A libertarian then? What are your views on the age of consent?

Oh man, I didn’t know the source. There are lots of bangers here, thanks for sharing

That’s right

Go back to reddit

I still see it?

It’s not an original observation, but it was something that once I was aware of really made me question why sanctions are so normalized.

If you’d like a better explanation from people who are much smarter than me I recommend the podcast Citations Needed. They’ve got an episode that goes into the harm sanctions cause, especially to the most vulnerable people in the target country.

The following link has both the podcast and a transcript if you prefer reading over listening:

https://citationsneeded.medium.com/episode-106-the-sanitization-of-sanctions-56f976af6019

I’m very confused by what you mean about sending people to die? I’m talking about civilian deaths due to invasions and sanctions. I don’t believe you can actually be supporting queer people while bombing them and/or starving them with sanctions.

I also don’t fully agree that my arguments are us-centric. I focus on the US and UK because I am Anglo and so am more aware of the role they play in the world.

I don’t believe anyone on hexbear is actually cheering for people who would remove us from existence. I’m LGBT+ myself, and a huge part of why I’m against the current capitalist system we live under is that I see it as incredibly harmful for people like me. There are numerous examples, such as anti-trans laws in the US, the extreme anti-trans rhetoric in the UK, the American funding of draconian anti-LGBT+ laws in African countries. I also truly don’t value people in western countries higher than people in the rest of the world, so when I see the death toll from our military interventions and siege warfare in the form of sanctions, it makes my blood boil. 100s of thousands of people were killed by the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan alone; statistically thousands of them were LGBT+. This means the coalition forces killed more queer people than the countries that have actual death penalties for homosexuality.

I don’t love Russia, they’re a capitalist country with terrible laws and a regressive culture, but Ukraine isn’t really any better. They’ve elevated right wing militias which have targeted people like me and banned trans women from leaving the country.

China is behind on LGBT+ rights, but seem to be moving in the right direction. Cuba has the most progressive LGBT+ laws in the world. Vietnam is moving in the right direction pretty rapidly as well.

I hope this helps you understand why at least one of our users thoughts on these issues. I don’t speak for anyone but myself, but I feel certain my views are quite close to the majority of hexbears.

I guess what I’m trying to get across here is that it’s very hard for me to trust that any punishment of Russia will result in any long term change to behaviors of other bad actor if the nations doing the punishing are completely unable to apply justice across the board. It’s a lot easier for the US to send Bush to The Hague than Putin you know?

Other bad actors like Saudi or Azerbaijan are also currently being rewarded by the same people calling for punishment of Russia. What message does that send to future tyrants? That as long as you’re useful to the west we will ignore your crimes?

Why is it more critical to punish Russia than to punish bad actors in the US?

By that logic isn’t it far more critical to punish the truly bad actors? George bush killed way more people than have been killed in Russia’s invasion. What message does it send that he’s allowed to roam free?

I’m not saying it as an excuse, I’m trying to point out that aggression has been rewarded before this. You’re arguing that it is critical to punish Russia to send a message to other states that aggression won’t succeed but I’m saying that ship has already sailed

Because leftists understand that actual progress doesn’t come from voting?

Why is it so critical to punish Russian aggression? It’s not like it’s the only aggressive state around, and definitely not the worst? Hasn’t the fact that not a single official responsible for the invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Yemen been punished a bigger factor in rewarding aggression?

This doesn’t even go into how our countries prop up anti-LGBT+ regimes like Saudi Arabia or the other gulf states. In the Israel example, they will entrap gay men and force them to act as spies, placing their lives in greater jeopardy. The recent burst of anti-LGBT+ laws in African countries are being funded and even written by American churches, churches which are untaxed and thus funded by the US government.

Hey, so I wanted to talk about this point a bit more. I’m LGBT+ myself, and I used to have issues with countries that are definitely not queer friendly. What changed my thinking about this was seeing how so-called progressive countries are far more harmful to us than most countries that have actual anti-LGBT+ laws.

The main example I would point to is Israel. I used to be somewhat supportive because I bought into the fact that they do give us some rights, whereas the main groups fighting for Palestinian people are not friendly to us. However, because of how many civilians are killed by Israel they objectively kill more LGBT+ people than Hamas or the PLA. A few years back there was a major bombing campaign against Gaza in which over 60 Palestinian children were killed. Statistically some of those kids would have grown up to be LGBT+ if they had been allowed to live. Now, being LGBT+ in Palestine is NOT a great situation, but it’s still better to be alive and have a chance to fight for better rights.

This applies even further for NATO and the US military. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan alone. Many of those people were LGBT+. Statistically the US war machine is the single biggest killer of people like us in the world.