*Breaks the law

*Is convicted

*Refuses to pay fines

*Stops receiving funds

*shockedpikachu.jpg

At this point I really can’t understand what is driving Orban anymore. He obviously must have known this would happen, and is likely doing it on purpose so that he can point at the EU as the “bad guy” back home, but like… what does he gain from this? Isn’t it better to just get a shitload of free money from the EU that you can funnel to your friends and family than to not do that? If he legitimately dislikes the EU he can just leave.

Maybe he’s just sticking around as long as he can grab cash? It kind of seems like he’s going for the “see how far you can push it before you’re kicked out” play. Essentially trying to find out how much of an obstructing, law-breaking, corrupt asshole he has to be before the rest of the EU finally has enough and kicks him out, at which point he can peace out to some safe-haven (I’ve heard there are spare rooms in some of Putins palaces).

Well it’ll still be climate change, just a more abrupt one.

Looking up “historic” election victories for the German far-right

I think it’s horrible to see what the Taliban government is doing to oppress the people of Afghanistan. I’m also surprised that so few people of Afghanistan showed any real will to prevent Taliban from taking power. They had 20 years to prepare, with ample support and loads of equipment from NATO and others, and when the foreign forces left they just … capitulated.

It’s baffling to me that seemingly nobody was willing to fight to prevent this. Thousands of people were at the airport during the last evacuations, and I vividly remember videos of people holding on to cargo planes that were taking off in an effort to get out of the country. Lots of people clearly knew it was going to get bad, but seemingly nobody was willing to fight to prevent it. I honestly have a hard time understanding how that happened.

Let them use the ATACMS too.

The currently most viable counter to artillery in Ukraine today appears to be either fpv drones, which have relatively short range and limited payloads, or counter-battery radar + artillery, which exposes your artillery by putting it in range of enemy artillery.

Ukraine typically has more accurate artillery than Russia, and seems to win more artillery duels, but of course still has an issue because of Russias huge volume of guns.

Targeting the drone operators is definitely something both sides do- they were considered priority targets last time I heard someone mention it. The issue, as someone else pointed out, is locating and hitting a small, highly mobile person or group that can operate from behind cover and concealment. That turns out to be pretty hard. Just consider that an infantryman’s primary survival strategy is “stay hidden when you can, covered when you can, and move as fast as possible when exposed”, and that drone operators are doing exactly that, while also not needing to stick their head out to be effective.

The issue with cruise missiles and bombers as a response to artillery fire is the response time and air defences.

A cruise missile launched from well within Russia takes long enough to reach the target that mobile artillery has sufficient time to get out. You also need a significant amount of missiles if you want to get any through the air defences.

Bombers struggle to get in range for conventional bombs without being shot down. They also have the issue of response time.

Cruise missiles and bombers are more suited to rather stationary targets, like a command Center, FOB, strongpoint or trench system.

No they’re not. Go read the actual article classifying them.

Also stop moving the goalposts. Fin whale catching has been heavily regulated, even in countries that still permit whaling (go read the source you linked in your other comment). You can’t start with “Whales [in general] are endangered, and are being hunted for food” and jump to “This specific specific whale that is very heavily regulated, also by countries that permit whaling, is not quite endangered but vulnerable”, and act like you have a counter argument to anything.

What you’re running here is a masterclass in bad faith arguing: Moving goalposts, mis-citing sources, and jumping from bastion to bastion. All while nobody has even disagreed with your major opinion (whales shouldn’t be hunted) but just pointed out that what you’re saying is factually wrong.

Come on… you’re even linking the sources yourself at this point, just take some time to read them.

First of all, you explicitly stated “endangered”, while the source you’re linking says “vulnerable”, which is a category specifically made for species that are threatened but not endangered.

Secondly, the source states that Japan has no reported fin whale catchings since 2019.

Finally: You can’t accuse me of cherry-picking when you’ve stated that “Whales [in general] are endangered”, and I respond with sources stating that seven of the most commonly hunted species are “least concern”, when you then cherry pick an example of one species that is heavily regulated, even by the countries that permit any catch at all, and that species isn’t even endangered but vulnerable. What you’re doing is pretty much the definition of cherry picking: Finding a single example that almost supports the claim you’re making.

You’re free to argue that you don’t like the idea of people eating whales. I’ll leave it to you to explain why. What I won’t let stand unopposed is when you’re basing your argument on disinformation, and back-tracking or moving the goalposts when confronted.

Just yell “save the whales” and be done with it. And stop acting like it’s based on some objective fact that doesn’t apply to every other animal that’s hunted for food. It’s not- it’s a sentimental thing, and that’s completely fine, just be honest about it.

Note that I have not once in this thread defended whaling, or the hunting of endangered species. All I’ve done is point out that you’re spreading falsehoods to make it seem like what is in essence a sentimentally based opinion has backing in facts.

What whales? No whale of any kind had anything to do with Denmark signing an extradition treaty with Japan or with Denmark arresting someone who’s wanted for committing a crime, which is what the comment was about.

Did you respond to the wrong comment?

Let’s take a look at what the actual facts say about the conservation status of some of most commonly hunted species that are regulated under international whaling conventions:

• least concern
• least concern
• least concern
• least concern
• least concern
• least concern
• least concern

Go on, back-track some more, I can’t wait to watch.

Or, you know, make your argument that you don’t think people should eat whales without relying on either being uninformed or knowingly spreading disinformation. You don’t really have an excuse here: You’re very clearly just stating falsehoods as if they were fact and building your non-existent argument on that. You can do better.

If you have an extradition treaty with someone, you can typically arrest people if they’ve been charged for something in the country you have a deal with, even if they haven’t violated your laws.

Regardless: What the person is charged with is unrelated to them being a whaling activist as far as I can tell, but to them causing harm while acting as an activist, which I suppose is also a crime in Denmark.

It does not violate international law. It’s specifically regulated by an international treaty that some countries are part to. Don’t go around spreading disinformation, it’s a bad look.

That’s why we have the Bill of Rights: it’s meant to stop people from simply saying “the government needs this power so we’re going to give it that power.” It isn’t about creating rights, it’s about recognizing and protecting rights that have existed all along.

This is kind of a contradiction. What the bill of rights does is exactly to codify certain rights into law. There are a bunch of things considered a right today which aren’t written into the bill of rights, and there are things codified in there that a lot of people don’t consider to be “natural and universal human rights”. Something doesn’t become morally right by being written in the bill of rights, it just becomes a legal right. And of course, the US government can in some hypothetical scenario throw out the whole constitution and write a new one, making a whole new set of legal rights.

Of course, the above hypothetical changes nothing regarding what is considered morally correct, it just changes what rights are codified into law. In fact, the bill of rights is explicit in pointing out that what should be considered a right can change over time, and several of its clauses are therefore open to interpretation.

The whole “recognizing that right X exists outside the legal system” kind of falls apart when you look at the details. For example:

The Seventh Amendment guarantees jury trials in federal civil cases that deal with claims of more than twenty dollars.

This is not something that was ordained from above and has always applied to every living person. It’s a right the government has decided to give you. You can agree or disagree with it, but it’s a right every american citizen has nevertheless. In other countries people have a right to housing, sick leave from work, or a certain number of vacation days per year. Those are rights that the american government has decided to not grant its citizens. Again, you can agree or disagree with that decision, but the fact remains that american citizens do not have those rights. Whether any of those rights in some sense “existed all along” (even though a lot of people don’t have them) is a purely hypothetical question. The question with practical consequence is which rights should be codified into law.

The last sentence in every chapter of the Russian history book:

And then it got worse.

You seem to be missing a key part here: I can disagree with the government. It also appears that you are confusing the concept of rights in a legal sense, and the moral sense.

If the government can decide what rights there are, then anything they do is morally correct?

Obviously not. The decisions of the government are based on what some majority wants (in a democracy, in an authoritarian state it doesn’t even need to be that). The fact that a majority of those in power decide something does not make it morally right. I don’t understand how that is a difficult concept to grasp?

Until relatively recently, same-sex marriages were not allowed. Gay people did not have the right to marry who they wanted. This was decided by the government. Me recognising that as historical fact does not mean I think it was morally justified to prevent people from marrying who they wanted.

Also today, we have laws granting or restricting peoples rights that the government is free to change. I do not think that the current state of our laws is the end-all-be-all of morality, and neither does my government, which is part of the reason why laws are constantly changing.

You’re making a jump here that I have a hard time believing you’re making in good faith…

Saying “The government makes the laws and decides what rights people have” is just miles away from saying “the government is justified in making whatever laws it pleases.”

Yes: the Nazis were in power, and took away peoples rights. Me recognising that that’s how governments work does not mean I support the actions of that government or think they are morally justified in doing what they did… obviously.

Al lot of the same properties as a mine field. An unobserved mine field is quite quickly passed through. The issue primarily arises when you need to clear a mine field while under fire.

Combine them with ditches, barbed wire, possibly mines, and have forward observers directing fire on anyone trying to break through, and they’re a real PITA for attacking forces.

Essentially, they give just a couple forward observers the power to hold up an attacking force for quite some time while reinforcements arrive, at which point you’ve lost whatever advantage of manpower or surprise you had when attacking.

Last I checked it looked like they had breached some major lines of defence, which means they may be past the worst of minefields etc. If they have room to manoeuvre for real by the time the russians send more forces the russians are going to have a real bad time trying to respond to this.

Idk, ever since it showed up I’ve been wondering why people downvote it so hard. My current hypothesis is that most people think it’s superfluous and just want it to be at the bottom of the comments.