OBJECTION!

The problem is that you see people dismissing criticism and think it’s a disagreement of principle when in fact they hold the same principle and disagree on what does or does not meet the agreed upon criteria.

I haven’t added any extra meaning at all, nor is there any attempt to “derail” the conversation. You’re attacking something that nobody actually believes.

See, like, I see my criticism as factual and respectful, and you disagree. You don’t think it’s factual because you disagree with my analysis. Virtually all disagreements about what criticism is valid are like that.

I’m not adding any additional meaning. As I explained, nobody says, “My group is above criticism” but what they say is, “The criticisms against my group are nonfactual and/or disrespectful.” Everyone agrees with the principle you’ve said, but that principle is completely meaningless because any perspective that wants to shut down criticism will just say that it’s nonfactual or disrespectful.

If you just think critically about it and break down what your statement actually means, it’s just “I agree with criticism I agree with.” I don’t really know what more I can say to explain that, it seems very straightforward to me. From your other comments, you talk about people criticizing major religions, well, suppose someone from a major religion says, “I agree, and also, I think such and such criticism is disrespectful.” Maybe you don’t think it’s disrespectful. Maybe they make a criticism about you that they don’t find disrespectful, but you do. Who determines which criticisms meet the criteria of factual and respectful? Everyone can accept your standard and carry on exactly as they were, simply saying that the criticism they agree with meet the standard and the criticisms they disagree with don’t. It’s pretty meaningless.

Are you often finding yourself in situations where people aren’t disputing facts and norms, but just whether, in principle, legitimate criticism should be said at all? Can you give me an example?

Basically you’re just saying, “I agree with criticism I agree with.” Nobody would say, outright and in principle, that they think a group is above criticism, but people are going to disagree on which criticisms are factual and respectful.

I can understand that perspective, but I’m looking at things from more of a class based and realpolitik perspective. The international order, I would say even now, but especially at that time of peak colonialism, was pretty much like this.

The Allied powers dominated the world, and they achieved that through force, brazen, unapologetic aggression. Germany didn’t have a problem with that, except for the part where they weren’t the ones on top, that they didn’t have colonies to exploit like everyone else.

From my perspective, the real problem is that socialists at the time didn’t follow through on the Basel declaration of 1912 where socialists of every country promised to oppose the coming war. When the war actually broke out, everyone rallied around their respective flags, the British and French socialists talked about Germany invading neutral countries and not being as democratic, but the German socialists justified it by talking about serfdom in Russia and the colonialism of Britain and France, and at the end of the day, tons of regular people got drafted to go die in the trenches over these power games.

Admittedly, I’ve never really considered it from a Belgian perspective before, but I think the bigger nations were all more motivated by power than by a genuine commitment to upholding neutrality and national sovereignty.

Love Blackadder, especially that season ❤️

Pretty sure nobody was fighting before the Germans attacked Eben emael with gliders.

That’s the wrong war. Fort Eben Emael wasn’t even constructed yet, and there were no paratroopers on any side.

Franz Ferdinand was assassinated on June 28th, 1914. On July 28th, Austria-Hungary began shelling Belgrade, in the first shots of the war. Germany occupied Luxembourg August 2nd and invaded Belgium August 4th.

But regardless, the European powers were always going to end up fighting each other after running out of places to colonize, building up enormous militaries, and forming a bunch of secret alliances. No nation was the “good guys” in WWI, they were a bunch of imperialist colonial states jockeying for power, and sending ordinary people into awful conditions to die for no good reason.

Eh, if Israel did not exist, the United States would just invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region.

Germans were no more responsible for WWI than the British, French, etc.

Relevant sketch

Removed by mod

Removed by mod

Removed by mod

Removed by mod

Removed by mod

Removed by mod

Removed by mod

Removed by mod

Removed by mod

Bro’s out here talking about the sodomy demon, they’re all sodomy demons if you play your cards right 😉

A parody account posting something that’s perceived as coming from a non-parody account falls under my definition of “fake.” What I meant was, Chiquita didn’t post either tweet.