bigschnitz

@bigschnitz@lemmy.world

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bigschnitz,

They are literally fighting for the extermination of the Jewish state and aim to eradicate the Jewish population from the region.

The Islamic colonial powers have a long history of persecuting the Jewish population in the region which was (and should Hamas be successful, again will be) every bit as despicable as what Israel are doing to the Palestinians now.

In this conflict, the only possible justice is for both sides to lose and a two state solution be implemented.

bigschnitz,

I can also do it overnight at home once a week. I'm a mechanical minded guy and love the combustion engine, but I can't see it having mainstream appeal once people realize how much more convenient electric is for a daily commuter.

bigschnitz,

Yeah but why bother with lugging around a combustion engine you're not using? It's just weight, cost and maintenance effort.

I'm one of those dinosaurs who refuses to buy any car with less than 3 pedals, but even I can see that in the near future, electric drivetrains will better suit most people.

bigschnitz,

It’s claiming that pushing men out of civilized communities, spaces and conversations ultimately leads to them embracing more accepting alt-right ideologies and movements.

bigschnitz,

Hey cool! I did this at Kongma La pass (I think 5500m ish) in 2018 and I reckon it was the best beer I’ve ever had! https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/525a590d-aaf3-45c4-97cb-9a03ba098be7.jpeg

bigschnitz,

And to think they told me chooks can’t fly!

bigschnitz,

Have you ever spent time in a middle eastern country and been visibly “out”? (I’m assuming you’re saying this in reference to existing somewhere on the lgbtq spectrum)

If the answer is no, but you have spent time in America, then I think this is a strange comment.

bigschnitz,

To be clear, what I said was “I think that’s a strange comment” to someone saying “Americans want to kill me” in comparison to those in the Middle East.

If you read that back carefully, you might notice that I was careful not to say “I support the systematic and brutal murder of millions of people” - that’s because, like any sane person, I see that what Israel are doing is abhorrent. I never argued or insinuated that lgbtq people should support the genocide of bigots, but again for the sake of clarity my position is that only a literal insane person could think that. An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.

So, with that said, your post that I responded to seems to imply that you think Americans (in general) hate you in the same way that many in the middle east hate you. To me, that is an incredibly naive view, and a very strange thing for someone who’s never lived there to make.

I think that it’s possible to condemn elements of a culture, in an honest way ie. that the Islamic attitude to LGB is worse than that in western countries, however bad western countries often are (for some reason I think there’s sometimes less hate for the T in Islamic culture) but pull short of supporting the worst elements of western culture (like islamophobia) and absolutely without endorsing literal war crimes.

bigschnitz,

This is a dumb comment, to millions even being allowed in school is a privilege. source

bigschnitz,

XP sp1 and 2 were more or less the same as me with an updated UI and non existent 64 bit. However flawed vista was, it added an actual tangible benefit for 7 to further improve on.

I’d argue 7 was the last windows os that could be described as “better” in some way than what came before (which most, even the ones we remember as “bad” at the time, did offer some real step forward which isn’t true for 8/10/11).

bigschnitz,

Poland is one of the largest militaries in NATO and have a special hatred of Russia. I imagine alongside the UK and France, Russia has nukes aimed at Poland already.

They are plenty threatening already, though obviously adding nukes, even if American controlled, exacerbates things.

bigschnitz,

Because he has unrealized capital gains - in yearly income/expenditure their losing money but big picture, when they sell, they profit.

In Australia, rental returns are paltry (less than 2%) compared to any other investment, but steep tax concessions on and insane capital growth (often higher than 6% annually) incentivises speculative investment in real estate… This is what’s driving up the cost of housing to the cartoonist levels they currently are in. It’s not unusual for these speculators to not even bother with tenants, because like op suggests they often lose money maintaining the property, it’s cheaper to speculate and maybe renovate immediately before selling.

The problem has nothing to do with landlords and everything to do with speculators going for capital gains. Greedy landlords can be a problem where there are no rentals protections, but that can easily be resolved with regulation.

bigschnitz,

Dude he’s losing money year on year and capital gains carry it through to make it profitable longer term. The problems isn’t “landlords make a profit”, the problem is “speculative investors are removing housing stock driving up costs”.

Through that lense this guy is no saint.

bigschnitz,

The “speculative investors removing housing stock to drive up costs” folks tend to be corporately owned and industry coordinated properties that deliberately keep units open above the clearing rate, in hopes of driving up the prevailing cost of new housing.

This is dependant on the market (the post didn’t say where they are), but I understand is true in the US.

In Australia, the speculation is driven by individuals who get incredible tax incentives if their income is above a certain level. Because of this, the housing market is distorted to the point where housing values are detached from rent potential, with all the value being driven by capital gains and tax offsets. This further leads to a situation where it’s often more economically viable to leave a house empty (and therefore not have to maintain the property or deal with tenants) while the value grows and the tax is written down.

bigschnitz,

New Zealand has publically funded health care. If the government can force me to pay for your medical treatment (via tax), why is it a stretch for them to prevent you from running up those costs by engaging in self destructive drug use?

In any democracy, the voting public should choose how tax money is spent. If the majority don’t want to pay to manage smoking related illness, or pay to enforce a two tiered medical system, a democratic system would restrict or ban smoking.

bigschnitz,

It’s a democracy, the people have the right to value different things differently if they choose. The previous administration ran for office with the cigarette restrictions as part of their policy package and people voted for that. They didn’t vote for alcohol or fast food or whatever else your claiming is the same, if people wanted to ban other things they have the right to vote accordingly.

bigschnitz,

Most new zealnders don’t smoke, if most new zealanders don’t want to fund smoking how is that different than any other drug being illegal? Would you describe illegal cannibas or prescription only medications as tyranny of the majority?

There are checks and balances in place to prevent actual human rights abuses. You still haven’t answered why tax paying new zealanders should be forced to pay health costs for smokers when the majority don’t support it. If banning smoking is tyranny of the majority, forcing taxpayers to fund smokers against their will is surely tyranny of the minority.

bigschnitz,

If you’re saying it’s tyranny to prevent people from taking actions, that the majority feel shouldn’t be allowed, that drive up healthcare costs then that’s one thing. However if your position on this is based on a liberal ideal of people being allowed to do what they want, then it should surely equally apply to the taxpayers (particularly if they are majority voters) who don’t want to pay for the decisions of others. Either way that is government intervention restricting individuals freedom.

I think it’s not right to say “the governments money” as if an administrative body that is beholden to the voters has true autonomy over how it’s spent - that is the populations money and should be their choice on how it’s spent. One can argue it’s immoral to refuse migrants access to the country and healthcare but that isn’t accepted as justification for open borders. I also don’t understand, assuming cigarettes are some special case different than immigration where morality should trump democracy, why it’s more valid to say this taxpayer control over how their money is spent should be restricted based on your moral judgement compared to someone else’s moral judgement who’s claim is cigarettes are immoral (for whatever their chosen reason).

The claim of smokers dying younger and therefore costing less is something I didn’t consider and is an interesting point (that very well could prove true). But even if you discredit the taxpayer funded health argument, there’s moral arguments around selling addictive substances, human pain caused by premature death and sickness etc. that could just as readily be made as any argument based around individual freedoms. Why should your claims on what’s moral have precedence over someone else’s?

bigschnitz,

And I think it’s nearly universally acknowledged that ceding to the government the power to decide how its individual citizens should live their lives is a terrible idea. If we were talking about almost anything else, there would be an uproar.

Marijuana among many other drugs are illegal in New Zealand with no uproar. How is that different than cigarettes?

bigschnitz,

Nothing screams safe like a solid unibody chassis with no crumple zones, a high center of gravity, terrible visibility and an ride height that forces pedestrians under the wheels in an impact. safe

bigschnitz,

By your definition there is no such thing as a “terrorist movement”. Outside of lone Wolf insane people, no terrorists objective is to create terror purely for terrorsnsake. Terrorism is the tool they use to pursue their objectives. It’s right there in the definition of terrorism.

the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.

The IRA bombings of London were because they wanted the UK to leave northern Ireland, Al Quieda orchestrated September 11th to scare Americans out of supporting their agenda in the middle east. The US nukes in japan were to force Japan’s surrender in world war 2. Every major act of terrorism has a specific goal. Hamas is no different, their goal is to destroy the state of Israel. Israel being invaders, terrorists, thieves etc doesn’t change that Hamas is a terrorist organization.

bigschnitz,

Well, by that established-powers created definition every single act of war meant to cower civilians or other states is terrorism unless in committed in one’s own homeland (this latter exception because governments can make sure it’s “lawful” where they are soverign, but their law does not extend outside their borders)

There are international laws, however unenforced, that so called terrorist states regularly violate.

Bombing of Dresden during WWII: terrorism

I think the intent was to target factories which are considered part of the military establishment, but probably.

What Israel is doing right now in Gaza and all pretty much every single action of Israel in Palestine, outside it’s UN approved borders: terrorism

Is that even in question? Obviously indiscriminat bombing of a civilian population to drive them to migrate as refugees is terrorism.

Almost every single United States military operation, cover and overt outside it’s own borders: terrorism

When the USA invaded Iraq everyone around me was calling the US a terrorist state and there were mass protests in my country, Australia, at the our governments choice to be complicit in that. I would say that western countries tend to use more targeted attacks so they don’t usually meet their own definition of terrorist, but the USA nuclear bombs example as an example of terrorism is far from the only case.

I guess when Australia. Soldier Ben Roberts-Smith was found to be guilty of specific war crimes in Afghanistan they didn’t use the blanket term “terrorism”, but the guy is clearly a terrorist despite being a white Westerner.

By your very own statement (unproven, I might add) that an organization that commits acts of terrorism per that definition is a “terrorist movement”, then the US is a “terrorist movement”, as is Israel and for example just about every nation that invaded Iraq (as there was no UN mandate, hence it wasn’t lawful and a lot of actions done there were definitelly “use of violence and intimidation” for the most definitelly “political” aim of changing the government there).

What do mean unproven? I’ve quoted the dictionary definition from Google. You’re welcome to define terrorism however you want, but the most widely used definition, per most English language dictionaries, is to the effect of the use of violence against civilians or other non combatants to further political or social change.

Interestingly enough by your definition what Nazi Germany did to the Jews inside its own borders was not terrorism, because it was “lawful” in Germany at the time.

What the Nazis did is why we now have the Geneva convention and international laws around human rights. While those laws may not have existed at the time, plenty of Germans were tried and found guilty of them afterwards.

Most of what follows you seem to be arguing on what I consider to be the mistaken belief that there is no such thing as international law.

Israel as it exists right now is a terrorist state. I’m not stating that meaning I, in any way, agree with those who are calling for the obliteration of the state of Israel, but prior to Oct 7 the authorities were clearly selectively enforcing laws that allowed for violence and other acts of terror against Palestinians, both by the state itself and by private citizens. They clearly have been acting in violation of international law for a long time.

bigschnitz,

Yeah I guess I instinctively defaulted to terrorism because, like you say, “terrorist movement” is a kind of nonsense combination of words

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