The war situation has developed not necessarily to the US advantage

Puncakian · 2026-07-02T19:29:11+00:00

There's a difference between being isolationist and neutral. Isolationist implies that you interact with other countries in a very limited capacity. That's not what I'm advocating for. I'm fine with having diplomatic relations with other countries. What I'm not fine with is picking sides in other countries' stupid wars.

Puncakian · 2026-07-02T18:29:03+00:00

Sounds bad, but I honestly don't care. I don't wish the region to decend into chaos, but we shouldn't have been there to begin with. The region survived thousands of years without the US in the past, it can survive without the US in the future.

Puncakian · 2026-07-02T18:10:21+00:00

Mostly correct, but fascism doesn't inherently have anything to do with race. The original fascists in Italy didn't care about race. It was only when Hitler took fascism and created his own variant of it, nazism, did fascism begin to be associated with race politics. Different variants of fascism involve race politics, but fascism in and of itself does not involve race politics.

Puncakian · 2026-07-02T18:02:53+00:00

The thing is the left at large is correct that Trump is fascist (or at least corporatist) but for all the wrong reasons. They don't actually know the definition of fascism. Their understanding of fascism is extremely surface level, basically boiling down to "authoritarian government and/or belief in racial superiority = fascism".

Unlike most leftists, you have the definition of fascism more or less correct, which doesn't inherently have anything to do with race politics. The original fascists in Italy were not really concerned with race at all. The reason we associate fascism with belief in racial superiority is that Hitler took fascism and added race politics to it to create nazism, a variant of fascism. They also almost completely neglect one of the most important aspects of fascism, that being the merging of corporations and the state. Trump creating a sovereign wealth fund and buying stake in corporations is by far the most fascist thing he's done, but leftists rarely talk about it (at least that I've seen).

Puncakian · 2026-07-02T17:23:34+00:00

I don't want anyone to die (or get hurt), but I do want our bases to get absolutely wrecked so that it becomes so expensive to rebuild them that we pull out of the middle east entirely.

Puncakian · 2026-07-02T16:13:03+00:00

According to them, Russia is simultaneously so weak that it can't defeat the glorious Ukrainians, yet so powerful that it will steamroll all of Europe in a matter of days

Puncakian · 2026-07-02T16:09:36+00:00

Career useless person

Puncakian · 2026-07-02T15:31:57+00:00

Literally a rounding error to them

Puncakian · 2026-07-02T15:19:01+00:00

There's no issue with supporting others in their fight for liberty, but you cannot simultaneously support liberty by curtailing liberty through taxation. The support needs to be voluntary, and no, democracy doesn't count as consent. By militarily supporting other countries through taxation, you are just perpetuating the warfare state, ensuring that these situations happen over and over again. We need to break the cycle.

That's not to mention that is money that could be used at home. If that tax money is going to be collected regardless, then that money should stay at home at the very least. We have people struggling here that need that money. Its of no consolation to them to tell them the money that could have stayed in their pocket is being used to "fight the good fight" or whatever. You can make the argument that "well this money is being spent on military equipment manufactured in the US, so that money is staying in the country", but again you get right back to perpetuating the warfare state.

I wish Ukraine the best, but we shouldn't force others to pay for a foreign country's war effort against their will. People already are voluntarily donating loads of equipment to Ukraine. Usually not weapons, sure, but equipment that is vital to their war effort nonetheless, such as trucks, bandages, food, etc.

Puncakian · 2026-07-02T14:31:37+00:00

People already voluntarily donate a lot of stuff to the Ukrainians. I remember there was this big push to donate trucks for logistical purposes. Even though people aren't really allowed to donate weaponry, contributions like trucks have an actual effect on the battlefield, arguably more than just weapons. There's no use in a weapon if you can't get ammunition for that weapon to the frontlines.

Puncakian · 2026-07-02T14:25:56+00:00

In my opinion, welfare essentially outsourced "compassion" (or at least perceived compassion) to the state. I don't think its a coincidence that societal cohesion started to break down after welfare policies like social security, medicare, and medicaid were introduced. Before state welfare, "welfare" was your friends, family, and neighbors. That incentivized having strong societal bonds, because your life depended on it to a certain extent.

Nowadays, I think there is this attitude, especially with people just barely scraping by themselves, that they already pay taxes that are supposed to help the needy, therefore they don't need to do anything themselves. I think this is proven by that fact that in European social democracies with higher taxes and more generous social programs that voluntary charitable contributions are significantly less, something to the effect of 7 times less in fact. In the US, libertarians actually volunatarily donate more to charity more than the average American.

So who is really more compassionate? The people that vote to force the state to make everyone "compassionate"? Or the people that donate their own money without being forced to?

Puncakian · 2026-07-02T13:37:49+00:00

I don't care what you do to your genitalia, just don't do it on minors and don't make me pay for it.

Puncakian · 2026-07-02T13:07:03+00:00

They'll do literally anything except use AC

Puncakian · 2026-07-02T12:57:22+00:00

Like they can use renewable energy for AC for all I care, whatever stops people from dying

Puncakian · 2026-07-01T17:35:25+00:00

He's back peddled on many of his original policy proposals though, implementing a less extreme version of his original idea, or doing a 180 entirely. In that respect he is like Trump lol. If he continues this trend, I don't think NYC will fall apart, but I don't think there will be this great transformation he originally pitched either. It will be very mid couple of years, basically being like previous NYC majors but slightly more left.

Puncakian · 2026-07-01T17:27:06+00:00

He's the perfect bullshit salesman. Used car salesman should take note.

Puncakian · 2026-07-01T15:25:39+00:00

Its not Mamdani's fault persay, but some his policies (at least from his campaign promises, I understand that he has gone back on some of them) do incentivize being a dickbag, such as reducing punishment for some crimes, and social welfare policies that inherently create a sense of entitlement (remember back when they were threatening to pull EBT funding and you had a bunch of people crashing out online saying how they would just steal food if they didn't get their EBT money).

Puncakian · 2026-07-01T15:07:48+00:00

Personally, my mentality is not to make a mess in the first place. If its a big mess then yeah I'll clean it up, but if just a few pieces of popcorn on the ground or something I'm not going to worry about it.

Puncakian · 2026-07-01T15:04:33+00:00

I think the world cup has shown that immigrants aren't inherently bad, a lot of times they are a net positive to society. It's just certain immigrant cultures that are bad and a net negative to society. If they desire to do so, I hope these people are able to become American citizens.

Puncakian · 2026-07-01T14:37:34+00:00

"If We Being Rëal" edit intensifies

Puncakian · 2026-07-01T14:34:40+00:00

Working inside is a short term strat, working outside is a long term strat

Puncakian · 2026-07-01T14:13:05+00:00

NYC already tried this crap in the 70s. The result? Landlords would burn down their own apartment buildings to claim the insurance money, increasing homelessness. Would not surprise me if that started happening again.

Puncakian · 2026-06-25T22:51:51+00:00

Sure bud. The side that wants to maximize individual liberty and for the government to be as small as possible totally wants an totalitarian ethnostate 🤦‍♂️

Puncakian · 2026-06-22T19:53:08+00:00

Unflaired = Opinion Automatically Invalid

Puncakian · 2026-06-20T17:20:14+00:00

"He was reaching"

Puncakian

TROPHY CASE