Lol, when is war self-defense?

Basically, when you have no other option or are in danger. The distinction comes up in cases like this where soldiers start to just kill without any need for it. Also why we did not just turn the middle east to glass.

For the record, I have for years maintained that George W Bush should be tried for war crimes based on the invasion of Iraq under false pretenses.

Bush I believe was just doing what he thought was needed given the information he was getting. Cheney however lied his ass off and should have been impeached.

Nov 20, 2020 12:21:59 GMT c said:

Bush I believe was just doing what he thought was needed given the information he was getting. Cheney however lied his ass off and should have been impeached.

This feels way more accurate.

Nov 20, 2020 12:21:59 GMT c said:

Bush I believe was just doing what he thought was needed given the information he was getting. Cheney however lied his ass off and should have been impeached.

I agree. I've become Mr. Super-Liberal as I've aged, but I still believe W was actually a good person who reacted (and maybe overreacted) to bad intel.

I dislike his actions as president still, but warmed on the man. The way he transitioned Obama was nearly unprecedented. Even hard left think tanks were blown away by what Bush did. Then all the stuff with the Obamas and Clinton showed he was not a bad guy, comparatively.

Wish his hilarious correspondence dinner and charity speeches got more attention as they were freaking hilarious and showed how damn good of a speaker he was.

Like this Bush was never seen.




This was also a HILARIOUS speech from him.

While I believe it is sometimes necessary to stand up for yourself, I have no idea why Australia would kick off a unilateral attack on China over Covid-19. We could have achieved a similar response with far less angst.

Not sure why we did it, a little bit of nuance would be helpful.

How long did Australia right think it could get away with criticizing China and making accusations against them before they hit back? How long does Australia think they can make China out to be an enemy before they actually become one as well?

Working us into a shoot.

Or a really shitty economic situation that Australia will not be able to get out of without long term concessions.

Our (recent?) Prime Ministers always seem to lean on the side of machismo rather than intelligent and nuanced international relations. It reminds me of when Tony Abbott said he was going to shirtfront Putin over MH17.

Curious what the end goal is. Aussie cannot hope to threaten Australia with might and you have no weapons of asymmetric warfare, Australia to China is just another minor trade partner, and diplomatically, allies are not likely to side with Australia that appears to be picking a fight they cannot win. So what is the end goal if China calls? Pretty much will be left on your own and your economy crippled if China puts up tariffs. I mean China imports 48 percent of your goods, but you only make up 2 percent of Chinese exports, giving you an 8 billion trade surplus that they would be justified in reducing.

Dec 2, 2020 2:02:14 GMT c said:

Curious what the end goal is. Aussie cannot hope to threaten Australia with might and you have no weapons of asymmetric warfare, Australia to China is just another minor trade partner, and diplomatically, allies are not likely to side with Australia that appears to be picking a fight they cannot win. So what is the end goal if China calls? Pretty much will be left on your own and your economy crippled if China puts up tariffs. I mean China imports 48 percent of your goods, but you only make up 2 percent of Chinese exports, giving you an 8 billion trade surplus that they would be justified in reducing.

Spoken like the true Doctor of Thuganomics!

Word life.

Dec 1, 2020 22:30:11 GMT iNCY said:

While I believe it is sometimes necessary to stand up for yourself, I have no idea why Australia would kick off a unilateral attack on China over Covid-19. We could have achieved a similar response with far less angst.

Not sure why we did it, a little bit of nuance would be helpful.

Most likely the direction to do so, came from the Oval Office.

Dec 2, 2020 21:55:24 GMT NATH45 said:

Dec 1, 2020 22:30:11 GMT iNCY said:

While I believe it is sometimes necessary to stand up for yourself, I have no idea why Australia would kick off a unilateral attack on China over Covid-19. We could have achieved a similar response with far less angst.

Not sure why we did it, a little bit of nuance would be helpful.

Most likely the direction to do so, came from the Oval Office.

No, I think we are perfectly capable or our own brand of stupid, we don't need coaching.

And frankly, Trump does appear to give a shit about Aussieland.

And damn, China tossing 150% - 200% tarrifs on Aussie wine...

Dec 3, 2020 2:06:05 GMT c said:

And frankly, Trump does appear to give a shit about Aussieland.

And damn, China tossing 150% - 200% tarrifs on Aussie wine...

My plan is to drink 200% more wine over the holiday season to compensate. 

More evidence why the impact and reach of Sky News shouldn't be underestimated, and how their push on social media is calculated, and very dangerous:

That's Lauren Southern, now regular SNA contributor.

Dec 8, 2020 5:08:09 GMT @admin said:

More evidence why the impact and reach of Sky News shouldn't be underestimated, and how their push on social media is calculated, and very dangerous:

That's Lauren Southern, now regular SNA contributor.

Except Lauren Southern wasn't a Sky news contributor when the Christchurch Mosque attacks happened.
Nobody who watches Sky News is going to think racism or shooting Muslims dead is a good idea.

Perhaps if there was allowed to be a more public discourse on the merits of Multiculturalism, there would be less cracks for the whack jobs to hide in.
Even mention anything less than a glowing account of multi-culturism in Australia and you will be shouted down as a racist.
I used to be very pro-immigration as I saw it as enriching our cultures, I still feel that way, but I believe that not every person is going to make the overall culture better and we should be selective about who and how many we bring in.

Dec 8, 2020 5:20:35 GMT iNCY said:

Dec 8, 2020 5:08:09 GMT @admin said:

More evidence why the impact and reach of Sky News shouldn't be underestimated, and how their push on social media is calculated, and very dangerous:

That's Lauren Southern, now regular SNA contributor.

Except Lauren Southern wasn't a Sky news contributor when the Christchurch Mosque attacks happened.
Nobody who watches Sky News is going to think racism or shooting Muslims dead is a good idea.

I'm not sure what the first sentence is supposed to prove other than how outrageous it is that a "mainstream" news outlet would give someone so awful a platform. She helped create a terrorist who killed 50 people. We've since given her a Visa and given her a megaphone. It's disgusting.

And I'm also not sure why you are convinced of the second sentence. 

Racism is normalised and accepted in Australia. The terrorist had a long footprint of involvement with far right and white supremacist groups online, had been reported to police and nothing was done about it.

Lauren Southern was one of the youtubers that radicalized the Christchurch shooter. She is barred from several countries for her views.

Have fun with her, looks like she is Australian now.  Ironic given her hatred of immigrants...

Going to be REALLY fun when someone makes her husband and kid public.  She is working REALLY hard to hide that neither are white.

Just another awful human being, alt right conspiracy theorist.

Facebook and Aussieland going to war. Aussieland wants to make facebook pay news groups to share newslinks. Facebook says if the law passes it will ban Australians from sharing newslinks on the platform entirely.

Dec 8, 2020 5:37:34 GMT @admin said:

Dec 8, 2020 5:20:35 GMT iNCY said:

Except Lauren Southern wasn't a Sky news contributor when the Christchurch Mosque attacks happened.
Nobody who watches Sky News is going to think racism or shooting Muslims dead is a good idea.

I'm not sure what the first sentence is supposed to prove other than how outrageous it is that a "mainstream" news outlet would give someone so awful a platform. She helped create a terrorist who killed 50 people. We've since given her a Visa and given her a megaphone. It's disgusting.

And I'm also not sure why you are convinced of the second sentence. 

Racism is normalised and accepted in Australia. The terrorist had a long footprint of involvement with far right and white supremacist groups online, had been reported to police and nothing was done about it.

That is absolute rubbish, how is racism normalised and accepted in Australia?
Sky News is a center-right news organisation and I have no time for the pathetic Lauren Southerns of the world who play up to their base for shock value and support, her views are still a million miles away from shooting up a mosque.
This is 8chan not Skynews that you are mad at.

Not really - I understand that the internet is a difficult thing to police, but mainstream news organisations shouldn't be giving people like Southern or Blair Cottrell any sort of platform. You air those people and their views, you void any sort of claim to be "center" as far as I am concerned. They are dangerous people who exist just to incite ethnic violence and division. There is no justifying or explaining their views.

I'm glad to see Labor calling for a parliamentary enquiry into right-wing extremism as a result of the NZ report. As many people have pointed out, the focus is always on Islamic terrorism and more clearly needs to be on the rise of neo-Nazism.

Dec 9, 2020 3:04:40 GMT iNCY said:

Dec 8, 2020 5:37:34 GMT @admin said:

I'm not sure what the first sentence is supposed to prove other than how outrageous it is that a "mainstream" news outlet would give someone so awful a platform. She helped create a terrorist who killed 50 people. We've since given her a Visa and given her a megaphone. It's disgusting.

And I'm also not sure why you are convinced of the second sentence. 

Racism is normalised and accepted in Australia. The terrorist had a long footprint of involvement with far right and white supremacist groups online, had been reported to police and nothing was done about it.

That is absolute rubbish, how is racism normalised and accepted in Australia?
Sky News is a center-right news organisation and I have no time for the pathetic Lauren Southerns of the world who play up to their base for shock value and support, her views are still a million miles away from shooting up a mosque.
This is 8chan not Skynews that you are mad at.

Sky News is alt right.  They bring on people like Laura Southerns and other alt right people.  You do not get to be to center when you engage with them and promote qanon conspiracy theories.  

Australia has a serious racism problem, particularly revolving around migrants and Muslims.   May be very hard to see if you are inside of it, much like most of America does not see how bad they treat black people.

Dec 9, 2020 3:22:38 GMT @admin said:

Not really - I understand that the internet is a difficult thing to police, but mainstream news organisations shouldn't be giving people like Southern or Blair Cottrell any sort of platform. You air those people and their views, you void any sort of claim to be "center" as far as I am concerned. They are dangerous people who exist just to incite ethnic violence and division. There is no justifying or explaining their views.

I'm glad to see Labor calling for a parliamentary enquiry into right-wing extremism as a result of the NZ report. As many people have pointed out, the focus is always on Islamic terrorism and more clearly needs to be on the rise of neo-Nazism.

Sky News is not radicalising anybody though right, you get that?
Listening to Rowan Dead talk about the climate change myth has nothing to do with shooting up mosques?

This is nutty dark spaces of the Internet and if you are going to block those fine, but block all the other nasty shit that is available on the internet too.
Brendan Tarrant is one guy, who actually travelled the world, he wasn't some incel shut in fed on a conspiracy theorist diary.

Dec 9, 2020 3:31:33 GMT c said:

Dec 9, 2020 3:04:40 GMT iNCY said:

That is absolute rubbish, how is racism normalised and accepted in Australia?
Sky News is a center-right news organisation and I have no time for the pathetic Lauren Southerns of the world who play up to their base for shock value and support, her views are still a million miles away from shooting up a mosque.
This is 8chan not Skynews that you are mad at.

Sky News is alt right.  They bring on people like Laura Southerns and other alt right people.  You do not get to be to center when you engage with them and promote qanon conspiracy theories.  

Australia has a serious racism problem, particularly revolving around migrants and Muslims.   May be very hard to see if you are inside of it, much like most of America does not see how bad they treat black people.

Australia does not have a problem with racism, certain aspects of the media like to repeat that we do, but it does not make it so.


thenewdaily.com.au/entertainment/tv/2020/08/19/abc-bluey-tv-racism/

Muslim immigration has been pretty much a disaster, I don't really want any more muslim immigration, but I have no problem with the many muslims I know and work alongside.
That's not racism.

Dec 9, 2020 4:12:12 GMT iNCY said:

Muslim immigration has been pretty much a disaster, I don't really want any more muslim immigration, but I have no problem with the many muslims I know and work alongside.
That's not racism.

That is literally "but he's one of the good ones."

rationalwiki.org/wiki/One_of_the_good_ones

I mean we definitely don't have a problem with racism except for the fact that one in five Australians have experienced it, our government has attempted to remove the one decent law we have regarding online race hate whilst failing to sign up to many widely supported international conventions, Indigenous Australians have considerably lower life expectancies with countless health, education and incarceration issues, there was a huge spike in racism against Asians relating to Coronavirus, we have current politicians who deny or ignore the history of the White Australia policy, there were 10 different openly Islamophobic political parties running for the Senate last election, our major newspapers continue to publish racist opinion writers despite them being found guilty of contravening the Racial Discrimination Act, and we illegally detain thousands of refugees in inhumane conditions at an absurd cost instead of allowing them to seek asylum.