this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2023
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis defended his call to ban pro-Palestinian groups from Florida state colleges Sunday, after one of his Republican presidential primary opponents, Vivek Ramaswamy, slammed the demand as “a shameful political ploy.”

“It’s unconstitutional. It’s utter hypocrisy for someone who railed against left-wing cancel culture,” Ramaswamy posted on X (formerly Twitter) Thursday, alleging that it violates students’ right to free speech.

DeSantis held firm Sunday.

“This is not cancel culture. This group, they themselves said, in the aftermath of the Hamas attack, that they don’t just stand in solidarity that they are part of this Hamas movement,” DeSantis said during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

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[–] PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works 7 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Hate this absolute ghoul as well. Fuck Hamas.

[–] Thief_of_Crows@sh.itjust.works -4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

So you think Palestine should just let themselves get genocided?

[–] Viper_NZ@lemmy.nz 13 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Hamas represent Palestinians like the KKK represent people from Tennessee. Some people support them, most don’t.

It’s possible to support Palestinians while denouncing Hamas as murdering terrorist wankers.

It’s equally possible to support Israelis and Jews while finding the actions of the Israeli government reprehensible.

[–] Thief_of_Crows@sh.itjust.works -3 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Hamas is the only group meaningfully defending Palestine from the attempted genocide. Not at all like the KKK. They would only be like the KKK if they were doing it unprovoked. Palestine has a right to defend itself against genocide, and the only way that seems to work in Israel's eyes is killing Israelis. Peace is not a language that genocidal states understand.

[–] Viper_NZ@lemmy.nz 5 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Hamas is the only group meaningfully defending Palestine from the attempted genocide. Not at all like the KKK. They would only be like the KKK if they were doing it unprovoked. Palestine has a right to defend itself against genocide, and the only way that seems to work in Israel’s eyes is killing Israelis. Peace is not a language that genocidal states understand.

Hamas directly provoked the current outbreak in violence by murdering over 1,400 Israelis. Mostly civilians, and many of them elderly and children. They took 120 hostages.

Hamas aren't freedom fighters - they're terrorists.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

But who provoked that provocation. Israel had killed 22.4x as many Palestinians than Israelis had been killed by 2020. To act like it was unprovoked is pretty dumb. You can argue about the effectiveness and morality all you want, but don't act like nothing led to it.

[–] Viper_NZ@lemmy.nz 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Who’s says it wasn’t provoked?

Intentionally murdering civilians is still terrorism. It’s wrong when Israel does it, it’s wrong when Hamas does it.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

The implication from your statement is Hamas provoked the attack through an unprovoked action. It's implied that you're justifying Israel's genocide because Hamas provoked them. However, Hamas was provoked as well. Is their attack justified?

[–] jj4211@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

Considering he said "It's wrong when Israel does it", it doesn't sound like he is justifying Israel's genocide.

If Hamas were attacking IDF facilities, ok, that would seem to be a desperate move that could be seen as provoked. I could perhaps understand that approach.

Hamas instead striking innocent civilians cannot be condoned.

Neither can we condone Israel going scorched earth without regard for collateral damage. We should be sick to our stomachs every time an Israeli representative responds to a question about mitigating civilian casualties with "It is simply imperative that Hamas be destroyed" clearly showing they are perfectly fine with Palestinian casualties.

We can recognize that both sides are culpable for their actions. We can recognize several opportunities for peace that have cropped up, but failed to some key extremist Zionist or Palestinian keeping it from happening.

So sick and tired of folks that need to see one side or the other as unambiguously justified when ESH.

[–] Viper_NZ@lemmy.nz 2 points 10 months ago

You’re reading a lot into what I said that isn’t there.

Israel isn’t justified. Hamas isn’t justified. They’re both murderous bastards and civilians, both Israeli and Palestinian, are being killed.

[–] Thief_of_Crows@sh.itjust.works 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

So what should Palestine have done, just rolled over and let them continue slaughtering them?

[–] Viper_NZ@lemmy.nz 3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

The real slaughter started after Hamas murdered a thousand civilians.

How can you justify killing innocents to achieve a political goal?

[–] Thief_of_Crows@sh.itjust.works 0 points 10 months ago

Oh, do palestinian lives not matter or not count? Or are you really so stupid you believe all Israeli propaganda? Because reality is that the "real slaughter" started decades ago, and has been done entirely by Israel.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip -1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I don't know how you can justify it. Ask Israel. They have killed dozens of Palestinians for every Israeli killed prior to this attack. I wonder what we're up to now...

[–] Viper_NZ@lemmy.nz 3 points 10 months ago

You can’t. Israel don’t have the moral high ground here.

The slaughter of one group provides no moral justification for murdering another.

[–] Thief_of_Crows@sh.itjust.works 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

No, Israel provoked that attack by committing 30 years of war crimes on Gaza, and attempting to steal all of their land. What exactly would YOU have done in reaction to an enemy intentionally starving your people for 30 years? I know that compared to how America would have reacted, Hamas is a full on pacifist

[–] Viper_NZ@lemmy.nz 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

NOT murder civilians, including children and babies?

There’s no justification for murdering innocents, no matter who does it.

[–] yuriy@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

i like to believe they’re still trying to type up a response that justifies killing civilians without actually saying it outright

[–] Thief_of_Crows@sh.itjust.works 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Nope, killing Israeli civilians is justified. Ideally they kill soldiers, but any Israeli they find is good. Remember, the IDF has compulsory service. So all of them are guilty of the genocide. But a better reason is that, since the US made them overwhelmingly powerful, it would be absurd to expect Gaza to fight back along traditional lines of warfare. Whatever they are capable of doing to hurt the people genociding them is justified.

[–] Thief_of_Crows@sh.itjust.works 0 points 10 months ago

Israel will not respond to peace. If they don't kill every Israeli they can, Israel will genocide them. It is downright absurd to suggest Gaza is beholden to any traditional rules of warfare in the face of genocide.

[–] PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Oh, is that what Hamas is doing? Preventing genocide?

[–] Thief_of_Crows@sh.itjust.works -3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

To a degree, yes. The only reason Israel hasn't invaded Gaza full force already is that Gazans have Hamas as a credible threat. Obviously not enough Israelis have been killed yet to fully end the genocide, but Hamas is forcing Israel to think twice.

[–] yuriy@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Obviously not enough Israelis have been killed yet to fully end the genocide

listen to yourself, this is abhorrent.

[–] Thief_of_Crows@sh.itjust.works 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Killing genociders is good, actually.

[–] yuriy@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Hand-wavey justifications are so in right now.

[–] Thief_of_Crows@sh.itjust.works 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Not a justification. If a country is committing genocide, it is good to kill them. Period.

[–] yuriy@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

“It’s not a justification, I’m just saying they’re in the right for this reason.”

Do you know what the word “justification” means? Are you arguing based on some specific meaning that only you know about? I feel like I’m being gaslit, next you’re gonna say that you never said killing civilians indiscriminately was a good thing.

[–] Thief_of_Crows@sh.itjust.works 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yes, I am not justifying it because it does not need to be justified. It is always good to kill genocidal people. I don't think I said that killing civilians is good, just that it's necessary. When they make it us or them, it is morally correct to choose yourself.

[–] yuriy@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You can say that’s not what you’re doing all the live-long day, my guy, it doesn’t change the fact that what you’re LITERALLY DOING is providing justification. Just because you believe it’s an objective truth, given you can’t even consider the idea you may be wrong, doesn’t just make it objectively true.

[–] Thief_of_Crows@sh.itjust.works -1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Bro, I'm an American who supports Palestine, you really think I haven't considered that I might be wrong? That's the entire reason I know I'm right, because I discovered that all of the propaganda I grew up seeing on the news was wrong.

In 1940s Germany, the only good German was a dead German. The same is true now for Israel. If the term "Never Again" means ANYTHING to you, you support killing as many Israelis as necessary to prevent a second holocaust.

[–] yuriy@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

this just in, we’re in a complete socioeconomic and political analogue of the 1940s and it only took one very smart, propaganda-immune american to see it. have fun being radicalized.

[–] Thief_of_Crows@sh.itjust.works 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

This is a very weird thing to say, because obviously there is such a thing as truth. Which means it's entirely possible I understand the truth. But you're acting as if I couldn't possibly have simply studied politics long enough to know what the truth is.

Most issues have a correct answer, and you either agree with it or you're wrong. I suggest you spend more time trying to be correct, and less trying to be right.

[–] yuriy@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

I’m done trying to take you seriously. Go be enlightened somewhere else, you intellectual, you.

[–] jj4211@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Israel's reluctance to just full on destroy Gaza is not because they were afraid of Hamas, it was because they knew that they would be judged and treated unambiguously as 'the bad guys'. It seems like October 7th was a gift to Israeli government itching for a justification to just go all in.

Your logic would have been that Israel would have been scared off by the October 7th, but they instead decided they were fully justified to inflict as much Palestinian collateral damage as it takes to eliminate Hamas. It seems Israel will be happy if Gaza is nothing more than a smoldering crater by the end of it, and declare itself justified in response to the Hamas attack.

So no, Hamas has done nothing to prevent genocide and if anything has helped contribute to the possibility of it happening. IDF is still be directly wholly responsible for their actions, but it seems their hands were at least somewhat politically tied before.

[–] Thief_of_Crows@sh.itjust.works -1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

So you would say Palestine should have just rolled over and accepted the genocide? STFU, that's a disgusting view on society. You sound like you only care about preserving the status quo.

[–] jj4211@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

No, they shouldn't just accept the oppression. However I was saying that Hamas is not, in fact, staying Israel's hand. Current events make that blatantly self-evident. As bad as Israel was before, it was nothing compared to their retribution for Hamas attack now.

Israel wasn't holding back out of fear of Hamas, Israel was holding back due to: -Trying to achieve their goals without as obviously looking like the bad guy. They think Hamas attack gives them a free pass, so they are taking it. -Conflicts among their government. At times the hardcore Zionists are steering things, but not always and even while steering they face opposition that disagree with them. Again, it's hard for the reasonable voices to speak up now without being perceived as pro-Hamas (USA had this same phenomenon after 9/11, where any concern about broad anti-Islamic hatred was perceived as being "with the terrorists").

They certainly shouldn't have to put up with Israel's treatment, and I will confess I don't know what can work. I've heard tell of several occurrences where the right answer seemed to be just in reach before some extremist Zionist or Palestinian tanked the whole thing. However, the Hamas approach is evil, vile and even demonstrably ineffective at keeping Israel from inflicting harm on Palestinians.

[–] Thief_of_Crows@sh.itjust.works -1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I would assume that the extremist palestinian or Zionist you heard of was Israeli propaganda. IMO, the only reasonable voices are the pro Hamas ones. Imagine if Jews had had a group like Hamas in 1939. Don't you think the Holocaust would have been significantly less bad if a group of Jews had been able to effectively terrorize the Nazis? In 1939-1945, the only good German was a dead German. I don't see why it should be different now.

[–] jj4211@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Israeli propaganda would blame Zionists? That would be an odd stance. I refer to various documented peace talks. A very obvious one was when a Jewish nationalist assassinated Yitzhak Rabin, derailing the peace process of the time. That is hardly Israeli propaganda.

No, if the Jewish population resorted to indiscrimate terrorism that would have not overcome nazi oppression. See this current scenario, Israel was not scared off by a big terrorist attack, they took it as a free pass to drop any pretense of restraint. Now if Hamas had specifically attacked IDF or police, I could see, but they explicitly targeted civilians. It is hypocritcal to be pissed over Israeli harm done to civilians while explicitly taking a pro-Hamas stance.

[–] Thief_of_Crows@sh.itjust.works 0 points 10 months ago

Hamas did not explicitly target civilians, they launched rockets indiscriminately, and targeted military. They aren't able to aim rockets and have them hit Israel, thanks to US funding. Israel has never been interested in peace, it's not like that assassination was the reason it didn't happen. The propaganda is the lie that they do want peace. Israel has always only wanted palestine's land, which they've been colonizing for nearly a century.

It would certainly have been better if Jews had done some terrorism on Nazis. But by your logic, you'd be telling the Jews to cut out the terrorism, because it's making the Nazis not want to come to the table. Violence is the only thing genocidal people understand. Until you make then bleed, they will never give in.