Pence "That is not my concern".... this is not going to age well for him.

[Mac-7]

I addressed that.
And his full answer reiterates Tuckers point.
America is falling apart at it's seams, and there seems to be waaay too much money/emphasis/attention given to Ukraine than the catastrophes happening in nearly every major U.S. city.

Turning a blind eye to naked russian aggression will cost more in the long run

That lesson was learned at Munich in 1939

 

[Harpy Eagle]

The Constitution still requires equal protection the last time I looked. If one American is less protected from crime than another because they live in a Blue City with a bought-out prosecutor who has decided not to prosecute most crimes, and a bought-out mayor who stands by as his/her city sidewalks turn into a garbage dump, the federal government has a duty to step in.

Damn, I still remember when you leaned Libertarian. My how times have changed.

That won't make the government any bigger. Not if at the same time, they de-fund and disband that part of the government enganged in sending arms and money to Ukraine with no plan for victory.

Yes, it will. Bigger government is not just about how much money they spend, but about how much control they have over our day to day lives.

 

[toobfreak]

Trump is no less evil than those two.

Oh yeah?

 

[Harpy Eagle]

Oh yeah?

Yes.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Turning a blind eye to naked russian aggression will cost more in the long run

That lesson was learned at Munich in 1939

Nevertheless a legitimate question is did the Biden administration escalate the war?
Did NATO escalate tensions and the war?
We are not suppose to ask those questions. If you do - you are a Putin supporter and possibly a white supremacist.

 

[toobfreak]

Yes.

Yes what?

 

[Mac-7]

Nevertheless a legitimate question is did the Biden administration escalate the war?
Did NATO escalate tensions and the war?
We are not suppose to ask those questions. If you do - you are a Putin supporter and possibly a white supremacist.

I agree that biden supporters are often assholes and try to suppress dissent by name calling

Thats just SOP for libs

But the reasons for helping ukraine are sound

 

[Harpy Eagle]

Yes what?

Trump is no less evil than those two.

 

[toobfreak]

Trump is no less evil than those two.

How so?

 

[j-mac]

Yes.

Ya know, it's really easy to just disagree with everything, and offer nothing....So, tell us Gator, who is your dream candidate for POTUS? Forget Biden, Forget Trump, or any of them, who is it you'd like to see run, and why?

 

[iamwhatiseem]

I agree that biden supporters are often assholes and try to suppress dissent by name calling

Thats just SOP for libs

But the reasons for helping ukraine are sound

If you have a friend that is being bullied.
And you seek to help him. And do.
But the bully side, as you increase your side, gathers other bullys around him.
Pretty soon the situation goes from someone picking on someone, to full on playground brawls between groups of kids.

Now I realize my little story is too simple, and doesn't truly represent Ukraine/Russia saga.
But nevertheless it is accurate in that without question America's involvement has caused the conflict to turn into a full war. The question - "at what point does the escalation become a larger problem than the original conflict?" --- is a legit question. Do you see any signs of de-escalation?? Hell no. None.

 

[Mac-7]

If you have a friend that is being bullied.
And you seek to help him. And do.
But the bully side, as you increase your side, gathers other bullys around him.
Pretty soon the situation goes from someone picking on someone, to full on playground brawls between groups of kids.

Now I realize my little story is too simple, and doesn't truly represent Ukraine/Russia saga.
But nevertheless it is accurate in that without question America's involvement has caused the conflict to turn into a full war. The question - "at what point does the escalation become a larger problem than the original conflict?" --- is a legit question. Do you see any signs of de-escalation?? Hell no. None.

I dont deny that America has prolonged the war by preventing a quick and easy Russian victory

But I see that as a good thing

 

[FranklinRoosevelt_FTW]

I dont deny that America has prolonged the war by preventing a quick and easy Russian victory

But I see that as a good thing

Russia is no longer a communist country. One can argue that Ukraine is more authoritarian and strict compared to Russia. And certainly Russia is not nearly as strict as a number of US allies in Africa and the Middle East.

There are plenty of examples all over the world of situations where the United States could arguably get involved in more so than we are in Russia. If you’re talking about global economic concerns are similar.

When viewed from the scope of the cold war, people would still be against Russia, or say that they’re the evil empire. It’s no longer those days.

I’ll add part of my own viewpoint here and this is my own viewpoint… I think it’s wrong that US weapons and money are being used to kill Russian Christians. As a Catholic I think that’s wrong.

 

[bodecea]

In the long run it doesn't matter. What Pence failed to do on January 6 is what ended his political career.

He failed to break the law. No wonder MAGAts are upset.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Russia is no longer a communist country. One can argue that Ukraine is more authoritarian and strict compared to Russia. And certainly Russia is not nearly as strict as a number of US allies in Africa and the Middle East.

There are plenty of examples all over the world of situations where the United States could arguably get involved in more so than we are in Russia. If you’re talking about global economic concerns are similar.

When viewed from the scope of the cold war, people would still be against Russia, or say that they’re the evil empire. It’s no longer those days.

I’ll add part of my own viewpoint here and this is my own viewpoint… I think it’s wrong that US weapons and money are being used to kill Russian Christians. As a Catholic I think that’s wrong.

You have some points, but there is a fundamental flaw in it.
Russia is what Putin makes it. And Putin wants Russia to be the power it once was as the USSR.
His description of Ukraine in 2020 says it all - 'Ukraine and Russia are one country and one people".
He simply doesn't recognize Ukraine as it's own country, rather it is occupied by an illegitimate power.
Putin did what he did because he believed the timing was right. Trump lost, Biden won. He believed Biden would be equally as weak and unconcerned as Obama was.
Where he was wrong was he had no understanding of the supreme power of social media and western medias ability to get people to see anything they want them to see, and support anything they want them to support to an absolute degree.
And because of that, even as weak as Biden is, this gives Biden tremendous latitude to engage against him. He can pretty much go to any length he wants, and he will have support. Blind support. No matter what.
Putin is at fault here. And because of that Russia is at fault. He is the aggressor. He is wrong.
But at what point is Biden's escalation more of a problem than Putin seeking to control Ukraine?
When do we get to that point? What even is that point?
No one asks these questions, because we are not allowed to.

 

[John Edgar Slow Horses]

Golfing Gator
poor guy

 

[FranklinRoosevelt_FTW]

You have some points, but there is a fundamental flaw in it.
Russia is what Putin makes it. And Putin wants Russia to be the power it once was as the USSR.
His description of Ukraine in 2020 says it all - 'Ukraine and Russia are one country and one people".
He simply doesn't recognize Ukraine as it's own country, rather it is occupied by an illegitimate power.
Putin did what he did because he believed the timing was right. Trump lost, Biden won. He believed Biden would be equally as weak and unconcerned as Obama was.
Where he was wrong was he had no understanding of the supreme power of social media and western medias ability to get people to see anything they want them to see, and support anything they want them to support to an absolute degree.
And because of that, even as weak as Biden is, this gives Biden tremendous latitude to engage against him. He can pretty much go to any length he wants, and he will have support. Blind support. No matter what.
Putin is at fault here. And because of that Russia is at fault. He is the aggressor. He is wrong.
But at what point is Biden's escalation more of a problem than Putin seeking to control Ukraine?
When do we get to that point? What even is that point?
No one asks these question, because we are not allowed to.

I don’t agree with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It is an invasion not some kind of a “special operation” but I think those play on words is Russia trying to say this is our “war on terrorism” like America did back 20 years ago.

Any Ukrainian that doesn’t wanna be a part of Russia has every right to fight for their beliefs. Now also, it would be a disservice to attempt to see that there are no Ukrainians in eastern ukraine that wanna be a part of Russia because there are. Now that type of mentality doesn’t exist in the United States there are not huge portions of Americans that want to be a part of Mexico or Canada. So that’s an interesting situation.

I agree with much of what you saying

I also have spoken with people from Russia and there is a very informative YouTube channel called the 1420 project where a person goes around interviewing people in Russia talking about various issues. And there’s tons of people who openly despise Vladimir Putin, on the streets of Moscow. They say whatever they want about him without repercussion. There are those in Russia, who don’t like Vladimir Putin, but who agree with the invasion of Ukraine … there are those in Russia, who despise Putin, and who despise the invasion of Ukraine

I see that there are other countries of the world even more authoritarian than Russia, where there has been someone in power for over 30 years. But you can argue that the American establishment has been in power for decades, even though the president keeps changing. Behind the scenes are the same other people.

I tend to disagree that Russia is Putin. Much like how some people say, the invasion of Iraq was George W. Bush. The invasion of Iraq was initially supported by huge numbers of Americans. It was sometime later that many of those same Americans realized it was a mistake and maybe that’ll happen in Russia but also that’s a different dispute. Ukraine is literally on Russia’s border. Iraq was thousands of miles away from The USA .

I don’t think Russia wants to re-create the Soviet union or the Russian empire. I don’t think that makes sense considering the relationship between Germany and Russia. It seems to be a very powerful economic relationship. They were those who thought that after Iraq, the United States would go after North Korea and Iran. That wasn’t the case, though I don’t think that Russia has an interest in going after any other countries, other than Ukraine and who knows what the real purpose in Ukraine …could it be to only go after eastern Ukraine where there are many Ukrainians who want to be a part of Russia?

This is really kind of a unique situation because for many years, Ukraine was a part of the Soviet union and you could check out various independent channels on YouTube. There are those in Ukraine that missed the old soviet days.

Btw I don’t want communism for the United States. I don’t think most people in Ukraine or Russia want to return to communism other than the older generations of those countries.

That said It Seems that there are many people in Ukraine and Russia that are old-school traditional people that reject the far left-wing pro BLM pro radical LGBT agenda that the west wants. There’s huge portions of Americans that reject this type of lifestyle as well. What I’m talking about here are sex change operations for 10 year olds or the idea that only white people owned slaves throughout history. There are huge portions of people of the world who reject that.

And there are those in Russia and Ukraine, who do not want Ukraine to be a part of that radical BLM and radical LGBT agenda. So they see Russia perhaps as something that can help them get out of that. I think that’s a Fair comment to make there.

Also, with regards to Vladimir Putin, he had relations with George W. Bush, Donald Trump, and Barack Obama. He shook hands with Hillary Clinton. And again there are other authoritarian leaders of the world who are more strict and conservative, compared to Vladimir Putin leaders of the world that have shaking hands with American leaders. I don’t think that Putin is evil …only God knows that if he’s committed some outrageous sins, and if so he will be held accountable for it in my view ….the problem for me is if I’m going to label Putin as evil what about all of the Americans that shook hands with him?

The moment that Russia attempts to invade Germany or Poland, or anything like that other than Ukraine I will turn 100% against Russia. I don’t think that’s going to happen though.

Probably one of the most important things I keep in mind is that here we are the United States giving hundreds of billions of dollars and the most lethal weapons to Ukraine. Imagine if Russia gave billions of dollars and their most lethal weapons to Iraq or Afghanistan back in the early 2000s when we invaded those countries. Back in those days there were plenty of people around the world saying the United States is attempting to take over the Middle East first Iraq then North Korea then Iran. But It didn’t play out like that and I just don’t think that Russia has any interest or it makes any logical sense that if they achieve victory in Ukraine and again, who knows if they want western Ukraine they might only one eastern Ukraine. But I don’t think it makes sense that russia is trying to re-create the Soviet union, or the Russian empire. Sometimes politicians like to talk a big game, and I remember George W. Bush talking about the axis of evil speech. “We’re going to go after I ran we’re gonna go after North Korea”. Other conservative politicians saying we should invade Iran. It didn’t happen though.

 

[Seymour Flops]

Damn, I still remember when you leaned Libertarian. My how times have changed.

Libertarians like the constitution, until we can get a more libertarian one.

Yes, it will. Bigger government is not just about how much money they spend, but about how much control they have over our day to day lives.

What more control over people's day to day lives than to take money from them at gunpoint and use it to buy weapons and send money in a way that may well lead to WWIII?

 

[tahuyaman]

This was not a good answer.
Holy cow

I would like to hear the rest of his answer.

 

[Mac-7]

Russia is no longer a communist country. One can argue that Ukraine is more authoritarian and strict compared to Russia. And certainly Russia is not nearly as strict as a number of US allies in Africa and the Middle East.

There are plenty of examples all over the world of situations where the United States could arguably get involved in more so than we are in Russia. If you’re talking about global economic concerns are similar.

When viewed from the scope of the cold war, people would still be against Russia, or say that they’re the evil empire. It’s no longer those days.

I’ll add part of my own viewpoint here and this is my own viewpoint… I think it’s wrong that US weapons and money are being used to kill Russian Christians. As a Catholic I think that’s wrong.

Of one tribe in africa wipes out another tribe and takes over their territory thats not a threat to world peace

But if russia does it thats more serious because to could lead to a world war