“Is there some way we can talk ourselves down off this ledge of suicidal insanity without threatening to cancel anyone who says we should not be out on this ledge.”
Sadly, I am coming to believe no more and more. It appears that all adults have left the room.
The problem I see it is that you can have exactly one of two world views. 1. Putin is an insane lunatic who is going to use his vast nuclear weapons arsenal to blow up the world or 2. Putin is fighting a war to achieve a geostrategic goal that he believes is in the interests of Russia.
Option 1 leads to Armageddon because if you believe that then your only option is to strike first to lesson the impact and hope that after the dust settles something survives. Option 2 leads you to try to see if there is a settlement that can be negotiated short of blowing up the whole world without killing everyone in Ukraine and any other country Putin decides to pick on. Then there is option 3 which is to make clear that no negotiations with a lunatic are possible but we are not otherwise going to do anything other than collapse the Western banking system to punish him. Execissive deaths and destruction of infrastructure in Ukraine are on his head and not our fault and the Russians can rot in hell for their actions.
Advocating option 2 is not an option because anyone who suggests trying a rational approach is to be cancelled.