah/IRI. They are the ones that decided to open a second front and attack Israel immediately after October 7th.

The South Started a war to try to preserve slavery Luci--we just busted them up for being dumb, attacking us and trying to secede/break even more laws. Since the low iq South couldn't get there on their own and obey the damn law they chose the gun--so we ended up having to march down and slap some sense into them--a story as old as time 😀

hence how people like nixon and romney are happily embraced by their local populations for local governance and did so well they got upgraded to president but then lose the vote of those same people on a national scale because they have different desires for local candidates than they do for the president

Nixon was the most popular president of modern times (possibly all time) before his fall from grace. The conspiracy theory is that he was actually too nationally popular, and hence too big a threat to the deep state, so they had to orchestrate Watergate to get rid of him.

As if it’s those same people that pay already massive amount of taxes isn’t enough ?

FWIW I’m in the top tier in my country in taxes paid .
I don’t complain because my taxes are used to help those in needs and so I don’t complain much paying lot higher then lots of people but why should I be ask on top of doing more when almost the others ain’t doing anything much more personally ?

If u would ask my personal involvement on top of that, well that is time and energy that has a high cost to me ( or lack of earning power) spend on this .
I certainly wound expect to have a much lower taxes payment then ….

That is pretty much what those Martha’s Vineyard are thinking imo .
Not only that , to be part of certain community there is a cost in taxes , houses prices etc .
There is a reason they pay much more to live in those neighborhoods…..

Maybe we should do the same and send just 1 or 2 to Mar-a-Lago And see how it goes …..

it's a zero sum game, you're not an idiot, you know this, if you're going to just take in feed, house, and provide healthcare for millions of migrants then where is the money coming from?

HTS had at the least funding from Turkey with western knowledge. There are plenty of reports of also having Ukrainian drones and possibly actual Ukrainians on the ground supporting but I will not spend the time vetting all of it so if you dismiss it I concede in advance. Long story short, the west had no interest in stopping the overthrow and I can only assume that is because it's a result that was neutral at least as it kicked Russia out of the territory.

Turn the table around and imagine the rest of the world would of treated the U.S. the same way with its segregation laws in the 1900s ?

Fwiw I’m against all religion .
But I just find funny from a guy like Luciom on the right , blaming those other religions , doesn’t have any problem with the same garbage from the U.S. south imposing many nonsense religious stuff at the expense of secularism just because he likes it ….

I’m actually on the side of restrictive relation if basic human rights aren’t tolerable in Syria but that isn’t why Luciom does it .
That’s the problem …

It comes from like anywhere else in the world they have universal healthcare shrug .
That isn’t the issue tho.
We were speaking why those people were a bit angry they ended up with that problem despite the money they already pay for it .
Yes it’s zero sum game .
U do the work or u pay .
They actually pay pretty handsomely fwiw .
Some other should take the relay to do the work since they already do other needed work right ?

you may want to double check and see where property tax revenues go in america

and i've never once heard anyone ever frame this as you have, it's a wholly made up ideology, and fwiw most of my friends are of the summer/retire at martha's vineyard variety so it's the social group in america i interact the most with - never once heard any of them argue that their extra taxes pay for that

I was speaking about income tax .
And yes property taxes are much higher in certain places because people want to be there right ?
So why would you expect an immigrants , legal or not , with no money and needed lot of help had the capacity to live there in the first place or have ressources to help them live there ?

Many in better situation couldn’t so why give a pass to them ?

I guess that is why some places they agree to have much higher propriety taxes , it’s too have an environment they want and the best moat should actually be higher property tax and property prices ?

I am not sure there was really anything the west could do to stop the overthrow. Hezbollah was the force keeping the Assad regime afloat and they committed Seppuku by deciding to go to war with Israel. And Russia having to remove all their manpower and relocate them to Ukraine obviously didn't help either. When HTS made their push, IRI commanders noted they could not help fight them, because there was no one to help. With Russia and Hezbollah sidelined, the Assad regimes forces had zero appetite to fight at all.

FWIW, Israel destroyed a tremendous amount of weaponry to keep out of HTS's hands (including Russian weaponry in Russian bases which means Russia assuredly gave the ok), and US and France have directly attacked Sunni Islamist forces since the takeover (although I assume not HTS directly). This certainly doesn't support the theory we were funding HTS.

Turkey (especially under Erdogan) does a lot of stuff we dont like. They have been fighting a low intensity war with Kurdish groups (that we prop up) for decades, and since Assad's downfall Erdogan has been making a lot of comments about taking care of the Kurds once and for all. And it seems like once/week Erdogan makes some public statement threatening to destroy Israel. And this is on top of Erdogan basically dismantling democracy in Turkey and making himself a dictator with corrupt elections.

But like Qatar, the powers that be have decides it is in our geopolitical interests to look the other way for a lot of stuff.

if you were speaking about income tax then why did you frame it with this?

I was speaking in general sense about the cost they already pay ?
Income for healthcare and property taxes to live in a place where only similar people could afford it ?

I though even my writing up there was sufficient to understand it (even after rereading it ) .

But like BJ love to say I’m so bad in English sorry if it was not clear enough .

It's one pov but HTS was quite geared in their offensive. A lot more than the normal AK's and RPG's.

And then there's this.

This is ridiculous and pretty much the same as the alt right waiting about the Islamification of Europe. You can't enforce your values and culture on others. It simply won't work.

It's pretty hard to force behaviour, but it's not particularly hard to force freedom though.

So example for the veils, while it would be very hard to force all muslim women NOT to wear a veil worldwide (and pretty stupid and useless to try to attempt that), it isn't so hard to force all or most countries NOT to enforce veil mandates.

Think of the efforts by western countries to enforce intellectual property rules worldwide. That's a very alien concept for most cultures (including our owns to be clear), yet the results worldwide given enough violence backs those efforts, are absurd.

Now imagine the same or more is done to enforce whatever right we want to enforce.

Take it to another level yet: imagine we have a transparent and credible policy to assassinate with drones any leader which imposes anti-western values on his subjects. Imagine we do start killing a few after X years passed since we introduced the policy. What do you think would happen?

Viceversa ofc we cover with money the leader himself and his family and friends if he complies.

Should i remind you the USA assassinated 2 italian leaders who tried to move away from the empire?

...You're simply attempting to justify enforcing your way on others and what is this weird penchant for assassination and execution of yours?

I am saying this is what has been happening till very recently, i am saying this is also what Lincoln became an hero for.

Do you disagree the civil war was fought to make slavery illegal and caused a ton of deaths?

Uhhhhh, CERTAINLY not from the start.

Tons of deaths sure..... that was not the motive at the beginning either and probably at no time was tons of deaths a motive.

There's nothing weird about it once you've understood he's advocating for fascism.

Sadly it seems you still have some way to go.

The immediate reason was the US refusing to recognise the right to secede and your comparison isn't apt anyway as you're talking of a proactively launched borg style assimilation of "everyone on Earth", your words. And again you can't enforce such things.

guys, in the declarations of secessions, the grievance is 100% focused on slavery - they are extremely clear about that