John Bolton: Russian meddling was an 'act of war': - Polidicks

It's almost as if whoever gave you that degree was swayed by your ability to hem-haw bullshit. You have full confidence in your claims because you're bad at reading - as evidenced by this being the third time I've asked you to demonstrate where, exactly, I have stated the things you think I have stated or claimed the things you assert I have stated. Entirely ideological https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_related_to_the_Cold_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War_espionage https://fcw.com/articles/2004/04/26/tech-sabotage-during-the-cold-war.aspx Do you know what ideological means or don't you? I never made a singular claim about whether the reasons for people going to war were or war not ideological - merely that you can't "choose to abstain from war and therefore not be at war when another nation is warring against you". Sure, they had proxy battles, but the crux of the war for the actual warring nations was ideological and driven by ideology This is you trying to backtrack your claim as you realize that you used loaded language. That's something your professor might've given you a pass on. I won't since you're claiming expertise. I'll repeat your own introductory sentence: entirely ideological. What is 'ideological' about sabotage, information theft, proxy battles where bullets were exchanged and blood spilt? Note that I won't accept 'but the reasons they were fighting were ideological' because I've never made any claims about the reasons nations might go or conduct war - which was your initial claim, that I have 'an extremely narrow definition of war' not 'you refuse to accept that people might have valid reasons to go to war' but that I refused to see 'a broad spectrum of means through which war may be conducted'. I have provided evidence for my claims that you've consistently chosen to ignore for whatever reason Whereas you are guilty of gaslighting, here, in that it is I who have provided evidence which you have chosen to consistently ignore. Don't think you're fooling anyone here on that. My point was that was is not conventional in the way you initially claimed it is State where I stated that war is only ever conventional in my initial claim, which I shall provide here for a reference as you seem incapable of reading my posts. I used the word 'attack' specifically because it covers any sort of state action which causes some sort of damage or loss on another state - specifically because I wanted to include cyber-attacks and espionage, which are not 'guns and land' conventional warfare. This I immediately clarified in my response to your post which is more or less just the same post you've posted yet again which you have ignored yet again. War exists when groups of men attack other groups of men. Your 'belief' has nothing to do with it. In short: Get a refund on that degree - or at the very least on the classes from whoever taught your history courses because if you walked away thinking 'yeah, I know the cold war' and think 'man it was purely ideological' then your professor has done you a grave disservice because there were also many economic reasons for the war and also military reasons such as nuclear arms and the nuclear armament of the Russian state. You tried to nullify this assertion by narrowing the definition of war down to conventional warfare which is an overly traditional and dated interpretation of war, as especially today there are non-conventional forms of warfare such as cyber warfare, as well as traditional forms of warfare, such as ideological and psychological warfare (e.g. propaganda, war of the flea) that clearly contradict your definition. And this is you talking entirely out of your ass. Quote exactly where I 'narrowed the definition of war to conventional warfare' or TOXX yourself that you've sufficiently pointed out where I have done so already.

haha, that was funny. If you want me to explain more I can, but you'll have to tell me why you disagree.

People thinking real wars are imaginary doesn't make them not wars. A nonviolent action can still very much be an act of war. If I annihilate every single computer and piece of electronics in the entire United States, somehow exactly not including any devices in present operation that might be necessary for people's lives or immediate survival, I have nonetheless committed an egregious act of war - an all-out assault on America - despite there being absolutely zero 'violence' you could point to as not a single drop of blood was shed.

Of course that's true, I never said it wasn't. If something is actually a war, people who see it will believe it is. The War on Drugs is an actual war because in its essence its a campaign of violence, that is not in self-defense. People are not stupid, people know when they see war happening, and they know that it's wrong. That's why people hate to see war. They don't understand why there has to be violence, and anything that we don't understand, we tend to fear. Some people will always learn the truth eventually, and some people will always be brave enough to be honest about things that other people don't want to hear, because everybody loves to be honest (see: criminals are very easy to make confess because they want to tell their story to the world, and perhaps absolve their guilt through honesty). My point is, I think that if people believe they're at war, they will start an actual war if an actual war wasn't already going. If there is an actual war, people will believe its a war because people see the truth whether they express it or not.

The "War on Drugs" is a euphamism - there is no sovereign state of 'Drugs' nor a group of people called 'Drugs'. The War on the US conducted by Russia is not.

I think that your example is violent because violence is force. If you use force to take someone's property (either their body, or their personal possessions), then you are committing violence. In your scenario, the people had no choice in the matter, they were forced to lose their property by another person. That is violence, or the use of force. It will hurt the people it is committed on because they will be fucking pissed that somebody took their stuff, and scared that it could happen again. These negative emotions will make their lives worse, because it is mental pain. The reason crimes are bad isn't anything in our physical universe. The reason crimes are bad is because they cause people unwanted pain. Hitting someone on the head will always cause them pain, and that's why hitting people on the head is a crime. Also, I believe the objective truth is the objective truth. I just will never assume that I have it, because I have no way of knowing if I'm right or not except for one: Letting other people have the chance to tell me where my blind spots are, and what I didn't consider before I came to my conclusion.

I mean this in the most sincere and honest, not trolly, fashion: Are you presently on drugs while you're writing these posts?

The reason that you think I'm on drugs is because I'm not trying to force my ideas on you and don't believe anyone should have ideas forced on them. That is a scary, unusual thought, I know, but it doesn't mean I'm high. I am not high. I've just realized that if I try to talk more than listen, I will always fail. My essential idea is that I want to let people convince me, because I don't think I'm right about everything. Your response to that is that its impossible for someone to convince someone of something, which isn't true. You have convinced me of several things in this discussion, because I had the free choice to accept or reject your ideas and I choose to accept anything you say that I can tell that you mean honestly. One of those things was that my initial statement was too short and low on information to really demonstrate my point to anyone, which you were right to pick up on. If you think that we can't convince each other of the truth, then what do you think learning is? Learning can only be chosen, never forced. I choose to learn, that's why I'm learning from this conversation. You're right, our universe is war. I want to stop the war, but not with war. I want to stop the war by choosing to be peaceful and seeing if I can teach anyone else why being peaceful will always get you better results. However, I can never force anyone to learn this, and I refuse to try to force anybody to do anything. For example, yesterday I was out canvasing for a political candidate (not sure if I want to stick with this campaign, because I'm not sure if the candidate would be good for the country, but I volunteered in the campaign to try to learn more about it). My supervisor told me to steal the other candidate's campaign literature (their pamphlets, fliers etc) that they leave at people's houses, and then leave ours. I told him that I am not a thief, and I'm not going to steal our opponents campaign literature. I asked if we needed the literature for information-gathering purposes, and he said that we already had stolen copies of all the opposition's literature, we just "have to play dirty", "like you do in any campaign". I told him I respected his opinion but I didn't think that "playing dirty" is how you get your candidate elected, it's how you get your candidate a reputation as a "typical dishonest politician". I refused to steal the literature. I was honest with him at the same time. He respected my honesty, and he didn't try to make me steal for him. I am going to talk to the highest person I can in the campaign and ask them what our policy on "playing dirty" is, and if the official policy is that we must do it, I am going to leave the campaign and go work on the opponents campaign, because hopefully they are either not playing dirty, or can be convinced not to play dirty. I think that people like honesty, not dirty tricks. That is an example of my philosophy in action. I recognize that I always have a choice over my actions. I will not raise my voice at people intentionally anymore, and I will always try to use the nicest words possible to describe the truth, because people react negatively to negative words. The words we find most negative, we call "swears", and we try to ban them. When we try to force people not to say them, people say them more, until they're no longer considered curse words. That's why curse words depend so much on historical time, even more than "official, nice, good" words.

Learning can never be forced, only chosen You are selling me this myth that you're a learned person and are throwing these statements of yours as fact. Sorry, they're not facts. In fact, I can prove to you that people can be conditioned to learn behaviors through force and fear and simple association even if they don't want to learn. Also, post pictures of you doing your job or admit that everything you're writing is lies and 'appeals to reason' that are very poorly disguising what in reality are attempts to confuse the argument and sidetrack it.

Volunteering, I should have said, not working. That was my bad. I'm about to get an internship with them, but not if they embrace doing unethical things. I am not an unethical person, because I choose not to me.

Volunteering is working. Post the picture or drop this charade.

If I reveal my identity online, that is dangerous, because someone may not like the ideas I have posted and come after me about it. You said the same yourself, when you said that the campaign would fire me for having this info. Do you really want me to reveal my identity, still?

So you're worried about your good ethics being punished? I thought you were a champion for your philosophy? Besides, didn't you just state that you were considering leaving that campaign because they weren't acting ethically and you always 'choose to act ethically' which would include not working for unethical people? I'm not asking for anything that reveals your face or identity. I want a piece of paper with your username and the date on it photographed inside the campaign location you're working for.

Do you mind if I add you on steam? I can send you the info over private channels, I just don't want to link my facepunch account with who I am in real life until I'm sure I want to make that choice. I can't make snap decisions, those have been the biggest mistakes of my life so far (just my experience).

I do mind. Post it here or drop it. I don't like giving my steam account out to random people. Also your entire philosophy revolves around making snap decisions as otherwise you would be acting unethically. You didn't say 'enticing people like that was right'. You said 'but conditioning can be undone so that means that I was right when I wrote 'people never learn through conditioning, only by choice!''

I think that telling me I need to prove my real life identity before you will listen to what I have to say is kind of unkind of you. What did I do wrong here, man, I've just been trying to discuss our points of view and see what you could share with me. It's not a fight, it's a talk.

I didn't claim to be working for a political campaign and making a story about that campaign acting unethically but I, champion of justice, decided to not act unethically and saved the figurative day. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. You're not trying to discuss anything. You're trying to make the thread about you and trying to frame me as 'an angry, ignorant, man' for daring to contest your repeated, constant, factual fibs which you have now owned up to knowingly lying about. This is not a talk, it is a debate - which is what this forum is for.

How could someone be a warhawk in the nuclear age?

Some people just want to watch the world burn. There's a sect of Christians who would love bringing about the apocalypse and are all for doing anything possible to accelerate it because they want to go to heaven now, gerb dang it.

i think this entire argument between you two has lost its initial point, is now entirely fucking stupid and has frankly derailed the entire thread but i wanted to point out that asking for him to post a picture of his written username in the location [b]he works in[/b] publicly on the internet but not being willing to privately share his steam info with him is some delicious double-standards.

In what way is it a double-standard? I've made no extraordinary claims and what claims I have made I can and am willing and ready to back. If he doesn't want to prove the things he's claimed, he can simply withdraw them. Further, he shouldn't need to prove it to me as he's speaking to more than me when he makes his claims.

both of you stop posting and go somewhere else making an argument you can't back up is stupid and asking for personal information is also stupid ok back on topic thanks

Anyone who was part of the Reagan administration should be nowhere near the U.S. government in the 21st century, let alone 2018. Hell, those people never should've been near the government in the first place, but that's another story.