Latin America General : Corona Carnaval

[Ifreann]

A far right military dictatorship murdering people is no big deal compared to a leftist possibly having done something bad maybe.

Assuming Morales was actually rigging the election and removing limitations to his own power, that would make him a dictator.

And assuming Morales drinks blood to survive and would burst into flames if exposed to sunlight, that would make him a vampire.

[Novus America]

Okay, that point went over your head like an SR-71.

Straw man. Nobody said it was good.
Again does saying Stalin benefited our side in WWI say the Katyn massacre was good?
Of course not.

But you seem to have missed the point completely. We said the world is very dark gray and you jumped in screaming it was black and white. That if someone does one thing good that means we must think they are good and everything they do is good.

When you say that things are not black and white, but shades of grey, what that means is that things are neither solely good nor solely bad, but are in fact both good and bad. You mix black(bad) and white(good) to get grey. So you absolutely are saying that these killings are good. You must be saying that, since you are saying that they are both good and bad, and a thing cannot be both good and bad without being good.

If this is not what you meant then you are expressing yourself very badly, and I would suggest that you drop these metaphors of black and white and just speak plainly.

Well individual actions might sometimes be clearly black and white, but in the aggregate when looking at governments made up of many people doing many actions it obviously can get more complicated.
You can look at it in terms of resolution, individual pixels might sometimes be black and white, but if you mix them with each other and gray pixels you see gray as you zoom out.

Because the good or evil of one action they do does not necessarily control with the good or evil of another separate action done by the same person or agency.

If person X murders someone yesterday but saves someone else life today, their good of their saving someone today not is not necessarily controlled by the murder.
The act of saving someone today is not necessarily less good or evil because of their past actions, if those actions are separate.

I murder someone yesterday. Today I see a child drowning. Saving the child does not make my murder good, nor does my murder make saving the child bad.

And if person X commits 9 100% bad actions, and one action that is 100% good, they are still gray (using black and white symbolism).

In reality nobody is 100% good either. Mostly good people can (and do) bad things and mostly bad people can do good things.

And I am trying to speak as plainly as possible, and clearly Liber understood what I was saying, so the issue cannot be entirely on my part. He understood, yet you did not.

[Isles of Metanoia]

But please gentlemen, tell us more about how the wanton killing of innocent people by their own government can actually be good in a way.

Okay, that point went over your head like an SR-71.

Straw man. Nobody said it was good.
Again does saying Stalin benefited our side in WWII say the Katyn massacre was good?
Of course not.

But you seem to have missed the point completely. We said the world is very dark gray and you jumped in screaming it was black and white. That if someone does one thing good that means we must think they are good and everything they do is good.

This created world is not ever pure bad or good either. Only God is pure good and we being contingent beings created "ex nihilo", meaning, out of nothing or out of a negative thing shall always carry around our composite nature of possessing both the mixture of God's pure act and spirit and also the matter from the fallen world of entropy that we are created from. We can never shake off this composite nature of being a.mixture of act and potency however we earn merit for ourselves by struggling with our evils. It is precisely because we struggle with evil that we are more precious than the pure good as long as we try our best to emulate good. The Free Choice to choose either good or evil is the very predication of morality and moral responsibility had we been robots who only do good like automatons we won't have choice, and thus cannot earn merit or be blessed with Grace either.

[Ifreann]

When you say that things are not black and white, but shades of grey, what that means is that things are neither solely good nor solely bad, but are in fact both good and bad. You mix black(bad) and white(good) to get grey. So you absolutely are saying that these killings are good. You must be saying that, since you are saying that they are both good and bad, and a thing cannot be both good and bad without being good.

If this is not what you meant then you are expressing yourself very badly, and I would suggest that you drop these metaphors of black and white and just speak plainly.

Well individual actions might sometimes be clearly black and white, but in the aggregate when looking at governments made up of many people doing many actions it obviously can get more complicated.
You can look at it in terms of resolution, individual pixels might sometimes be black and white, but if you mix them with each other and gray pixels you see gray as you zoom out.

Because the good or evil of one action they do does not necessarily control with the good or evil of another separate action done by the same person or agency.

If person X murders someone yesterday but saves someone else life today, their good of their saving someone today not is not necessarily controlled by the murder.
The act of saving someone today is not necessarily less good or evil because of their past actions, if those actions are separate.

I murder someone yesterday. Today I see a child drowning. Saving the child does not make my murder good, nor does my murder make saving the child bad.

And if person X commits 9 100% bad actions, and one action that is 100% good, they are still gray (using black and white symbolism).

In reality nobody is 100% good either. Mostly good people can (and do) bad things and mostly bad people can do good things.

And I am trying to speak as plainly as possible, and clearly Liber understood what I was saying, so the issue cannot be entirely on my part. He understood, yet you did not.

I ask you again, explain where the good is here.

[Novus America]

I mean TBH it does create a conundrum. The new government has used excessive police violence and lacks democratic legitimacy, but it has been a blow to dictators Putin and Xi.

Global politics is a dirty, nasty cutthroat game full of ironies.

Remember we allied with Stalin in WWII, made friends with Mao in the 70s.

Unfortunately sometimes you are put in a situation of a bad and ugly thing being beneficial on a bigger, longer scale.

how on earth is this "beneficial on a bigger, longer scale"?

Because their change in foreign damaged Xi and Putin’s quests for global domination. Thus it was beneficial for our side in the New Cold War.

Now again that only would mean there is a benefit to this government doing that particular thing, it does NOT mean there is a benefit to every other action they do.

A benefit from their foreign policy does not mean their police brutality has a benefit either.
They are separate actions by the same party.

[Novus America]

Well individual actions might sometimes be clearly black and white, but in the aggregate when looking at governments made up of many people doing many actions it obviously can get more complicated.
You can look at it in terms of resolution, individual pixels might sometimes be black and white, but if you mix them with each other and gray pixels you see gray as you zoom out.

Because the good or evil of one action they do does not necessarily control with the good or evil of another separate action done by the same person or agency.

If person X murders someone yesterday but saves someone else life today, their good of their saving someone today not is not necessarily controlled by the murder.
The act of saving someone today is not necessarily less good or evil because of their past actions, if those actions are separate.

I murder someone yesterday. Today I see a child drowning. Saving the child does not make my murder good, nor does my murder make saving the child bad.

And if person X commits 9 100% bad actions, and one action that is 100% good, they are still gray (using black and white symbolism).

In reality nobody is 100% good either. Mostly good people can (and do) bad things and mostly bad people can do good things.

And I am trying to speak as plainly as possible, and clearly Liber understood what I was saying, so the issue cannot be entirely on my part. He understood, yet you did not.

I ask you again, explain where the good is here.

What do you mean by here? In the specific actions of police brutality? None.

But in terms of this government being in power? The good for us on a foreign policy level (which is different than their domestic policies) is it damaged Xi and Putin.
Their foreign policy (again not their domestic police policies which are still bad) is certainly beneficial to our side in the New Cold War.

[Kubra]

I ask you again, explain where the good is here.

What do you mean by here? In the specific actions of police brutality? None.

But in terms of this government being in power? The good for us on a foreign policy level (which is different than their domestic policies) is it damaged Xi and Putin.
Their foreign policy (again not their domestic police policies which are still bad) is certainly beneficial to our side in the New Cold War.

this sort of thinking is what's gotten the US involved in a ton of messy shit. One could justify the ethnic cleansing in East Timor on the same grounds.

[Novus America]

What do you mean by here? In the specific actions of police brutality? None.

But in terms of this government being in power? The good for us on a foreign policy level (which is different than their domestic policies) is it damaged Xi and Putin.
Their foreign policy (again not their domestic police policies which are still bad) is certainly beneficial to our side in the New Cold War.

this sort of thinking is what's gotten the US involved in a ton of messy shit. One could justify the ethnic cleansing in East Timor on the same grounds.

So in the Navy my department was responsible for the maintenance of the ships sewage pumps amongst other things. Sometimes we had to remove tampons and such that had jammed the pumps rotating mechanism. It was necessary. But there was no way it was ever a clean, pleasant job.

The world is messy shit unfortunately. Being involved in the world is being involved in messy shit. You cannot avoid messy shit. Our alliance with Stalin was messy shit, to give the most prominent example but of course it is not the only one.
A 100% moralistic foreign policy that tries to avoid any moral conundrums and refuses to be aligned with anyone doing any bad actions is doomed to be a total failure.

But that being said one benefit does not necessarily justify another crime, again the benefits from the foreign policy change do not justify the police brutality. Anymore than having Stalin fight the Nazis justifies the Katyn massacre.

Now yeah, it can get REALLY messy when the bad action is not separate from the beneficial one but is necessary to get the benefit. But those situations happen. Although that is not the case here.

Here the police brutality is NOT necessary for the foreign policy change.

If it was we would be going really dark and messy, (which sometimes we do have to do) but we do not have to go there in the case of police brutality here as the two actions are not dependent on each other. We can condemn the police brutality without condemning the foreign policy change. And we can agree with the foreign policy change without agreeing with the police brutality.

[Ifreann]

I ask you again, explain where the good is here.

What do you mean by here? In the specific actions of police brutality? None.

But in terms of this government being in power? The good for us on a foreign policy level (which is different than their domestic policies) is it damaged Xi and Putin.
Their foreign policy (again not their domestic police policies which are still bad) is certainly beneficial to our side in the New Cold War.

So to be clear, the good side to this coup, this ouster of a legitimately elected president, is the advancement of America's long-standing foreign policy goal of wrecking up commie shit.

[Novus America]

What do you mean by here? In the specific actions of police brutality? None.

But in terms of this government being in power? The good for us on a foreign policy level (which is different than their domestic policies) is it damaged Xi and Putin.
Their foreign policy (again not their domestic police policies which are still bad) is certainly beneficial to our side in the New Cold War.

So to be clear, the good side to this coup, this ouster of a legitimately elected president, is the advancement of America's long-standing foreign policy goal of wrecking up commie shit.

Putin is no commie, and Xi is in name only.

But otherwise you can put it that way sure. Again the existence of a good side does not necessarily make the thing good overall, nor does it necessarily justify the bad side.

Foreign policy is not for the squeamish. And tends to benefit the most sociopathic.

If you are afraid of getting your hands dirty (and drenched in blood) it is certainly not for you.

Which is why Xi and Putin have an advantage. See if I had to do this I would still get my hands dirty and covered and blood, but I would not like it. I would feel dirty, disgusting and have doubts and regret. Of course I still might have to do it. But I will have qualms and only go so far.

Like I said I have had to help crack open a sewage pump jammed with Tampons. I was not afraid to do it but I did not want to do it. But I did it anyways because otherwise the ship could not function.

Now again I am not saying the police brutality here is necessary, it is not. It is not necessary nor good. Just that dark and dirty stuff in foreign policy sometimes is.

But sociopaths like Putin or Xi do not feel any regret or sympathy. They will feel no qualms, no moral limits.
Of course then there are some types that rather than feel nothing get off on doing the most dirty and vile acts as well.

[Torrocca]

Assuming Morales was actually rigging the election and removing limitations to his own power, that would make him a dictator.

And assuming Morales drinks blood to survive and would burst into flames if exposed to sunlight, that would make him a vampire.

Not only is Morales the first indigenous president in Bolivian history, but he's also the first vampiric indigenous president in Bolivian history. Now I understand why the CIA helped Bolivia's religious Fascists and the military conduct a coup against him; his vampirism was too powerful for the electorate!

[Ifreann]

So to be clear, the good side to this coup, this ouster of a legitimately elected president, is the advancement of America's long-standing foreign policy goal of wrecking up commie shit.

Putin is no commie, and Xi is in name only.

But otherwise you can put it that way sure. Again the existence of a good side does not necessarily make the thing good overall, nor does it necessarily justify the bad side.

Foreign policy is not for the squeamish. And tends to benefit the most sociopathic.

If you are afraid of getting your hands dirty (and drenched in blood) it is certainly not for you.

That's...good to know?

---

And assuming Morales drinks blood to survive and would burst into flames if exposed to sunlight, that would make him a vampire.

Not only is Morales the first indigenous president in Bolivian history, but he's also the first vampiric indigenous president in Bolivian history. Now I understand why the CIA helped Bolivia's religious Fascists and the military conduct a coup against him; his vampirism was too powerful for the electorate!

He was hypnotising people into voting socialist!

[Torrocca]

Putin is no commie, and Xi is in name only.

But otherwise you can put it that way sure. Again the existence of a good side does not necessarily make the thing good overall, nor does it necessarily justify the bad side.

Foreign policy is not for the squeamish. And tends to benefit the most sociopathic.

If you are afraid of getting your hands dirty (and drenched in blood) it is certainly not for you.

That's...good to know?

---

Not only is Morales the first indigenous president in Bolivian history, but he's also the first vampiric indigenous president in Bolivian history. Now I understand why the CIA helped Bolivia's religious Fascists and the military conduct a coup against him; his vampirism was too powerful for the electorate!

He was hypnotising people into voting socialist!

Curse you, Evocula Morales, and your dirty, Socialist vampire schemes!

[Kubra]

this sort of thinking is what's gotten the US involved in a ton of messy shit. One could justify the ethnic cleansing in East Timor on the same grounds.

So in the Navy my department was responsible for the maintenance of the ships sewage pumps amongst other things. Sometimes we had to remove tampons and such that had jammed the pumps rotating mechanism. It was necessary. But there was no way it was ever a clean, pleasant job.

The world is messy shit unfortunately. Being involved in the world is being involved in messy shit. You cannot avoid messy shit. Our alliance with Stalin was messy shit, to give the most prominent example but of course it is not the only one.
A 100% moralistic foreign policy that tries to avoid any moral conundrums and refuses to be aligned with anyone doing any bad actions is doomed to be a total failure.

But that being said one benefit does not necessarily justify another crime, again the benefits from the foreign policy change do not justify the police brutality. Anymore than having Stalin fight the Nazis justifies the Katyn massacre.

Now yeah, it can get REALLY messy when the bad action is not separate from the beneficial one but is necessary to get the benefit. But those situations happen. Although that is not the case here.

Here the police brutality is NOT necessary for the foreign policy change.

If it was we would be going really dark and messy, (which sometimes we do have to do) but we do not have to go there in the case of police brutality here as the two actions are not dependent on each other. We can condemn the police brutality without condemning the foreign policy change. And we can agree with the foreign policy change without agreeing with the police brutality.

WW2 was an existential conflict for all involved. Bolivia, uh, aint. Nor Timor, at that.
Really now, what's with WW2 being used to justify the prettiest of conflicts?

[Torrocca]

So in the Navy my department was responsible for the maintenance of the ships sewage pumps amongst other things. Sometimes we had to remove tampons and such that had jammed the pumps rotating mechanism. It was necessary. But there was no way it was ever a clean, pleasant job.

The world is messy shit unfortunately. Being involved in the world is being involved in messy shit. You cannot avoid messy shit. Our alliance with Stalin was messy shit, to give the most prominent example but of course it is not the only one.
A 100% moralistic foreign policy that tries to avoid any moral conundrums and refuses to be aligned with anyone doing any bad actions is doomed to be a total failure.

But that being said one benefit does not necessarily justify another crime, again the benefits from the foreign policy change do not justify the police brutality. Anymore than having Stalin fight the Nazis justifies the Katyn massacre.

Now yeah, it can get REALLY messy when the bad action is not separate from the beneficial one but is necessary to get the benefit. But those situations happen. Although that is not the case here.

Here the police brutality is NOT necessary for the foreign policy change.

If it was we would be going really dark and messy, (which sometimes we do have to do) but we do not have to go there in the case of police brutality here as the two actions are not dependent on each other. We can condemn the police brutality without condemning the foreign policy change. And we can agree with the foreign policy change without agreeing with the police brutality.

WW2 was an existential conflict for all involved. Bolivia, uh, aint. Nor Timor, at that.
Really now, what's with WW2 being used to justify the prettiest of conflicts?

Stopping the single most genocidal and murderous alliance in history is exactly the same thing as militarily overthrowing a democratically-elected government. /s

[Novus America]

So in the Navy my department was responsible for the maintenance of the ships sewage pumps amongst other things. Sometimes we had to remove tampons and such that had jammed the pumps rotating mechanism. It was necessary. But there was no way it was ever a clean, pleasant job.

The world is messy shit unfortunately. Being involved in the world is being involved in messy shit. You cannot avoid messy shit. Our alliance with Stalin was messy shit, to give the most prominent example but of course it is not the only one.
A 100% moralistic foreign policy that tries to avoid any moral conundrums and refuses to be aligned with anyone doing any bad actions is doomed to be a total failure.

But that being said one benefit does not necessarily justify another crime, again the benefits from the foreign policy change do not justify the police brutality. Anymore than having Stalin fight the Nazis justifies the Katyn massacre.

Now yeah, it can get REALLY messy when the bad action is not separate from the beneficial one but is necessary to get the benefit. But those situations happen. Although that is not the case here.

Here the police brutality is NOT necessary for the foreign policy change.

If it was we would be going really dark and messy, (which sometimes we do have to do) but we do not have to go there in the case of police brutality here as the two actions are not dependent on each other. We can condemn the police brutality without condemning the foreign policy change. And we can agree with the foreign policy change without agreeing with the police brutality.

WW2 was an existential conflict for all involved. Bolivia, uh, aint. Nor Timor, at that.
Really now, what's with WW2 being used to justify the prettiest of conflicts?

The New Cold War is pretty existential to the parties involved.
Of course Bolivia is just one small part of it. WWII was of course also made up of thousands of smaller conflicts, actions and policies, as was the first Cold War.

See we can compare a car to a truck. But we cannot compare one spark plug from the car to the entire truck.

And sure the First Cold War is better comparison.

I only used WWII because it is one of the best known and obvious examples.

It is only used as an example of the general idea, not as a perfect direct comparison.

The First Cold War has plenty of examples though if you prefer that.

[Novus America]

WW2 was an existential conflict for all involved. Bolivia, uh, aint. Nor Timor, at that.
Really now, what's with WW2 being used to justify the prettiest of conflicts?

Stopping the single most genocidal and murderous alliance in history is exactly the same thing as militarily overthrowing a democratically-elected government. /s

Except nobody said they were exactly the same thing at all.
There literally no two events in history that are exactly the same.

It was just the most obvious example of the general concept that foreign policy might have you aligned on foreign policy with a bad person or group.

But obviously there are countless others.

[Kubra]

WW2 was an existential conflict for all involved. Bolivia, uh, aint. Nor Timor, at that.
Really now, what's with WW2 being used to justify the prettiest of conflicts?

The New Cold War is pretty existential to the parties involved.
Of course Bolivia is just one small part of it. WWII was of course also made up of thousands of smaller conflicts, actions and policies, as was the first Cold War.

See we can compare a car to a truck. But we cannot compare one spark plug from the car to the entire truck.

And sure the First Cold War is better comparison.

I only used WWII because it is one of the best known and obvious examples.

It is only used as an example of the general idea, not as a perfect direct comparison.

The First Cold War has plenty of examples though if you prefer that.

yeah, and it was in the first cold war that had the genocide in East Timor. Sure, we've got plenty of examples, but it's hard to say *any* of them made the world a better place, especially for the totally low stakes in Bolivia.

[Kubra]

Stopping the single most genocidal and murderous alliance in history is exactly the same thing as militarily overthrowing a democratically-elected government. /s

Except nobody said they were exactly the same thing at all.
There literally no two events in history that are exactly the same.

It was just the most obvious example of the general concept that foreign policy might have you aligned on foreign policy with a bad person or group.

But obviously there are countless others.

sure, it might have you working with Austria-Hungary, but that's all the more reason to ditch em, no?
As it stands, there's almost nothing to gain out of propping up the current Bolivian administration that is worth the current cost, let alone the potential costs to come.

[Torrocca]

Except nobody said they were exactly the same thing at all.
There literally no two events in history that are exactly the same.

It was just the most obvious example of the general concept that foreign policy might have you aligned on foreign policy with a bad person or group.

But obviously there are countless others.

sure, it might have you working with Austria-Hungary, but that's all the more reason to ditch em, no?
As it stands, there's almost nothing to gain out of propping up the current Bolivian administration that is worth the current cost, let alone the potential costs to come.

But Kubra, did you ever think to think about the shareholders for Telsa before saying this? Those lithium mines in Bolivia are totally worth mass bloodshed if there's profit afoot! /s

[Northern Davincia]

Assuming Morales was actually rigging the election and removing limitations to his own power, that would make him a dictator.

And assuming Morales drinks blood to survive and would burst into flames if exposed to sunlight, that would make him a vampire.

I would not rule out the possibility.

WW2 was an existential conflict for all involved. Bolivia, uh, aint. Nor Timor, at that.
Really now, what's with WW2 being used to justify the prettiest of conflicts?

Stopping the single most genocidal and murderous alliance in history is exactly the same thing as militarily overthrowing a democratically-elected government. /s

The Soviet Union definitely carries its weight in the genocide and murder departments.

[New Bremerton]

Between global Chinese and Russian influence on the one hand, and Bolivia's transitional regime on the other, Bolivia's government is by far the lesser of two evils, at least for now. If the situation deteriorates markedly into an all-out massacre and genocide, the military hijacks the legitimate democratic revolution and the transitional government postpones the January election indefinitely, I will reconsider my position. Until then, I will settle for verbal admonition and condemnation of police violence and wait till January. Seeing the police themselves joining the protesters in the streets to topple Morales is precisely the opposite of how police in Hong Kong have behaved so far, so I will give them the benefit of the doubt for now. The Bolivian military and police sided with the people then, and I hope they will continue to do so. Imagine the PLA siding with protesters in Hong Kong and overthrowing Carrie Lam, forcing her into exile. Imagine Hong Kong police officers holding hands with protesters in the streets and singing Glory to Hong Kong. You'll be waiting till the end of time itself before that happens.

My top priority is to see China implode domestically and globally, and if Russia loses influence in South America, that's another bonus. Lithium mining in a Bolivia that's in political limbo is preferable to importing rare earths from unambiguously evil, totalitarian fascist China. I'll take the former over the latter any day of the week.

[Kubra]

sure, it might have you working with Austria-Hungary, but that's all the more reason to ditch em, no?
As it stands, there's almost nothing to gain out of propping up the current Bolivian administration that is worth the current cost, let alone the potential costs to come.

But Kubra, did you ever think to think about the shareholders for Telsa before saying this? Those lithium mines in Bolivia are totally worth mass bloodshed if there's profit afoot! /s

man fuck the tesla you gotta update firmware just to drive it
Imagine parking out of wifi range

[Kubra]

And assuming Morales drinks blood to survive and would burst into flames if exposed to sunlight, that would make him a vampire.

I would not rule out the possibility.

Stopping the single most genocidal and murderous alliance in history is exactly the same thing as militarily overthrowing a democratically-elected government. /s

The Soviet Union definitely carries its weight in the genocide and murder departments.

aw only for the Stalin period
Shit cooled after that

[Novus America]

The New Cold War is pretty existential to the parties involved.
Of course Bolivia is just one small part of it. WWII was of course also made up of thousands of smaller conflicts, actions and policies, as was the first Cold War.

See we can compare a car to a truck. But we cannot compare one spark plug from the car to the entire truck.

And sure the First Cold War is better comparison.

I only used WWII because it is one of the best known and obvious examples.

It is only used as an example of the general idea, not as a perfect direct comparison.

The First Cold War has plenty of examples though if you prefer that.

yeah, and it was in the first cold war that had the genocide in East Timor. Sure, we've got plenty of examples, but it's hard to say *any* of them made the world a better place, especially for the totally low stakes in Bolivia.

We survived. We are still here. The Soviet Union is not.

Sure you cannot say any individual event in a 45 year war of attrition was the critical event, but not taking any of the actions obviously would alter it. Had we done nothing we probably would have lost.

The overall plan worked, despite obvious problems and failures.
And we could not have without supporting countries who backed us, without beating the Soviets for influence in places.

But anyways the East Timor genocide was not beneficial nor necessary either.

Though our relationship with Indonesia under Suharto was useful, despite the fact it was certainly a brutal dictatorship.

Anyways the comparison would not be that specific travesty (just as the police violence in Bolivia does not benefit us but the government’s foreign policy does). The comparison would be was our common foreign policy with Indonesia was beneficial. It was to us from a geopolitical perspective absolutely.

Despite the very ugly fact we were still supporting an ugly but useful regime.
Despite the fact we had to work with a rather nasty regime.