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Originally Posted by verme (prevaricator)

I do prefer audio yeah. Something I can play in the background while working. Does that make sense to you?

And I would listen, but Carl Bildt? A warmonger and possibly a war criminal, I think I don't have to guess too hard what I'll hear from him.

yeah yeah i do listen to stuff when im free to relax, i like some guy that does military history videos with cheap animations, i forget his name right now. also stuff like this, i was familiar with maerscheimer from his video lectures on israel actually, which is a subject i know more about, and i agree more with him there

anyway i HAVE TO say this before going on: it's funny that you claim to be a conservative free speech absolutist (lol no you didnt, im just joshing, but you know), and this is like the 3rd time you say that something is beyond discussion or beyond listening or beyond the overton window or beyond whatever. beyond meat! (i prefer a real burger).

(my objection to tulsi is just that she's fucking boring! oy...)

anyway this was a good debate and i can see both of their perspectives, and as much as i continue to agree a lot with maerscheimer it's also refreshing to hear him be told you're dreaming i was there and you're the only one who thinks like that, hahaha. because sure, maerscheimer is an academic, he trades in ideas and does not operate in the practical sphere, and his ideas are good for sure but all ideas need checking

one thing that emerges from their discussion for me is that maerscheimer does not consider the other side evil or ill intentioned, but rather disagrees with them in philosophical or strategic terms. he even says they have good intentions etc but their good intentions don't work. which is not what the paranoids claim

another thing that gets my attention is he keeps talking about how russia only got aggressive in 2014 but where is the whole georgia and south ossetia mess of 2008?

also: it was refreshing to hear a reminder of all the thuggery and mafia export of russia before this, the assassinations and repression, the corruption, and how eastern europe flocked willingly towards europe and the west. bildt is correct that nobody "forced them" or "made them" like you hear maerscheimer and sachs claim in their duetto, that the orange revolution was all some american ploy, lol. maerschimer is not immune to the american delusion that everything revolves around them

anyway i can see the disagreements here in schools of thought and approaches, but i think it's wrong to misuse maerscheimer to score "anti biden" points when his administration acted with integrity within their strategic parameters. which okay maybe they were mistaken strategic parameters, but they have been longstanding nato, european, and american foreign policy parameters, not the random caprices of an improviser and a huckster

but anyway we got the huckster now, we'll see what happens