You know what Viktor? Even kids can work out what’s going on in Ba Sing Se. Which makes you dumber than a small child.
Sounds like it’s time for that Sartre quote again:
“Never believe that [they] are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. [They] have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert.”
So, the societal problem is created when bad faith actors are given a platform, right? But bad faith actors tend to be great at generating outrage and division and thus drive engagement and clicks - which makes money for the platforms.
How do we solve this?
Democracy solves it. If people don’t vote in these people, they don’t get the platform.
Now, how do we get people to not vote in bigots and idiots? By not being bigots and idiots themselves. I.e. education and free thinking.
How do we protect education from budget cuts and protect free thinking from corporate and foreign interests that seek to undermine it, especially while the bigots still have a tenuous hold on the population? Now, that is the real question.
That’s not really true, unfortunately. People don’t need to be in an elected position to be given a platform by media.
That’s true, but at least those people don’t have direct political power.
But the end result is the platform influences voters leading to election of those or similar individuals.
Bounties.
Just vote for the lesser-bad-faith actor.
That will surely solve the problem.
I think what’s sad is this can be applied to pretty much all nations when it comes to acknowledging war.
Someone should invite Orban to a vacation in Donetsk. Since there is no war, I’m sure he’ll gladly accept.
Maybe a nice seaside excursion in Mariupol. Stick a toe in the Sea of Azov…
Is he deliberately trying to be a clown?
Bozo the Holocaust Enabler
So if I kill someone then hide the body and refuse to admit I killed anyone, there was no murder?
I think a better analogy would be if you kill someone and then deny murder while being caught standing over the dead body with a bloody knife and the victim’s blood all over you while you’re still stabbing the corpse.
I swear officer, I was set up continues to stab the corpse
Carl: Alright, well…I was upstairs…
Paul: Okay…
Carl: I was uh…I was sitting in my room…
Paul: Yes?
Carl: reading a book…
Paul: Go on…
Carl: And, uh, well this guy walked in…
Paul: Okay…
Carl: So, I went up to him…
Paul: Yes…
Carl: And I…I stabbed him 37 times in the chest.
Paul: Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarl, that KILLS people!
Carl: Oh! Well, I didn’t know that!!
What happened to his hands?
It was a special insanguinatory operation.
A better analogy would be that if you had thrust your head so far up Putin’s arse that you could taste the pirozhki, then you too would probably find your mouth constantly full of his shit.
Orban is scum.
So…. When do we get to kick Hungary out of the club?
Well, lets call it an armed robbery, then.
Violent invasion and genocide are good enough, me thinks
Once this is all over and Ukraine still exists, Hungary probably won’t be a friend of Ukraine.
Orban openly has designs on parts of Ukrainian territory. If Russia manages to win, I’m fairly confident that Putin will give some portion of Ukraine to him, which is one of the main reasons he vibes with Putin. Orban wants to try to recreate a modern Austro-Hungarian empire… just like Erdogan wants to recreate a modern Ottoman Empire… just like Putin wants to recreate a modern Tzarist Imperialist Russia.
I think the Russian Empire will not give away expensively conquered land and people to basically a political vassal who is a member in a concurrent political entity and system. Today’s Political Hungary might have powerful aspirations, but it’s current actual power is somewhat limited to a gatekeeper (migration, military aid, energy flows) since Hungary is not a big entity like the USA, Russia, China or the EU as a whole.
I wonder how much the situation would compare to a hypothetical scenario where Texas would hold trade talks with China.
Oh I 100% agree. Orban is a complete imbecile (in general, but also more specifically) if he thinks that Putin is going to give him a single square centimeter of any land, anywhere, at any point in time, under any circumstances. Or, for that matter, if he thinks Putin would even allow his Neo-imperial Austrian-Hungary to even exist.
Putin doesn’t want partners. He wants vassals.
He says no war in Ukraine, but at the same time his propaganda in Hungary says the high inflation is because of the war, the opposition parties would join the war in Ukraine, all the problems in the country, at the moment, are because of the war, not because of him.
Pretending he’s right doesn’t that make it even worse.
What a fucking clown.
What Russia is doing is state operated terrorism. Aka, war.
Well that’s just disingenuous as all fuck.
And England didn’t take India from anyone, because the natives didn’t have a flag.
This has “I’m not touching you” vibes.
