Fascinating. So if one state doesn’t recognize another, that means that it “clearly states its aim is to fully annex it.” So for example, the US doesn’t recognize the government of Afghanistan, so that means the US “clearly states” it aims to reinvade and fully annex Afghanistan, do I have that right?

Or maybe you meant to say that Russia implicitly suggested that it intended to fully annex Ukraine, according to your speculation?

they have clearly stated was fully conquering Ukraine?

Source?

The first thing to note is that Buddhism is a broad term that contains a lot of different belief systems. It is also plagued by poor translations of terms that don’t translate well into English, especially without looking meanings of the original terms.

Imo, your friend has distorted and misrepresented Buddhist teachings in order to justify not changing their behavior regarding meat-eating.

I’d challenge the use of the term “deserved” altogether, and I’d say “caused” might be a more accurate interpretation. Karma is not about an intelligent, all-powerful being passing judgement and smacking you down. It’s sometimes referred to as “the law of cause and effect.” It’s described as a function of the universe, the same way that physical laws makes objects fall to the ground when dropped. The exact way in which this works is up to interpretation. More secular-minded Buddhists might point to logical and observable consequences to explain it, while more spiritually-minded ones might argue that it’s more of an invisible, unexplainable force that carries over between lifetimes.

To use an example: a child that is fed a hamburger by their parents does not have knowledge of the animal’s suffering that was required to make it, nor do they have agency to control their diet or to prevent the animal from being harmed. But, an animal is still harmed through the process. The intent and agency of the actor are not important in the same way that it doesn’t matter if a ball on top of a slope is pushed or knocked over. It would only really matter if you’re dealing in terms of judgement.

It is not your responsibility to enforce karma on others. Karma isn’t a positive or negative force, and just because something happens that doesn’t make it good or fair or deserved. Rather, the idea is to navigate the world in such a way that you minimize undesirable consequences. Buddhist precepts are a list of guidelines that are intend to do just that, the precept about nonviolence being the first. The idea is: “Bad things seem to happen a lot when people go around killing living beings so it’s probably better to not do that, generally speaking.”

You are correct that your friend’s interpretation and worldview is a mess of contradictions that could just as easily be used to justify harm to humans, and that they’re blatantly violating the first precept. But I would argue that they’re not accurately representing Buddhist teachings, and their views shouldn’t be held as representative of the belief system, though admittedly, like I said there are a lot of different traditions and beliefs.

Beginning to think the body double conspiracy theorists were right all along.

pennies on the dollar

Psychopathic framing. “Look how efficiently we’re killing people!”

Also great example of conflating states with people. Maybe Ukraine still wants to fight, but Ukrainians are being conscripted against their will. In the same way, wearing Russia down may serve the interests of the US government, but it certainly doesn’t benefit the American people in any way. The best thing for the Ukrainian people would be to stop the killing at any cost, even if it meant territorial concessions. They could’ve saved countless lives if they’d done this from the start, and eventually that’s what’s going to happen anyway, but unfortunately countless people have died and countless more will before the ruling class decides to stop forcing the poor into the meat grinder.

How the fuck is my life supposed to be better because of dead Russian soldiers?

NATO is seeking to take control of decision-making powers on future aid packages — normally led by the US — in an effort to limit the impact of a potential second Donald Trump presidency on the ongoing conflict.

This is wild. It’s bad enough that the US president has the power to start wars wherever he wants with no congressional approval. But now they’re trying to make it so that the only people with the authority to withdraw from a conflict are unelected NATO officials accountable to no one.

Dronies will support this, because they love endless war across the globe and want to remove any potential for popular support to achieve peace.

girls dressing like men

As a transfem in a situation where I frequently have to present as a guy: thanks?

Define your variables. Wtf is “b,” the number of votes candidate B would have, plus one for no reason? Why is candidate T getting t votes and not t-1 votes? Terrible math, try again.

They’re desperately trying to find somewhere full of boomers so the genocide issue doesn’t kill them but there’s no way the Florida boomers choose 99% Hitler if 100% Hitler is on the ballot.

“Wow, the Fire Nation is just like the latest country the news told me to hate, good thing America’s around to Share Our Greatness™️with them!”

Wow this thing’s going crazy over here

Israel doesn’t want to give Palestinians full and equal rights as Israeli citizens. Ukraine likewise doesn’t want to give the people of Donbass full and equal rights as Ukrainian citizens, as evidenced by them banning political parties that were popular there and shelling their cities well before Russia was involved.

What has the Ukrainian government ever done to show that they’re interested in governing the Donbass in the interests of the people living there? What has Israel ever done to show that they’re interested in governing the West Bank in the interests of the people living there? There is no hypocrisy, you’re just not examining the issues beyond a surface level knee jerk reaction.

Exactly. The surgeon general tweeted out, “STOP WEARING MASKS” and CNN was publishing articles with all the anti-masker claims, including that they don’t work and could increase your risk of getting it instead, and people just pretend like it never happened and the anti-maskers came out of thin air.

It wasn’t just an idiotic ploy to deliberately spread misinfo to trick people into leaving masks for doctors, it was also about the government trying to cover their own ass for having sold off their emergency stockpiles for fast cash.

Fahrenheit is the temperature brine feels.

“Gender is what’s in your pants” alright then my gender is death

As the only real leftist on this site, I will be travelling to each state just so I can commit voter fraud in each one and write in “Karl Stalin.”

Because no fighting was happening in Ukraine before the Russians entered the country, right? The war just fell out of a coconut tree?

I don’t immediately remember any particurarily good (liberal, free, non-oppressive, democratic) nations that NATO poses a risk to, however. Perhaps you can refresh my memory.

Liberal, free, non-oppreasive, democratic nations that oppose Western neocolonial interests tend to get coup’ed by the CIA and replaced with pro-Western fascists. Countries that do survive, like for instance Cuba, have their name dragged through the mud by an enormous propaganda machine - which also whitewashes or conveniently forgets the crushing of the leftist projects that don’t survive.

There are countless examples throughout history, but my go-to is Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran, in the 50’s. No doubt the line will be that “that was a long time ago so it doesn’t count,” but the CIA covered up their involvement for decades, and if I picked a more modern example you’d likely either deny involvement or say that the government deserved it.

Iran suffered under British colonialism for decades. In the 1800’s, the shahs signed all sorts of deals selling out the country at absurdly bad rates and no expiration, to fund their exorbitant lifestyles. A large scale popular movement ousted them, but the agreements remained, and a new dynasty took power with British support, and the exploitation continued. Britain secured enormous profit and wealth through Iranian oil while falsifying records to pay virtually nothing for it while the Iranians lived in abject poverty. For decades the Iranians sought a diplomatic resolution and we’re completely stonewalled.

Finally, another popular movement caused the shah to appoint Mossadegh as PM (a position that had previously been hand-picked by the British). Mossadegh nationalized the oil industry to enormous popular support, but the British responded with a blockade, and offered Eisenhower support in Korea and in forming NATO in exchange for having the CIA oust Mossadegh (an offer Truman had dismissed in disgust, as this was the first case of CIA involvement of regime change).

Mossadegh, like many Iranians at the time, saw their struggle as being only against the British and trusted the US to uphold the values it preached and saw it as a potential friend. The CIA took over every newspaper in the country and started publishing anti-government propaganda nonstop. They hired false flag protesters, who claimed to support the government and then wrecked shit (as well as hiring protesters to march against the government). Politicians, vote counters, religious leaders, journalists, anyone with an ounce of power was getting bribed by the CIA. Mossadegh believed that these were genuine and legitimate expressions of dissent and did nothing to crack down. Finally, a US diplomat told him a made-up sob story about people at the embassy getting death threats from his supporters and threatened to close it, and Mossadegh got on the radio and told his supporters to stand down and stay home - the next day, the CIA launched a coup that ousted him from power.

What followed was the restoration of the shah’s power, which included hunting down leftists with secret police, banning traditional religious garb to make the country appear more Western, and of course the continued exploitation of Iranian oil, the proceeds of which went straight to the king’s bank account. When the Iranian Revolution of 1973 happened, decade of political repression of the left allowed the Islamic fundamentalists to be the ones that took power, and the US allowed the shah to flee there which outraged the Iranians, considering that he had previously been installed by them.

I could tell you the same story over and over again about countries all around the globe. Many nations had resources stolen from them via violence and colonialism and these resources remain in the hands of the people who took them, and anyone who attempts to reassert control over their own resources is putting themselves in the crosshairs of the the US and NATO, whether through sanctions, seizing assets, CIA backed coups, or overt military aggression. But all they have to do is cover up the truth or present a bullshit justification, and by the time it falls apart it’ll be too late to do anything about it, it’ll have faded from the public consciousness, and people will assert, without reason or evidence, that “they don’t do that anymore” dispite having clear means and motive to and never having faced any sort of punishment for it. Meanwhile the historical examples can continue to be used to intimidate countries outside of the imperial core who don’t have goldfish memories, and understand that they could be next. So they either comply with neocolonial exploitation, or they take measures to prevent CIA infiltration, which then gets them derided as “authoritarian” by people like you - and if they do neither of these things, then they get coup’ed and replaced by a fascist.

That said, if people who haven’t harmed anyone are being imprisoned solely because of their beliefs, regardless of how poorly informed those beliefs are - which this New York Times article discusses - then it’s fair to criticize the state for those actions.

“Haven’t harmed anyone” - antivax conspiracy theories have led to the reemergence of all sorts of diseases, so that’s already one reason already. But moreover, allowing CIA-backed organizations to operate in a socialist country is a recipe for disaster, and there have been countless cases of leftist projects that were defeated after failing to take the necessary steps to stop the CIA from operating with impunity and installing a fascist. Look at Mohammad Mossadegh of Iran and the CIA coup in the 50’s if you want an example of what happens when you go against Western interests and refuse to crack down on foreign subversion because of your principles. Rule number 1 of good policy - you can’t do good policy if you’re not in power. If a policy results in fascists coming to power, then it’s not good policy.

I’m not fully convinced one way or the other, but the arguments were compelling enough for several major governments to speak out against it and pass laws in response.

“Several major governments” will speak out about any random bullshit that makes China look bad. They’re the ones who come up with it in the first place!

I’ve also been unable to find rebuttals to the specific evidence. As a contrast, the World Trade Center “jet fuel can’t melt steel beams so it must have been an inside job” conspiracy theories prompted government investigations and a ton of debunking articles that I can easily find via a web search.

Not exactly shocking that there’s more articles debunking a claim that makes the US government look bad than there are debunking a claim that makes the Chinese government look bad.

Inference involves making a conclusion by taking evidence and applying logic and reasoning. Not sure why you think that’s “made up.”

Now you’re just being a debatebro. Inference is a lower standard of evidence than hard proof. You obviously know this. Given the clear incentives people have to cast China in a bad light and to always assume the worst, and given a track record of made up bullshit in that regard, “inference” from these people is worth less than dogshit.

Let’s say I’m at work and my lunch goes missing. If I think that one of my coworkers is the type of person who might steal my lunch, then I might infer that they probably did that. But let’s say that any time anything goes wrong, or even when nothing goes wrong, I accuse that coworker of random bullshit that never turns out to be true. At what point do you start saying my so-called “inferences” about this person are just “made up?”

Tribunal:

What Tribunal? What organization was involved, why are they an authority on the topic? Let’s see, the full name of that Tribunal was:

“The Independent Tribunal Into Forced Organ Harvesting of Prisoners of Conscience in China,” known as the China Tribunal,[66] was initiated in 2018[67] by the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China."

I wonder what the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China is going to determine about whether transplant abuse is happening in China? Say, who’s on this, anyway?

The China Tribunal was initiated by the charity ETAC, of which “a minority of its committee members are Falun Gong practitioners”.[3]

Who would’ve guessed?

One man, Wang Xiaohua, was imprisoned in a labor camp in Yunnan in 2001 when he and twenty other Falun Gong detainees

Another source that’s just “Falun Gong says this.”

Israeli authorities arrested several men involved in mediating transplants of Chinese prisoners’ organs for Israelis. One of the men had stated in an undercover interview that the organs came from “people who oppose the regime, those sentenced to death and from prisoners of the Falun Gong.”

Source is a book I don’t have access to.