[mhb]

I didn't think the point was that subtle. There is good and evil, right and wrong, survival and destruction. You seem to think that drawing a line around some land and calling yourself a country immunizes you from the moral scrutiny of your neighbors.

While this certainly accords with the promulgations of the morally bankrupt UN, it is not a recipe for existing in our world. This is why it is important to have a powerful military.

[applfanboysbgon]

It is a matter of pragmatism. Even if I myself consider my perspective on good and evil to be objective, it is a given that each of my neighbors will have their own seemingly-objective sense of good and bad that differs from my own. We are then at an impasse. Do I attempt to kill all of my neighbors in order to rid the world of what I perceive to be evil? Or do I perhaps make peace with an imperfect world in which bad things happen in other countries that are not my jurisdiction to worry about? Apparently you subscribe to the "kill all your neighbors" camp, that your objective brand of morality must be enforced on the entire world by means of military might. World conquest, however, is an utterly irrational thing to attempt, and will only lead to death and destruction, not an idealistic world that conforms to your sense of morality.

[mhb]

I don't know what to tell you. You're restating the paradox of tolerance. You should probably come to some philosophical resolution regarding that before you keep digging.

[applfanboysbgon]

What I have said has nothing to do with the paradox of tolerance. I am firmly on the side of not tolerating the intolerant, but stating that, "not tolerating" does not extend to "starting wars in an attempt at world conquest to rid the world of the intolerant".

[mhb]

If "not tolerating the intolerant" is not actionable, it is just mindless rhetoric.

[applfanboysbgon]

It is actionable. That action is simply not "world conquest", jesus fucking christ. Is America itself a society in which the intolerant have no power? No, it is not. Maybe first it could think about clearing things up in its own borders before trying to use that excuse to invade the whole goddamn world. Indeed it is the intolerant who currently have power in the US. You seem to be projecting your own desire for invading Iran, which is completely incompatible with the people in power's actual reason for invading Iran. They are not invading Iran to make life better for Iranians. But you believe invading Iran to make life better for Iranians is justified, so you lend your support to the current administration, even though that is explicitly not what is going to happen as a result of your support. You are, in short, a useful idiot[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot

[trimethylpurine]

Regardless of why we're there, did you want to keep Khameini in power while he coordinates terror? What is your solution for that?