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Comment by johngladtj | Hacker News Reader

Promoting peace and democracy? By arresting politicians opposed to them and funding and supporting wars?

I guess you're referring to the Romanian candidate which was found to have millions of euros and tickets to Russia.

Yes, protecting democracy and peace also includes punishing those who put at risk the existence of peace and democracy.

For the war part, it kinda tickles your butt having a war on your neighbor's garden, I see nothing wrong with supporting such a war (on Ukraine side's, of course)

>I guess you're referring to the Romanian candidate which was found to have millions of euros and tickets to Russia.

You mean just like politicians from Austria and Germany who were Putin's lobbying arm in Europe, then took jobs at Russian oil and gas companies when their political careers ended? Why didn't they get arrested too?

>Yes, protecting democracy and peace also includes punishing those who put at risk the existence of peace and democracy.

And who gets to decides who are those "violators of democracy" when they're popular with the voters? The current corrupt Romanian government with vested interest to stay in power and keep competitors away from challenging the status quo? Because in the case of Georgescu the intelligence agencies making the claims about his connections to Russia have not provided no such evidence to the public. So how do you know that their assessment is truthful? Because the government would never ever lie to you right? Right? Sorry, but "trust me bro, he's guilty" from the Romanian authorities doesn't fly with me. Otherwise JD Vance wouldn't have pointed it out if he were a Russian trojan horse.

>For the war part, it kinda tickles your butt having a war on your neighbor's garden, I see nothing wrong with supporting such a war (on Ukraine side's, of course)

I have a problem when the war gets too expensive and no progress gets made. Biden and EU kept doing this for 3 years already. We're just funneling endless taxpayer money into a black hole at this point while more Ukrainians keep dying. Ending this conflict peacefully ASAP through negotiations and concessions is the way to go. This isn't fighting Gaza or Iraq. You can't win a conflict against a nuclear superpower via conventional means.

I would be fine with having corrupt politicians arrested in Germany, too, if they were found guilty of corruption, I do not see why they should be exempt

I do not believe for an instant than the roman salute making roman candidate isn't a Russian asset, given his salute shows support for other Russian friendly politicians currently sitting at the white house.

Regarding the war, AFAIK Ukrainians would rather be in the conditions to continue fighting than to surrender and sign an unfair peace agreement. I would have no issues with rearming Europe if it meant that, as proposed, we would get a better pipeline for European weapons procurement. Having basically stopped the advance of Russia is a huge win on its own, given that it was supposed to be one of the most powerful armies in the world. Shrugging this off as "no progress" is unjust to the taxpayers as well to the Ukrainians

You're not arguing in good faith using logic , proof and reason, you're deflecting my questions using optics and biases, so i will end the conversation here.

Reason is when Russian puppets get elected due to external interference

Where's the proof they were Russian puppets?

Yes of course. After all what could be more undemocratic than, let me check, "voting to change your countries foreign policy"

Pro-tip: if your democracy doesn't support changing course on foreign policy engagements, you're not a democracy

There's a stark difference between voting to change your countries foreign policy and an enemy state interference in the affairs in the country.

The Romanian candidate said he had spent nothing for the campaign, but that is not true given the recent developments, and these donations were part of the decision to abort the election results

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/12/04/declassified-r...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accusations_of_Russian_inter...

Maybe be specific, are there any specific wars you find undemocratic. Afganistan and Iraq was heavily debated, the attack on Ukraine is seen as an attack on Europe but is also heavily debated.

> Afganistan and Iraq was heavily debated

Also, not European wars. In particular, only two European countries participated in Iraq.

UK, Poland and Ukraine, two of them are not in EU now.

The favorite russian playbook, framing people who support Ukraine's right to self defense in face of a genocidal invasion as warmongers.

EU security == Ukraine security.

Assuming you are not from Ukraine, how much of your paycheck are you willing to sacrifice for the support for Ukraine, like indefinitely?

I am willing to give 1% indefinitely (that's how much I currently donate monthly) until Ukraine is a free nation.

Fair enough. I suppose it is your decision to donate 1%.

But would you like your president to make that decision for you? Would it be okay with it you if they asked you to sacrifice like 60% of your pay towards this cause, that too indefinitely?

It's a donation towards the greater good of Europe, so up to a certain amount I am absolutely for it. I have no say in taxation in the first place (well, indirectly through voting, but you know what I mean).

60% is excessive though, and would make it impossible for people to pay bills. That's detrimental for the future of Europe :)

Ok, now let us also take into account that as this conflict continue, the chance of a nuclear escalation goes up, day by day.

Would you still support to fund this and make this conflict go on and on, possibly until someone becomes so desperate that they do something stupid?

Russia won't ever use a nuke, because then India and China are not going to support them again ever. I am not scared a single bit of any nuclear saber rattling. The biggest threat is an uncontested russia.

Half of the sons, daughters, and mistresses of Russian leadership and their plutocratic friends enjoy vacationing or living in western Europe, so they will probably replace Putin with somebody else or let Russia lose and run away with their pockets full of money before letting any nuke fly.

Yes, I would stand up to a bully. Would you?

Here is some "Russian misinformation" for you. Please watch it and come back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOkl2XgZlw0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzgPJeYZaOU

Lemme reuse the same response I give to my antivaxxer and climate change denier friend: If only you would have spent the time watching those videos doing something useful world would be a nicer place.

> But would you like your president to make that decision for you?

Not without a discussion, of course, and I may disagree with the decision after the discussion, but on the whole I have been happy enough with the parliamentary systems where I have lived within Europe that I can say yes to this.

What would upset me and concern me to no end would be if the premiere went rogue and made these decisions unilaterally while ignoring all other branches of the government.

So basically, I think at this point if you support this to go on, then you are really willing to face an all out war that possibly involves your country. So there is a real chance that you won't be able to limit how your pay will be affected. But things could get much worse if some country goes nuclear.

So what I am trying to say is that may be some people are acting from this point of view (which makes a lot of sense to me, if you are realistic), and is actually not unsympathetic to Ukraine.

I'm not able to make sense of what you're saying in this context, I apologise. There's a lot of "this" and "it" with very little clarity regarding what those actually refer to.

"HN discovers the concept of taxes, gets mad about it."

With that kind of argument sewers are also clearly unconscionable, after all they cost money you didn't donate. In that hyperbolic case where the EU throws 60% of it's productivity for the war effort, Ukraine would win in 6 months. That's an absurd amount of equipment, and more importantly with that kind of money you can set up a foreign legion that would vacuum every half-decent soldier without better prospects from Ethiopia to Perú. This will not happen of course, a wartime economy is not necessary to retake the invaded territories. The "WW3 totally gonna happen guys!!!11" is also exasperating, no, nothing is gonna be nuked unless someone attacks Moscow, which also will not happen.

The problem is everyone is forced to donate whether they like it or not. It's not something people get to vote for.

There will never be a perfect direct democracy but a lot of Europe is pretty good on the democracy index. Of course things could always be better and there are always worries of regression but it's been my experience that I've felt decently represented; I've spoken with my representatives, I've felt heard and I've felt that my views were reflected in debates at the highest levels.

> I've felt decently represented

I don't. Unfortunately I don't get a voice.

Why not? I've had direct contact with not only my own representatives on the local, national and European level, but also with members who didn't represent me directly but who nonetheless provided open ears to my issues. I have been able to vote for all three since I turned 18, as well as in various other referenda. Where are you, and what is different about your situation that you are denied this?

Because the parties I support are not left wing or far-left wing. So it gets called Nazis and ignored even though it gets a lot of support, but because it doesn't align with the mainstream narrative of mass media and governments and challenges the existing status quo.

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