Ukraine Missiles Blow Up Russia's Floating 'Command Center': Video

newsweek.com ^ | Mar 13, 2024 at 6:50 AM EDT | Ellie Cook

[BroJoeK]

rxh4n1: "This is a disgusting smear and a lie.
I have never been pro-Russia.
I just dislike both sides.
I have always advocated for the USA to stay out and for peace negotiations.
You people are really getting low."

In my post #199 I made the effort to deal with bimboeruption's arguments in some detail, and some of that can apply to you as well.

In brief:

1. rxh4n1 "This is a disgusting smear and a lie."
   I appreciate that you don't like being called a "pro-Russian propaganda repeater".
   On the other hand, some of us have been called a lot worse with far less justification.

2. rxh4n1: "I have never been pro-Russia."
   In a grossly unequal & unfair fight, to claim "neutrality" is to favor the greater power.
   For an analogy -- to claim "neutrality" between a raper and his victim is, effectively, to support rapists.

3. rxh4n1: "I just dislike both sides."
   Whether you like Ukrainians as people, or not, is not the issue, any more than whether you like a murder victim or not.
   Once it's established there was an actual murder (not an accident or suicide), then the issue is whether justice should be delivered to the murderer, period.
   There are no arguments which even remotely justify Putin's invasions, annexations & murders in Ukraine.

4. rxh4n1: "I have always advocated for the USA to stay out and for peace negotiations."
   Seriously?
   Just like we should stay out of an on-going rape in progress and then demand "negotiations" between the rapist and his victim?
   How does that even work in your mind?

5. rxh4n1: "You people are really getting low."
   I understand that by now, "you people" have lost all sight of the original issue I addressed in Flying Eagle's post #77 when he called us:
   "Our Zeeper FRiends who have infiltrated this forum..."

   By listing the dates of entry on both sides I simply showed that on-average, posters on both sides have been here many years.
   So how, exactly, can that constitute "infiltration"?

   Yes, I could have used a different title for our anti-Uker FRiends, such as, "FReepers who oppose US aid to Ukraine", and we'd see fewer objections, I'm sure.

   On the other hand, what's the fun in that? 😉

[UMCRevMom@aol.com]

Thank you for your Comment #199.

I constantly have to fend off accusations in defense of my U.S. patriotism.

Folks just don’t respect the Freedom of thought and expression for all.

https://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/4223938/posts?page=199#199

[BroJoeK]

aMorePerfectUnion: "I note MarcusMucinex appears to be missing too?"

bimboeruption: "Another newbie zeeper left off BroJoek’s anti-American list.
How could that be? Surely BroJoek knows of him. They’re both on FR frequently, if not daily."

I never heard of MarcusMucinex and he's not posted on this thread.

So, again, I think you guys have lost sight of the issue of "infiltrators" raised by Flying Eagle in his post #77.
In response, I simply selected some names at random from this thread, noted their dates of entry and averaged their years on Free Republic.
Come to find out, on average, posters on both sides have been here for many years.
Personally, I would assign no significance whatever to the difference in average years of 16 or 18 on one side versus 20 years on the other.
It was a small, random sample and those numbers could have been anything, so a different sample on a different thread could give us very different results.

On the matter of me labeling our anti-Ukers as "Pro-Russian propaganda repeaters", I agree that was maybe a little overly provocative, it obviously upset somebody.

On the other hand, I've been called a lot worse for a lot less good reason.
By bimboeruption, many times, for example, as you can see in the quote above.

[BroJoeK]

Cheerfully quoting: "We are conservatives.
Be respectful to your debate adversary (fellow FReeper).
For example, do not accuse them of being a “Putinista”, “comrade”, “murderer”, “baby-killer”, etc, just because he may have a difference of opinion whether or not the US government should be involved in a controversial foreign war where we were not attacked.”
- Jim Robinson"

Sadly, the same rules don't seem to apply for those of us who support US aid for Ukraine.
We're fair game, you can be as disrespectful as you want, call us every name in the book, tell us to GFYS, you can mock us with ridiculous memes, you can even write new rules for Free Republic moderators to enforce against us, to prevent us from responding directly to your own lunatic nonsense -- all that is just fine, or at least it seems that way from here.

But is it really?

[rxh4n1]

Same old, tired false analogies. This is just another of those dirty European ethnic border wars that they’ve been having for centuries. I’m not getting down in the weeds about why and who started it, it’s not our business. Our ancestors left that all behind when they came to America and except for offering mediation we should stay out. We’ve been fighting other people’s battles since 1898 and its time we looked out for ourselves again.

[BroJoeK]

Worldtraveler once upon a time: "Ex-Polish poobah, Mateusz Morawiecki, speaks for you, saying to Americans, 'send more money!' "

Naw... money was not the issue addressed by the Morawiecki quote, rather he spoke to the difference between right and wrong, between good and evil -- matters which have to come before any discussion of money, and which seem 100% removed from your consciousness, not to mention your conscience.

So the first question is: do we agree that Ukraine is the victim of Russian aggression and so deserves, as a minimum, our sympathies and moral support?

If your answer is "no" then we are not living on even the same planet, much less the same country.

But, if the answer is "yes", then we could go onto the question of whether we can or should provide Ukraine more than just our prayers and good wishes?

That's where your concerns over our national debt come in, and there is no doubt it's a serious matter resulting from decades of seeming mismanagement and over-spending, especially since 2001.

It's worth noticing that, through fiscal '24, of the $23 trillion added to our national debt since 2000 -- which increased our Debt-to-GDP Ratio from an already worrisome 56% to now 121%:

1. $2 trillion can be called Bush's War on Terror, direct costs.

2. $5 trillion can be called Obama's stimulus responses to the 2008 financial crisis.

3. $10 trillion can be called the Democrats' stimulus responses to Covid, since 2000.

4. $6 trillion includes some WOT indirect costs, but is mainly Obama and Trump administrations' spending for, I'm calling it, "anti-deflation spending", intended to keep prices rising in the roughly 2% per year range.

To me, one crime in all this is the US only spends about half as much on our infrastructure (as % of GDP) as our prosperous European and Asian allies spend.
The difference is roughly $350 billion per year, and just one negative result is that about 40% of our highways and bridges are due or past due routine maintenance, repairs and/or replacement.
Another is the very poor impression of our country created by many of our mass transit structures.

Another crime is actual crime rates, some of which are reportedly down, but how honest are the reports and how many methodologies were changed to make certain law enforcement agencies look good?
Overall, US law enforcement runs around $350 billion per year, of which maybe $50 billion is Federal, the rest state and local governments.

Bottom line: 2022 Federal deficit was around $1.3 trillion, with 2023 ending at $1.7 trillion -- meaning we're still getting worse, not better.
For 2024 the current forecast is a circa $1.6 trillion deficit.
Of that, US aid to Ukraine totals less than $50 billion per year, a relative drop in the fiscal bucket for the mission of helping to restrain the Old Soviets' new Russkiy Mir adventures in empire building and regional dominations.

[BroJoeK]

Russkiy Mirovich: "I like the structural path we’re on here.
As long as we help Ukraine with the weapons they need and the economic support, they will fight to the last person."
- Lindsay Graham (while probably flushing with arousal)"

Sadly, I have no idea what Sen. Graham means by those words, and I'm terrified that possibly he doesn't either.

I did hear one thing from Graham that I think comes directly from Pres. Trump and that Ukraine's Pres. Zelenskyy is likely to readily agree with -- to convert any new money from the USA from grants into loans.
I don't see that as a problem if it can get Trump off the anti-Ukraine bandwagon.

My guy in this whole debate has long been Republican Speaker Johnson, who's said it exactly the way I see it -- the USA should do what we can, provided:

1. There is a plan for victory and individuals responsible to make it happen.

2. There is accountability for US equipment and money to insure they are not corruptly or otherwise squandered.

3. Democrats agree to Republican plans to secure the US borders.

Again, sadly, that third demand seems now to be 100% bollixed up in politics, with Republicans now saying Biden doesn't need a single new law to close our borders, he can do it any day he wants, and so everything may have to wait until after Trump's election to get straightened out again.

This means that, worst case, Ukraine may have to survive 2024 on only what Europeans help provide, and what, exactly, Pres. Trump will do to end this is anybody's guess, right now.

I don't think Trump will walk away from Ukraine and I don't think Putin will surrender to mere threats.
Putin will have to be physically beaten, or incapacitated.

[BroJoeK]

rxh4n1: "We’ve been fighting other people’s battles since 1898 and its time we looked out for ourselves again."

That's the first time I've seen the Spanish-American War referred to as "other people's battles" since, in today's world, that war is more often considered by Leftists a prime example of US unjust colonialists, racists, sexist elitists, capitalists oppressors, stealing the wealth of the poor for our own aggrandizement.

So historical Americans are catching flak from all sides these days.

rxh4n1: "Same old, tired false analogies.
This is just another of those dirty European ethnic border wars that they’ve been having for centuries."

Making a comment like that is a prime reason Ron Desantis dropped down as a serious competitor to Donald Trump for the presidency, to something much less.
Even most Republicans understood, that's pure nonsense.

Here's the truth of it: the world is chock full of little Hitler wannabees, who only need the right amount of social chaos and weakness to start their empire-building projects.
Vlad the Invader found chaos and weakness in Russia in 1999 and among many of Russia's neighbors since 2000, and because that's his nature, he's exploited weakness with invasions whenever he could -- in Chechnya, in Moldova, in Georgia and in Ukraine.

The lessons of history are that such dictators continue their aggressions until they are finally stopped, but that each new success makes defeating them the next time that much more difficult.

It's not a "border dispute", it's a brutal aggressive dictatorial revanchist empire, reasserting itself after a relatively brief period of quiescence.

rxh4n1: "I’m not getting down in the weeds about why and who started it, it’s not our business. "

There are no "weeds" because Vlad the Invader started it, period, without any legal justification or provocations.
It was pure aggression, pure murder and pure evil.

That is the fundamental fact here.

rxh4n1: "Our ancestors left that all behind when they came to America and except for offering mediation we should stay out."

Once we've established the difference between right and wrong, good and evil, the next question is, can or should we do anything to help the right side?

The answer is that, there are pros and cons, the cons being, basically, that it's not our war, that we can't afford it, that it's yet another corrupting waste of money and that there are risks too, some with major negative consequences.

The pros are that, there are also major negative consequences in allowing Vlad the Invader to succeed in Ukraine thus, in a major way, reestablishing the old Tsarist and Soviet Russkiy Mir Empires, and so giving rebirth to the old 1930s era aggressive fascist race-based dictatorships' expansionists ideologies.

In 1990 only about 37% of humans lived in democratic countries, while by 2020 that number was almost 50%, today it's fallen back to 45%, so dictatorships are now on the rise and on the march.
They will not be stopped until somebody stands in their way with the power to stop them.
In the case of Russia, only the US and our allies can do that.

Vlad's successes in Ukraine will also lead to increased threats against Taiwan (by China), Israel (by Iran), Guyana (by Venezuela) and in Africa, several countries.

So, once the deterrence effects of US and our allies' military power is broken, there is a very long list of small countries which will face threats from their larger neighbors.

The world which results from American weakness will not be America-friendly and we will not like it.
Already, at least half the world's livable land area is ruled over by dictators.

As for what we can afford, or not, Ukraine is a drop in the financial bucket.
The money could easily be found in wasteful Democrat vote-buying schemes, if that's what anyone really wanted to do.

[ANKE69]

Huh???
OMG, now you are a poor, abused, innocent victim?
Do you ever read your own posts?
Your irrational posts and attacks on anyone that doesn’t agree with you, are not normal.

[JonPreston]

Give us 700 words on this one.

Medvedev:

“Actually, for the common good, it wouldn't be bad if the restless French sent a couple of regiments to Banderaland. It's quite problematic to hide such a large number of servicemen, thus making the task of their systematic extermination not the most difficult, but a… pic.twitter.com/lsmKc7JTZZ— Zlatti71 (@djuric_zlatko) March 20, 2024

[UMCRevMom@aol.com]

“Your irrational posts and attacks on anyone that doesn’t agree with you, are not normal.”

Do not be confused.

Comments written by BroJoeK are concise, truthfully discerning and insightful... not attacking.

ANKE69 incorrectly and conveniently you ignore the reality of true ‘victims’ on FR for merely holding an opposing political viewpoint than yours.

Those that standing in opposition to Freedom for Ukraine often are unable to comment objectively. Then, their only recourse becomes against these other Conservative Freepers that must be slandered, attacked and eliminated.

I will use myself as example so as not to repeat the victimization of these Conservative freepers:

EXAMPLES

1- CapandBall “RevMom is a sadistic harpy, a sinister black-hearted war monger who would happily send your kids and mine to die in Ukraine”

2- Rocco DiPippo comment “You are the undisputed queen of slander, gaslighting, outrageous lies, censorship, misappropriation of opposing comments and poster of the most ridiculous, idiotic propaganda on FR.”

3. Bimboeruption commented “what I actually said (along with others), was I’d donate $100 to have a certain phony cleric propagandist zotted.”

IMPORTANT QUOTE
“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” - Soren Kierkegaard

[BroJoeK]

"Your irrational posts and attacks on anyone that doesn’t agree with you, are not normal."

Your irrational posts and attacks on anyone that doesn’t agree with you, are not normal.

[BroJoeK]

Russkiy Mirovich: "Medvedev:
“Actually, for the common good, it wouldn't be bad if the restless French sent a couple of regiments to Banderaland.
It's quite problematic to hide such a large number of servicemen, thus making the task of their systematic extermination not the most difficult..."

Curiously enough, I just yesterday saw speculation that Medvedev himself may soon be replaced as Putin's puppy.

I don't think, if push comes to shove, Russians will want to commit national suicide.
Regardless, my advice would be not to give Russians an opportunity to off themselves unless it became absolutely necessary.

[rxh4n1]

The Cuban Revolution was our battle? Hardly, and what business did we have picking on the Philippines? Or Puerto Rico? The PRs here don’t really like being part of the USA.
It’s your usual pile of crap, It’s 1938, and Saddam Hussein is Hitler... oh wait... never mind.

I’m not gonna waste my time reading all that garbage.

[BroJoeK]

rxh4n1: "The Cuban Revolution was our battle?
Hardly, and what business did we have picking on the Philippines?
Or Puerto Rico?
The PRs here don’t really like being part of the USA."

So, you're not buying the Left's claim that Cuban Revolutionaries were just a pretext, just our fake-excuse to invade and colonize a dark-skinned country in the name of capitalist-racism?

That also explains the Philippines and Puerto Rico, at least to the Left, but apparently not to you, right?

For whatever my view of it might be worth, I think a good many Americans just wanted to strike a blow against what was left of the Old Spanish Empire, and some of those thought it was a good idea for Americans to have a bit of an empire too, hence, while we soon let go of Cuba, we hung onto the Philippines and still have Puerto Rico -- though, in both cases it's because that's what those people wanted from us.

We should also note that by 1917, not even 20 years later, Americans had not suddenly turned against the whole idea of empires, and that Pres. Wilson's original proposal was for "Peace Without Victory", which many interpreted as meaning the Axis powers would keep what they'd conquered.

It wasn't really until Versailles in 1919 that Wilson and the West began to construct what was, effectively, an anti-Empire ideology, which has ruled our consciences ever since.

rxh4n1: "It’s your usual pile of crap, It’s 1938, and Saddam Hussein is Hitler... oh wait... never mind."

Responses like that confirm to me that there is some kind of mental mal-function going on inside the brains of our anti-Ukers.
What I'm seeing is, anti-Ukers:

1. Refuse to address the matters directly.

2. Hand-wave away any concerns or fact that might disturb your own views.

3. Respond with insults, mocking and derision as opposed to serious facts & arguments.

4. Change the subject -- so let's talk about pedophiles in the Methodist Church, that'll defeat Ukraine for sure!

No, I'm not blaming you for all of that, only saying we see all of that, and more, on every Ukraine related thread.

rxh4n1: "I’m not gonna waste my time reading all that garbage."

I rest my case.