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Comment by bluecalm | Hacker News Reader

>>You don't need to have access to super-secret intel to know going into this frivolous war was a very stupid idea. You just need to look at a standard map and use your brain.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte disagrees with your assessment: https://x.com/clashreport/status/2102671513337856357

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> NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte

Would that be the same Mark Rutte who referred to Trump as "daddy" during an alliance summit and sent him a flattering text message which Trump published[1] ?

Yeah. Erm. I think we know what side of the bread Mr Rutte butters his toast on.

[1] https://apnews.com/article/trump-rutte-text-message-nato-sig...

What's the point of this comment? "Somebody disagrees with you"? We know.

> What's the point of this comment? "Somebody disagrees with you"?

I'm perfectly open to people posting opposing points of view as long as they are made from an independent mindset perspective.

Don't just post a pro-war view from a man who we know is pro-Trump.

Its a bit like saying JD Vance disagrees with me. Well duh....

The is not "somebody" but the NATO Secretary General. It's a good counterpoint to "anybody with a brain can see..." point.

>>Don't just post a pro-war view from a man who we know is pro-Trump.

If you are going to discard people who are pro-someone you don't like then you end up with a recipe for an echo-chamber.

Look up the paradox of tolerance. The tolerant should tolerate everyone except the intolerant. Trump and his cronies are clearly intolerant. Same reason you can’t let the neo-nazis hang out in your bar. They ruin it for everyone else.

“It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brain falls out.” — Carl Sagan

Some of the smartest, honest and hard working people I know supported and voted for Trump. We will see how history judges him as a president. My point is not that we should tolerate him out of principle but that you should try to understand his policies and the reason people voted for him twice. A lot of his policies enjoy majority support today as well and most of them are not straight up moronic as HN crowd would like you to believe.

Here we have NATO Secretary General and people are dismissing his opinion because "quote from random guy supporting Trump doesn't count". It's just ideological blindness/insanity at this point.

>>Trump and his cronies are clearly intolerant.

Well for one Trump ended a lot of racist policies of the previous administration so there is that. In some areas he is way more tolerant and sensible than what US had before.

Rutte being NATO Secretary General says more about that position than it does about Rutte. He is a serial liar, lacks any conviction or personal moral compass, and sees politics mostly as a professional career meta-game detached from society.

We've been trying to understand for 11 years now! Our lack of understanding does not come from a lack of trying.

"Someone you don't like" is a bad way to describe it. It's not about disliking Trump (although I dislike the guy plenty). It's about the fact that he is, to quote his former Secretary of State, a fucking moron.

There are smart people I dislike. If someone supports them then I might look askance at that, but at least I can accept that this support might be based on that person's ability to think. Our disagreement is probably based on different values or different understandings of things, and that's useful to dig into.

When someone supports a profoundly stupid person, it's different. It's either a failure of judgment or it's a cynical ploy. Either way, there isn't a lot to be gained from analyzing the situation.

Although I support the idea that Rutte likely possesses a brain, I don't think he's a sensible example as an 'outside view' that tolerates Trump.

Put differently, I don't think a NATO can exist where the Sec. Gen. disagrees fundamentally with Trump. If that were to happen, NATO would simply cease to exist.

This is why its a bad example.

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