You must log in or # to comment.
Exactly! One of them is done to us, and one of them is done by us. What more do you need to know! /s
5 million upvotes!
Yes, as long as it’s America’s doing the blocking everything is legit.
Exactly, Citizen! Now repeat after us “Russia bad, Israel good!”
trump took the hypocritic oath.
Always do only harm
reminds me of a discussion I had on Reddit, they said that houtties blocking traffic to/from Israel was inhumane, as some cargo included food and medicine…
but he had absolutely no comment on Israel’s decades long blockade on Gaza that was causing a mass starvation.
I really hope those redditors stay there
Reddit is a cesspit of Zionists
got banned a few times for supporting Palestine.
Same. Fuck Reddit and fuck Zionism.
Trump was born with seven silver spoons in his mouth. He’s never had to worry about money, or problems he himself didn’t generate, in his entire existence.
To him, “fair” just means getting everything he wants despite his many idiotic decisions.
He uses the word “unfair” exactly the same way a toddler would.
The Venn Diagram of Trump vs Toddler is just a circle.
That’s right, just like encouraging protesters in Iran to overthrow their government, while ordering ICE Apes to murder protesters in our own streets.
That’s MAGA for you.
Thank God someone finally pointed out the hypocrisy of MAGA.
I think they’re beyond hypocrisy.
They are at war with truth, reality, and civility. These things are only important if they are currently working in their favor. Acting in bad faith seems to be their default. All that matters is that they get their way. The ends always justify the means unless it looks like something might hinder their ability to get their way in the future… and they are usually confident that they’ll find a workaround later and do that thing anyway.
Is there even a word for such brazen, naked duplicity?
Is there even a word for such brazen, naked duplicity?
Fascism.
Its sad that calling these people fascists isnt a sensationalisation.
irony is lost on 🤡
Idk why people keep thinking that pointing out this “hypocrisy” is clever. The current government is operating from an exceptionalist standpoint. Many people believe America is anointed by God, the agent of good and right. Others simply believe in the law of self-interest.
Either way, (I can feel the downvotes coming now), this isn’t really hypocritical behavior by any means. This is like criticizing a sports team: “Wait, so it’s good for YOU to get the ball in the basket, but it’s bad for THEM to get the ball in the basket?”. The people who approve of America’s behaviour do not see other countries and people as being on the same team, and while that may be stupid, it isn’t hypocritical. Imagine someone saying this about you with some instsnce of yourself being self-interested.
“Oh, so when you get a promotion it’s a reason to party, but when that lying asshole in your department gets the promotion instead of you, now suddenly you feel upset? Hypocrite!”
That’s not hypocrisy. That’s just you believing that you deserve the promotion and believing that the other guy doesn’t. Now, if you don’t actually deserve the promotion, that still makes you wrong, but not via hypocrisy.
Its important to understand this distinction because all these “hypocrisy” call outs from the left ring so hollow even to many people on the left, and they certainly won’t wake up or bother anyone on the right, because they’re fundamentally missing the point.
The problem isn’t that America coherently pursued its interests by wanting a passage opened for it in one place, and pursues its interests by wanting a passage closed in another place… The problem is that those things are not actually in America’s interests, or that they are selfish and disregard other innocent people, etc.
This is like criticizing a sports team: “Wait, so it’s good for YOU to get the ball in the basket, but it’s bad for THEM to get the ball in the basket?”.
This is an extremely Trump-like view, that foreign policy is a zero-sum game with a winner and a loser, and the object is to win.
It’s a distinctly American view. Other countries do look at making deals where the benefit is mutual.
Our foreign policy, specifically over the last 40 years, has been vulgarly in service to the Epstein Class and their business interests, and we saw this backed up in Jeff’s own emails. It was a feature of both our wars and the manner in which we wielded soft power. The only real difference here is tactics and presentation, and if Donald were willing to make nice speeches like his predecessors, people would care significantly less, I think.
That said, there is some legit hypocrisy here. In his first term, Donald did distinguish himself in disentangling the US from several foreign wars and his reticence to start others. (Most notably Syria and Afghanistan.) He also campaigned on doing so again, even beginning office by establishing a ceasefire in Gaza.
But then he needed people to stop asking questions about his likely pedophilia.
100% agree on the social media posts though. No one gives a shit about the supposed hypocrisy, on the left or the right. Hell, they didn’t call the last guy Genocide Joe for no reason.
It’s a distinctly American view.
speak for yourself
Yes, and to be clear, I’m not saying that I actually hold that view. I’m just saying that that’s the view they have - and there’s nothing hypocritical about it. It’s flawed in plenty of other ways, but hypocrisy isn’t one of them.
All true but highlighting the hypocrisy is useful in changing changeable minds. I do believe that the unchangeable mind are a large minority. I think there’s a lot of people who believe what they do because they’ve never heard anything but exceptionalist propaganda since birth.
My problem with this is that I think a lot of the changeable minds that are on the fence will recognize how it isn’t really hypocritical, and so this misses the point and just makes it look like a stupid complaint. Because indeed, there isn’t hypocrisy going on here. The mentality is wrong for other reasons, but not because of hypocrisy. So when it comes to changeable minds, I feel like it’s better to put forward solid reasoning rather than merely sophistic reasoning - as the second kind is usually only useful for preaching to a choir who is willing to overlook logical flaws.
I guess I should also say I totally understand that you might convert some people with a hypocrisy argument. But… Although it may be idealistic of me, I’d much rather make converts out of people through actually true lines of reasoning rather than ones that are merely compelling.
I understand. Can you give me an example of a true line of reasoning? Honest, good faith question, in case I learn something I can use. :D
If too much work, don’t worry about it.
Hypocrisy doesn’t apply here. Unfairness does for people who understand fairness as a global standard, following the golden rule, as in “fair is if everyone gets treated equally and the same rules count for everyone”.
For those who understand “fair” as in “something is unfair if I am not getting my way”, the fairness/unfairness argument doesn’t work either. That kind of egocentric view is common among right-wing voters.
What could work for people with an egocentric world view, who can also hold a thought for longer than 10 seconds is to think of the implications. What kind of impact does an unnecessary war on America’s long-term soft power in the world? What does it do to the US-EU relationship, that used to be so important? What will it do to the US citizen who wants to put fuel in their car and heat their house? But this requires reflective and long-term thinking, so that might be a tall order for some.
For the remaining people, an argument would be that Trump betrayed them. He promised no wars and America first. Now he is spending billions of dollars blowing up school girls in a country on the other side of the planet for … no specific reasons. He is a traitor to the cause he claimed to fight for.
In the end, there is no argument that lands with everyone. You always have to figure out who the person is you are talking with. What do the words mean that they use (the meaning of politically charged terms varies wildly between political factions)? What are the emotions behind these words? What are they disappointed by?
Good args, no critique. I think where I see hypicrisy useful is with some part of centre and left of centre voters who do believe in the concept of fairness and who believe in the propaganda that US interventions are about helping others - e.g. freeing some people from opressive regime through oil embargo.
Yeah, that could work there, but then again, when talking to someone like that, you are preaching to the choir already anyway, so it hardly matters what exact terms you use. They will very likely agree with you that Trump is an asshat without principles or understanding of anything but how to manufacture rage.
Thanks for this really nice comment. This is the kind of interaction that makes Lemmy awesome. I am working up a longer response to this when I have time but just wanted to pop in and reply a little earlier
We’re trying to be excellent to each other. This social is actually ours to a large extent. 🤗
Okay, here’s my long and rambling reply that to be honest probably isn’t that worth reading, but…
I think that any argument like this has to be personalized to the individual. So I can’t really give an outline, I guess. But I wrote all this crap up, so I’ll post it anyways.
So any time that I want to change someones mind but still not rely on sophistry, I think of it like, I am giving them directions to the “land of truth” on a map. My directions have to start from where they are, not where I am, or else my directions will be legitimately wrong and useless for them. But everyone, even the MAGAs, are all in a slightly different location from one another. Hence this approach usually needs to be individualized and I am reticent to give a super specific argument here. It really depends on the segment of the demographic you’re talking to.
Most often, your interlocutor holds at least some AXIOMS that are different from yours, and this can be a real problem. Changing someone’s axioms is hard, because the whole idea of an axiom is that it’s something they take to be obviously and undeniably true. So ideally I would find a path from where they are, in “Wrongland” to where I am, Truth Land", that tramples over as few of their axioms as possible. The more dearly held their belief, the more I want to avoid it. It’s not that “walk through your field of tulips to get to Truth Land” is necessarily a false direction, but they won’t want to follow me on that path. On the other hand, a sophistic argument like this meme makes, while they might be willing to follow it, won’t truly lead them to Truth Land, only to somewhere seemingly nearby. So the challenge is to find a CORRECT path that they’re willing to follow. I can’t stress enough that just because I’m looking for a path that they’re willing to follow doesn’t automatically mean I have to conduct sophistry. Anyways…
Ideally I can make an argument that won’t rely on changing any of their axioms, but rather just on correcting a flawed step in reasoning between their other beliefs which are merely derived incorrectly from the axioms.
Also, I legitimately think that there is no hypocrisy about the U.S being upset about Hormuz closure while also pursuing the Cuba cutoffs. It’s a stupid and bad strategy but it’s not hypocritical. Because it’s not hypocritical, in my opinion, the two topics shouldn’t even be addressed in the same breath, because then it seems like I’m trying to equate them when they really don’t deserve to be equated. I think most right-wingers are proud to say something like “It’s fine when I do X but not fine when you do X, because I’m good so I deserve it, and you’re bad so you don’t deserve it”. And to be honest, I actually really like this mentality and I think the left could use more if it. We get glimmers of this great mentality when we say things like “It’s okay for me to kill a Nazi but it’s not okay for Nazis to kill me, because Nazis are evil and I am not”. So let’s just own up to this - really, EVERYONE is looking out for themselves, and even when we cooperate with people, it’s either because we truly just love them and want what’s best for them, or it’s because we expect it to be mutually beneficial. I would start by paying homage to this, to establish with them that I share an axiom of theirs: “WE should do what’s best for US”. But this is purely rhetorical and not strictly logically necessary. But it’s not logically flawed either which is what I really care about preserving.
So now that I’ve established that “The Hormuz Closure” and “The Cuba Cutoffs” are separate issues only superficially related, I need to decide…what EXACTLY is it that I actually want them to change their minds on? I can only argue for what I think is really true, so now I need to articulate my view on it (whew, lots of prelude here).
To me, regarding Iran vs the U.S. Iran’s closure of Hormuz is reasonable, it’s in their best interest. It is also truly in the U.S’s best interest for the strait not to be closed. This really just goes to show how stupid it was to antagonize Iran. But that doesn’t change the fact that the U.S really would benefit if the strait was opened, and Iran really benefits from keeping it closed. So this situation is a sort of “noble clashing of swords”, it’s like, one knight says “I want to build my house on this hill” and another knight says “But I want to build my house on this hill”, and then they both say “Well, all morality aside, and it’s really nothing personal, but if you won’t budge, then my only choice is to kill you. It’s not that I’m necessarily ‘right’ or you’re ‘wrong’. We just want mutually exclusive things and refuse to compromise, so it must come to violence.” Yes, in a broader sense, the conflict could have been avoided if only the U.S hadn’t been so stupid, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is reasonable for the U.S to want the strait open. In the interest of making a sound argument that relies on as few axiom changes as possible, I don’t think it’s hard to see how even if I assume Trump is benevolent and has the interests of the people at heart, and even if Iran is malicious and must be stopped, we can see that they simply held too many cards in this situation, and so antagonizing them was not the right choice.
It is more than that. The ones that control society want them to be that way, so they go along to get along. That’s the big factor.
But the post talks about “fair” vs. “unfair” not “good” vs “bad”. And if you want to say an Action is fair for us but unfair for them, you would need additional rules to distinguish between the Actions in respect to the Actors. Otherwise, it would indeed be hypocrisy. (Not that it matters too much, this is not sports.)
Remember, right-wingers use words differently. They use “unfair” the same way my toddler uses it. In this case “unfair” means “I don’t like that and I use a word that makes it sound like that’s not just my opinion”.
Fairness and mutual benefit are a specific trait of a left-wing world-view. If you accept that everyone should have the same, fair chances and that working together brings mutual benefit, that already puts you squarely into a left-wing position.
The main right-wing world view on the other hand is self-centred. “I am the person who is most important to me. If I don’t benefit, I’m out.”
This goes through all parts of left/right views and politics. On the left, people are ok with social monetary transfers, even if it might harm their bottom line, because they think it’s fair that poor people can afford to live. On the right, people are envious of people receiving benefits. On the left, people are against billionaires, because they take money from poor people to enrich themselves. On the right, people worship billionaires because they want to be like them. On the left people are for asylum, because they think it’s only fair to provide people with a safe place to live. On the right people are against asylum, because they think asylum seekers will take money from them.
Because of that, “fair” and “unfair” mean different things on the left and the right. A left-winger who has a high salary might say “It’s unfair, that I earn so much and the person who makes my food doesn’t. Let’s raise minimum wages.” A right-winger might say “It’s unfair to raise minimum wages, because the guy who makes my food could have just gone to university like me, and increasing the minimum wage means my burgers won’t be as cheap as they are now.”
Left-wingers see fairness as an universal standard, that has to be applied to everyone even to their own detriment. Right-wingers see fairness as a way for them to increase the share they are getting.
That’s a really great point. I agree that the fair versus unfair distinction does imply a universally shared rubric. However… I’m not sure if the fairness of it was actually ever asserted by the government one way or another - from what I’ve heard, they’ve only ever asserted the good or badness of it. So I still suspect that the post may be missing the real hole in the opponent’s armor and instead attacking a strawman.
I struggle to imagine what you would consider hypocritical if not this. I understand your argument about exceptionalism, etc. But don’t all hypocrites think they are special? It’s no defense against the charge of hypocrisy to think so.
The fact that this time it’s been gussied up into a whole “foreign policy doctrine” really doesn’t change anything. In the end, it’s like you’re saying they aren’t hypocrites because they know they’re behaving hypocritically and they’re doing it on purpose.
Again: if that’s not hypocrisy, what is?
Hypocrisy, in this debate, seems to mean (borrowing from Wikipedia here):
“Advocating behaviors that one does not practice”
So, okay, let’s say Adam punches Bob, and then Bob punches Adam. Is Adam a hypocrite? Notice that it doesn’t depend on whether Adam is upset about being punched. He could be either upset or not upset about being punched in any of these scenarios that I’m about to list out. But as for whether he’s a hypocrite, it only depends on what behavior Adam advocates. Here’s some different beliefs Adam might advocate, along with a 🚨 if I’d consider it hypocritical, and a 🟢 if I’d consider it not hypocritical. I think that just a bunch of examples are probably the clearest way to articulate the distinction, but I will be happy to elaborate if you want.
“Nobody should punch someone else.” 🚨 Here we have hypocrisy without exceptionalism. Adam may not believe he is special, but he just doesn’t care or have the willpower to play by his own rules. Still hypocrisy.
“Only people with four letter names should get to punch people.” 🟢 Here we have exceptionalism without hypocrisy. He he certainly thinks’s someone special with a unique right punch people, but there’s nothing self-contradictory about his view.
“Only people with three letter names should get to punch people.” 🚨 An interesting example, because this is strictly bad for Adam. Here we see that even a belief that is bad for someone can be hypocritically held.
“Everybody should be able to punch people if they want to.” 🟢 Notice here that this doesn’t mean that he’s not allowed to be upset about getting punched. He’s just not allowed to be upset about it on the basis that “Bob shouldn’t have been able to do it” - that would be hypocrisy. But he’s perfectly allowed to be upset about the fact that the punch hurts. We can picture him saying something like: “Of course, I didn’t want to get punched, but I believe that Bob has a right to punch me if he wants to.”
“Morality does not exist, so there’s no such thing as ‘should punch’ or ‘should not punch’. But I want us all to kill people who punch people.” 🚨 Hypocritical if Adam tries to prevent either him OR Bob from the death sentence 🟢 Consistent if Adam accepts the death sentence for him and Bob
“The Iron Law of Force dictates that anyone can punch anyone.” 🟢 (this is roughly the U.S admin view)
So in this specific example, it would be hypocritical if the US said something like “Passages for delivery of supplies and goods should never be restricted by force.” But the admin is not advocating this stance.
The US has condemned the closing of the strait.
Or at least, that’s what I was going to say. But in looking for quotes to support this, I begin to see your point. All I found was “we will kill you if you don’t open it.”
I guess Trump never even tries to claim moral high ground. It’s just “fuck you, pay me.”
Fair enough.
Right, they have condemned it on the basis of its bad for America. Hence being totally self consistent with fucking up Cuba because (presumably) it’s good for America. It’s a dickish worldview but not hypocritical.
I actually respect that the administration acknowledges the “iron law of force” - people don’t want to face it, but that is the ultimate fallback medium of all international relations. As much as I don’t like to agree with Hegseth on anything. Their mistake is thinking that because the law of force is the ultimate relation that cannot be eliminated… It cannot even be transcended temporarily to everyone’s mutual benefit. The principle is true but they draw stupid conclusions from it, even by their own evil standards of success.
Fair points all around.
This is like criticizing a sports team: “Wait, so it’s good for YOU to get the ball in the basket, but it’s bad for THEM to get the ball in the basket?
It’s different. You are agreeing to the principle of rules when you play sport. May the best team win according to the principles.
A good reason to not start a game of genocide is “what do you deserve if you lose”? Best to stay within rules made to promote civilization.
It gets better:
Kharg island, that place we bombed, to soften up for a Marine invasion?
Not even visible in that image.
Because its further up north, practically all the way up the Gulf, to Iraq.
So… we’re gonna… do an ambibious invasion… that requires the amphib landers… to go through the Strait of Hormuz…
Which is the thing that we currently cannot secure to the point of being able to guarantee safe passage through.
…
It is such a ludicrously stupid plan that if it were anyone but Trump and Hegseth in charge, I would say it is a laughably obvious false attack / psyop diversion.
But, they are in charge, so… it might essentially be an intentional Gallipoli, to serve as a rallying cry, after a bunch of Marines get killed.
It probably got suggested in an off-handed comment by someone and since nobody in the Trump regime has ever looked at a map, it was hailed as a grand idea.
Now that you mentioned it, a leader being surrounded by sycophants is precisely what American founding fathers were trying to rail against. And that is all collapsing right before our eyes.
But Kamala had a weird laugh, don’t forget about that!
One of the most optics driven wars ever. But I guess that’s what we get in the era of tiktok and AI
Well the risks and quality of planning can still be debated, but you’re mistaken that the amphibious landers need to go through the straight. They would fly them into US bases in Kuwait and/or Bahrain and launch from there.
They’ll bully countries into letting them cross over from the other side.
Let us use your country to launch attacks or we’ll cripple you economically.
They asked the French for permission years ago, and France said no, so they changed the name of French Fries to Freedom Fries in the Congressional cafeteria.
Totally fucking true. The Republicans were lame back then, too.
😂🤣 I forgot about that.
Yeee hawww 🔫🔫🔫
We might stage the parts of the 82nd Airborne in … Kuwait?
Apparently a good deal of them have been moving out, lately.
… And use the MEUs somewhere else?
Invade ‘Baluchistan’?
I dunno, seems like a bad idea, to do an airborne assault, when Iran seems to be capable of hitting F35s, which are signifcantly harder to spot than a C-130.
But the MEUs… you’d still have to sail the ships up through the strait.
You’re not gonna airlift an amphib pocket carrier.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America-class_amphibious_assault_ship
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Boxer_(LHD-4)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Tripoli_(LHA-7)
They basically have a big door in the back that can open and do a controlled partial flooding of an infernal dock, that the actual amphib assault IFVs and/or hovercraft launch out of.
I think its a fake out and they will really invade the south closer to the Pakistan border.
Yeah, I agree, at least if they want to attempt a ‘sane’ plan.
‘Baluchistan’.
There’s a semi-significant port / naval base at … Konarak? Konark?
That would make much more sense, or somewhere near it, for an MEU or two to try and establish as a beachhead.
The US’s NeoCon/CIA playbook has long been to try to induce Iran to shatter apart, balkanize:
Apparently Richard Perle presented this or something like this map to Netanyahu, decades ago now.
Konarak (sp?) is maybe ~150 miles / ~250 km west of where Gwadar is, on the NeoCon map.
I don’t like any of this, but the idea of trying first to economically strangle Iran into submission via Kharg island makes more sense than committing to a land invasion of the mainland at this point… But then again, none of this makes much sense to begin with
That would take strategic planning, steps to follow, etc. That’s not how MAGA works. They don’t think past the initial bombing attack, because blowing shit up is wicked cool, and enough reason to have a war.
“We blowed them up so good, they won’t be able to retaliate! Wait, why are there missiles coming back at us? They are shooting at US? But we obliterated them! Somebody help us! Why won’t anybody help us?!”
I disagree with the war and have utter contempt for this US administration. However, the US military seems still quite capable of planning and executing highly effective operations, if their abduction of Maduro is anything to go by.
That was an Operation, not a War. It’s the difference between a run to the grocery store, and a cross country drive.
Big difference in scope.
Agreed, that’s why it seems like they’re treating this situation like a series of operations rather than a war.
Maybe that works when you are just in the bombing stage, and are just flying in and out, but that won’t work when they inject troops into the mix, and the number of troops in the region is growing by the day. They aren’t staging them there because they have no place to go, they intend to use them. Once the soldiers start shooting, it’s a full-fledged War.
Russia has lost 1.2 million soldiers in 4 years in Ukraine. America lost 58,000 in Vietnam over more than 10 years. We lost less that 5000 in Afghanistan over 20 years. Trump is a psychopath, and he’ll want to keep score with how many American soldiers sacrificed their lives for him, and no matter what anyone else’s objective is, his personal objective will be to collect as many deaths in his name as possible. He’ll want to run that score up to Russia numbers, just to prove how important he is, and how much his soldiers love him.
I can just hear him bragging about it, trying to impress the Sociopathic Oligarchs sitting around his table at Maralago: “Yep, over a million soldiers laid down their lives for me, that’s how loyal they are to me.”
A Trump war will be a meat-grinder, and he WILL announce a draft after the Midterms.
Fair for me not fair for theee
Yes, now start operation hide behind goyim
We are way beyond the point where it makes sense to call them out on hypocrisy.
Oh wait I’m like the tenth person with this comment. 🤡
Hate and spite are under no obligation to make sense.
