If it makes you feel better, it’s not like Biden blindly capitulated to oil execs. Biden’s deal for Willow reduced drill pads by 40%, required the drill company to relinquish the rights to 68,000 acres of land, and has banned or limited drilling on 13 million acres of land and 3 million acres of the Beaufort Sea. All in all, while Renewables are the future, it’s not difficult to admit we simply aren’t able to abandon fossil fuels altogether. Yet, anyway.

This, and the fact he views all the old Soviet/Tzarist territories as “rightfully” Russia’s. The West stopping him from grabbing Ukraine is seen as a direct attack on Russia because, according to him, Ukraine has no independent culture or history worth respecting. It’s similar to how China views Taiwan. Dude wants to be a new Peter the Great and is mortified at the possibility of failure. His legacy, worldview, AND life are all on the line. I don’t have an ounce sympathy for the bastard.

There’s a delightful irony of someone in charge of the “Power Belongs to the People Party” simping for one of the most authoritarian regimes on the planet. Ironic, and infuriating.

Nothing to do with us? Do you really think letting Russia run rough-shod over all their old territories not a part of NATO wouldn’t come back to hurt us? Or the West in general? Dammed if you do, dammed if you don’t. I’d rather help Ukraine and send a message to Russia that they can’t just invade their neighbors without consequence. And that they can’t just expect the world to capitulate to their every demand when threatened with nukes.

Every nation has its home-grown morons, luckily the Berlin protests seem like they’re being excoriated by the press and general populace.

I'm pretty sure attacking any NATO infrastructure is an immediate act of war. That in turn, triggers Article 5 which, in turn, fucks Russia even worse than they already are.

That owl will eat like a king for the rest of his life!

Obviously we should take the path with the highest payoff, and I agree that not every criminal is worthy of “punishment” or is beyond saving. But we must ALSO contend with the very real fact that some people not only CAN’T change their antisocial behavior, but actively resist treatment. There is no functional form of treatment capable of making anybody a perfect altruist, and some people just need to be separated from society. While psychologists have begun to begin considering new methods of treating adult “sociopaths,” they also admit that it is incredibly difficult because their habits are deeply engrained, and that they fight against attempts to “fix” them.

I’m not saying these people need spend their lives naked and chained to a wall, but what makes people nervous about some of the rhetoric around restorative justice is that, many times, it’s proponents side step answering the question of what to do with people who can’t or don’t want to be fixed?

No military could hope to control 90% of a country's population. Not the US, not China, no one. If 90% of the population wants you out of their home, you're gonna leave one way or the other. Trying to do otherwise would be like standing on the beach and yelling at a tsunami to back up.

Not really. Furthermore, how do you figure logic and Platos’s forms AREN’T informed by culture? Everything we do is informed by the culture we grew up in, to some extent or another. Plato developed his philosophy as a consequence to the time, place, and society he grew up in. Also, logic isn’t a single road that leads to the same place for every circumstance. The values, norms, taboos, etc. of a society can and will dictate many outcomes to a single question, and those answers can be perfectly “logical” in those contexts.