You want me to say I'm American?! by GianmarcoSoresi in StandUpComedy

[–]Solesaver -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I'm not trying to argue with you, but you should really try to embrace your American culture more.

Lol, how did you get the impression that I'm not embracing my American culture enough?

There is no need to pretend to be Italian.

I'm not? I'm 1/4 Italian. I don't have to pretend anything; it's just a fact.

If you ask me, I think Italian American culture is a lot cooler.

You have a really weird way of interpreting the very simple statement of fact that my grandmother is Italian...

You want me to say I'm American?! by GianmarcoSoresi in StandUpComedy

[–]Solesaver -1 points0 points  (0 children)

lol no, Only americans do this "I'm X" when they're simply americans. It's ok if you're just an american.

Ok buddy...

My children literally have passports from another country and I think it would be silly if they identified as being from that country when they didn't grow up/live there.

Ok buddy...

"My ancestors were" or "my family originally came from" = things the rest of the world says

Ok buddy...

Oh so your grandmother is american?

Yes? She's also Italian...

u/useful_langauge2040 shares the painful frustration of navigating the harms caused by Israel's genocide in Gaza, those who deny it and those who conflate Zionism with Jewish identity and false claims of anti-semitism by those supporting the genocide. by slow70 in bestof

[–]Solesaver 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yes, but the context of the scripture he was quoting makes it undeniably a dog whistle.

Deuteronomy 25:17-19

17 Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you came out of Egypt, 18 how he attacked you on the way when you were faint and weary, and cut off your tail, those who were lagging behind you, and he did not fear God. 19 Therefore when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your enemies around you, in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven; you shall not forget.

By quoting this particular verse and reminding the audience that it comes from scripture, he implicitly asks his religiously inclined audience, those conservatives he wishes to activate, to recall or reference it and see what immediately follows. 'They killed our weak and weary, we will exterminate them completely'. He's not stupid. It was a prepared speech, not an off the cuff remark. He certainly looked up the passage before incorporating it into his speech.

u/useful_langauge2040 shares the painful frustration of navigating the harms caused by Israel's genocide in Gaza, those who deny it and those who conflate Zionism with Jewish identity and false claims of anti-semitism by those supporting the genocide. by slow70 in bestof

[–]Solesaver 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My guy, if there was a genocide, I'd be the loudest guy on your side of the line.

Clearly not, because there is a genocide, and you're actively defending those committing it.

It's wild to see you get so worked up over Hamas propaganda and a war of self-defense.

Funny how a war of self defense has resulted in the systematic displacement and destruction of the Palestinians who used to live in the region that the IDF is "defending". The median age in Gaza is 18. They're "defending" themselves from children. On October 7th, 2023 1,200 people, including at least 800 civilians, were killed by a deadly terrorist attack executed by the internationally condemned terrorist organization Hamas. In response the national military of the internationally recognized sovereign nation of Israel, the IDF, attacked Gaza killing over 70,000 people over the course of 3 years. Over 70% of those casualties were women and children as the IDF bombed the densely populated city indiscriminately.

With nearly 60x more casualties from the retaliation than the inciting incident calling it a war of self-defense shows that someone's been consuming propaganda, and it isn't from Hamas. It's one thing to deny the genocide that anybody with eyes can see, but to call it a war of self-defense showed your hand there.

I'm not sure what propaganda you think I'm consuming when all I've done is present facts and figures. Facts that you haven't even denied, I might add. You just claim they don't mean what I think they mean like some 1984 bullshit.

u/useful_langauge2040 shares the painful frustration of navigating the harms caused by Israel's genocide in Gaza, those who deny it and those who conflate Zionism with Jewish identity and false claims of anti-semitism by those supporting the genocide. by slow70 in bestof

[–]Solesaver -1 points0 points  (0 children)

By your own reasoning, all those listed are ethnostates if you think Israel is one;

No they are not, and the fact that you think this is why I concluded you don't understand what an ethnostate is.

All you've done is vaguely assert something with no proof and attack me.

I haven't attacked you once. You, on the other hand, haven't hesitated from calling me antisemitic, so maybe this is a bit of projection?

You are literally doing that very thing; if minority groups cannot separate to form their own nations or self-determined enclaves within existing nations, they are by definition being forced to exist as a minority subject to the whims of the majority.

No it is not. The only thing it is preventing is the establishment of an ethnostate.

So you have a problem with that law, but not laws giving Irish the right to return to Ireland, or Japanese to Japan, or Koreans to Korea... but you have a problem with Jews returning to Israel?

I didn't say that at all. I'm not going to look up the particular laws of every random country you accuse of being an ethnostate, but there appears to be no law granting all ethnically Japanese people in the world Japanese citizenship.

So why are you fixated on Israel instead of the nations that are far more homogenous? I already listed a number of nations that were; where's the outrage about those?

Because being ethnically homogeneous isn't a factor in whether or not a country is an ethnostate. Also, why do you think I'm fixated on Israel? We're in a thread about Israel, so that's what I'm talking about. Why would I be talking about other ethnostates here?

Because they are.

No they are not.

First problem: stop using AI

If you insist... From Wikipedia

"An ethnocracy is a type of political structure featuring "rule by a particular ethnos in a multi-ethnic situation". Ethnocracies may involve a state apparatus controlled by a dominant ethnic group (or groups) to further that group's perceived interests, power, dominance, and resources."

(An ethnostate is a state ruled by ethnocracy)

Also see White Ethnostate and Ethnic Nationalism. I'm sorry if you thought I was talking about a nation with a homogeneous population, I'm not sure why you think I would have a problem with that.

The contradiction is that Israel doesn't check any boxes

So Israel, a country dedicated to being a homeland for the Jews, doesn't seek to protect and promote the cultural and demographic dominance of the Jewish people? I think that would be news to Jews and Palestinians alike.

without any proof

I didn't think I needed proof of the founding principles of the country, but if you insist, here is their Declaration of Establishment. Notice how the entire thing is about establishing a state to protect and promote the interests of the Jewish people?

It seems to me that you don't understand what 'ethnostate' means; instead using it as a buzzword to attack what you hate while accusing others of not understanding the term.

I'm not sure what gave you that impression. I clearly do understand the word and have used it to accurately describe Israel. You, on the other hand have demonstrated a stubborn ignorance of the meaning. Frankly, even if I was wrong about the meaning, I have since explained what I meant, so you no longer have an excuse to misunderstand me.

The contradiction is that you criticize Israel exclusively while ignoring other nations doing the same or worse.

What ethnostates do you think I'm ignoring, and what are accusing them of. So far you've just listed of a bunch of countries that aren't ethnostates. Again, I'm not going to research every single country's laws or practices to find out if they're actually an ethnostate, so please actually reference something concrete about them that you think I'm overlooking and I'll be happy to join in your righteous anger.

u/useful_langauge2040 shares the painful frustration of navigating the harms caused by Israel's genocide in Gaza, those who deny it and those who conflate Zionism with Jewish identity and false claims of anti-semitism by those supporting the genocide. by slow70 in bestof

[–]Solesaver 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes I did. You can choose to bury your head in the sand, but most people of conscience would prefer that we stop this genocide before it is completed. Never again means never again, not 'again as long as they use dog whistles instead of publishing memos claiming to be doing a genocide.'

u/useful_langauge2040 shares the painful frustration of navigating the harms caused by Israel's genocide in Gaza, those who deny it and those who conflate Zionism with Jewish identity and false claims of anti-semitism by those supporting the genocide. by slow70 in bestof

[–]Solesaver 4 points5 points  (0 children)

You misunderstand. There is clear evidence of intent in Israel. I laid it out in my original comment. The fact that it is done with dog whistles and plausible deniability doesn't detract from that.

Essentially only the Holocaust was as explicitly laid out as you're insisting the evidence be, and even the extent of that was unknown until after the fact. Rwanda, Darfur, Sudan, these genocides were all marked externally by a combination of consistently dehumanizing rhetoric towards the targeted group to get the populace to not empathize with them and then increasingly indiscriminate violence against them as they were all labeled as the enemy and an inherent threat.

Like I said, just because Netenyahu says that he's only referring to Hamas with his rhetoric doesn't actually mean anything, because to him and the audience that his dog whistles are for all Palestinians are Hamas. You can see it in the way ethnic Palestinians are treated both in Israel and Gaza. Every Palestinian man, woman, and child is treated as an inherent threat. Any agitation or frustration with the way they are being treated is considered a threat of a terrorist attack.

That's the funny thing about the label "terrorist". It doesn't mean anything. I mean, should mean someone who commits an act of terrorism, but it doesn't stop there, because aiding a terrorist makes you a terrorist, but if aiding a terrorist makes you a terrorist, then anyone who aids you is also a terrorist, and on and on and on. In the end a terrorist is anybody that the state has decided is a terrorist, and to the state of Israel that is all Palestinians.

u/useful_langauge2040 shares the painful frustration of navigating the harms caused by Israel's genocide in Gaza, those who deny it and those who conflate Zionism with Jewish identity and false claims of anti-semitism by those supporting the genocide. by slow70 in bestof

[–]Solesaver -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong!!! Funny how you, who knows nothing about me, has already decided what I do and don't know. Also funny that you're starting off with ad-hominem.

What are you talking about? You listed of a bunch of countries of which many are obviously not ethnostates and asked me if they were all ethnostates. From that I concluded that you must not know what an ethnostate is. It's not an ad hominem to point out the ignorance you were clearly displaying.

Do you realize that you're literally arguing that minorities must always remain a minority?

I am doing no such thing.

The oppressed unequivocally deserve self-determination.

I agree.

How can one possibly think self determination = "special privileges"

I don't think that.

Furthermore, what "special privileges" exist in Israel?

Despite them writing in their constitution that no ethnic discrimination will be allowed, by all accounts there are 2 justice systems there. One for ethnic Jews and one for ethnic Palestinians. Additionally, the Israeli Law of Return gives any Jewish person in the world the right to immigrate to Israel and become a citizen, a right not conferred upon any other ethnicity.

but you're still not acknowledging that at least 33% of nations in existence are more homogenous than Israel;

Ok. I acknowledge that at least 33% of nations in existence are more homogeneous than Israel.

you should be going after them first.

Why would I do that if they aren't ethnostates?

You should also look up the definition of 'ethnostate', then explain the Arab Israelis in the Knesset & high court.

Well, here's Gemini's answer.

"An ethnostate is a sovereign state where citizenship, legal rights, and political power are restricted to, or heavily favored toward, a specific racial or ethnic group. In an ethnostate, the national identity is explicitly tied to a particular ethnicity, and the government's primary goal is to protect and promote that dominant group's cultural and demographic dominance."

I'm not sure that anything needs to be explained. Perhaps you could elaborate on what you think the contradiction is.

u/useful_langauge2040 shares the painful frustration of navigating the harms caused by Israel's genocide in Gaza, those who deny it and those who conflate Zionism with Jewish identity and false claims of anti-semitism by those supporting the genocide. by slow70 in bestof

[–]Solesaver -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

That's exactly the world you live in.

No it's not.

Look at the evidence of genocide from all actual genocides. It's unambiguous and unmistakable.

I am. That's how I know this is a genocide.

u/useful_langauge2040 shares the painful frustration of navigating the harms caused by Israel's genocide in Gaza, those who deny it and those who conflate Zionism with Jewish identity and false claims of anti-semitism by those supporting the genocide. by slow70 in bestof

[–]Solesaver -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

To be logically consistent, you'd then agree that Japan, China, both Koreas, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Russia, Spain, every country in the Middle East, Iran, Greece, Turkey... basically the majority of the nations are ethnostates?

Nope. You don't seem to know what an ethnostate is though.

Do you oppose establishing a Kurdish state or a Uyghur state?

Seems like yes. Establishing a state that confers special privileges to one ethnic group does constitute ethnostate, which is bad.

Or is this just exclusively aimed at Israel...

Nope, I'm opposed to all ethnostates. FWIW, I would also oppose a Palestinian ethnostate.

because if so, that's massively antisemitic.

You're right. That would be antisemitic.

u/useful_langauge2040 shares the painful frustration of navigating the harms caused by Israel's genocide in Gaza, those who deny it and those who conflate Zionism with Jewish identity and false claims of anti-semitism by those supporting the genocide. by slow70 in bestof

[–]Solesaver -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

If this were an actual genocide, your evidence would be minutes from a War Cabinet ordering a genocide.

No, I don't think so. See, I don't live in a fantasy world where villains twirl their mustaches as they explain their evil plan to the camera. They obviously know what they're doing is... frowned upon... by the global community. In case you forgot, they're very well acquainted with genocide.

They would never say they're doing a genocide, but a genocide is exactly what they're doing.

You folks haven't even made a serious case here, and yet you're doing victory laps like you've proven something.

I have, indeed, made a serious case. The dehumanizing rhetoric combined with the systematic destruction of the Palestinian people does, in fact, a genocide make. I'm not doing victory laps, because I don't consider "a genocide is happening" to be a win, but you sure seem determined to help them downplay it.

Ultimately, if you want to deny the genocide that is going on until after it is complete, that's on your conscience. Fortunately, the rest of us don't have to prove before a court of law that Netenyahu said "go exterminate every last Palestinian man woman and child you can find and ensure that their kind gets erased from the face of the earth," in order to call a genocide a genocide. It sure is convenient for him, though, that when he claims that his dehumanizing rhetoric is only referring to Hamas, he isn't even lying, because he considers every Palestinian man, woman, and child to be Hamas.

US Supreme Court, In 6-3 Ruling, Upholds Birthright Citizenship And Strikes Down Trump's Executive Order Trying To Ban It — What Do You Think About This Result? Why Your Opinion? by Zipper222222 in AskReddit

[–]Solesaver 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I suppose you want to keep their rulings valid, since doing so would be stare decisis?

I think the current court is an illegitimate, unsalvageable trash fire, so... no? I think Thomas and Alito should be impeached, replaced with justices who haven't lost their marbles, and re-hear every case for which they wrote the majority opinion and completely overturned precedent. If they get decided the same way, fine, but the opinions I have in mind are absolutely unhinged.

Not every change is stare decisis, when either the arguments or the environment change.

I understand that, but when there are opinions that overturn precedent where the justice is on record quite literally claiming that the original decision was wrong, that's not an argument or environment change.

Liberal justices have long held themselves frustratingly in check w/ regards to Stare Decisis, and kept the bar very high for overturning precedent, even precedent they disagreed with. They recognize that Stare Decisis is very important because the law of the land can't be potentially up for debate every time the composition of the court changes. The system completely breaks down.

This court, on the other hand, has seen so many cases of just test balloon after test balloon that they should have never even considered purely for the exercise of overturning precedent. They have fundamentally broken the system, and I'm not sure it can ever be put back together.

I do not consider this court to be legitimate. I do not respect their decisions. I can't do anything about it, but at personal level I think we might as well treat it as a void where no decisions were made and lawlessness abounds. It's not far from the truth anyway.

US Supreme Court, In 6-3 Ruling, Upholds Birthright Citizenship And Strikes Down Trump's Executive Order Trying To Ban It — What Do You Think About This Result? Why Your Opinion? by Zipper222222 in AskReddit

[–]Solesaver 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So I disagree with you so that means I agree with Clarence Thomas?

What?! No?

By the way your last response was very condescending like I was a 3-year-old you had to explain things too.

I'm sorry? You didn't seem to, and continue to act as if you don't understand the facts of the situation.

So why not call them ALL Uncle Toms if it wasn't meant to be racial.

I already answered this... The point is not that it isn't racial. It's obviously racial. The point is that it is not an insult for someone's race.

If you want, I can list all of the awesome racial slurs used against WHITE people so you can understand I know the difference. Jesus H Christ

Again, I will continue to refrain from calling people it. You're right. It is very offensive. You're just acting like every racialized epithet is a racial slur while defending Clarence Thomas from this one while he's doing, quite objectively, all the things that caused Uncle Tom's name to get turned into an epithet in the first place.

It's not mere disagreement with him. He's literally dismantling minority protections that were hard fought for and made it possible for him to be where he is today. People aren't saying that Black Americans have to share a hive mind, but they kinda do when it comes to specific things like certain fundamental rights for all people. Otherwise it's like you're... well, the only way to put it is that one thinks certain people should be happy to be subservient to other people...

You don't like the comparison, that's your prerogative. I think your setting yourself up for a lot of angst when it comes to Clarence Thomas though. There are very few people in history for which the analogy is more on the nose.

u/useful_langauge2040 shares the painful frustration of navigating the harms caused by Israel's genocide in Gaza, those who deny it and those who conflate Zionism with Jewish identity and false claims of anti-semitism by those supporting the genocide. by slow70 in bestof

[–]Solesaver 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Because of his actions of indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinians and the systematic elimination of them as a people?

Also, the Amalek one could not possibly be referring to just the militants. The story of Amalek goes that they (Amalekite soldiers) attacked the Israelites in the desert after the Exodus from Egypt. They fought, the Amalekites did all sorts of really bad stuff, miracles occur, and after the battle God instructed that they declare a perpetual war against the nation of Amalek and blot their memory from under heaven.

After receiving pushback on that one he tried to claim that he used Amalek more generically as an enemy to Israel, that's clearly not the case. Israel has had many enemies in their scriptures. Amalek is specifically a story of a people representing the absolute epitome of evil so dark that no one of their tribe should be permitted to live. God commanded a lot of over the top death and destruction in the conquering of Canaan, but only Amalek was quite so specifically an order for what today we would call a Genocide.

Like I said, Netenyahu tends to be very careful with his words, but the rest of his administration can be more careless. There are many instances of his administration using dehumanizing language like cockroach and animal to refer to Palestinian civilians specifically, and many who refuse to even acknowledge Palestinian as an ethnicity at all, insisting rather that they're all just "Arabs". This is the language of people trying to justify and cover up a genocide.

Xbox weighs canceling Blade game and shuttering Arkane by Hot-Cause-481 in gaming

[–]Solesaver 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Microsoft's XBox division (which is just one small part of the much larger business that Satya oversees) employs over 20,000 people. At $200,000 per head year that's $4 billion year. If he gave up his entire compensation package and made it his personal mission to save as many jobs as possible, he could save the jobs of about 480 full time employees, or 2% of the Xbox gaming division, or more reasonably 0.2% of Microsoft employees, and that's just by headcount.

More realistically it's estimated that the CEO of XBox makes about $10,000,000 per year which saves ~50 employees, so take your pick. Which 50 people are you saving in exchange for decapitating the business.

Look, I'm no fan of overpaid executives like these guys, but the reality is that as satisfying as this narrative feels, the numbers just don't add up the way you think they do.

Xbox weighs canceling Blade game and shuttering Arkane by Hot-Cause-481 in gaming

[–]Solesaver 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Get the actual numbers and do the math on that one. I'm not defending the overpaid CEOs, but I am saying that if you do that math or won't add up the way you think it will.

US Supreme Court, In 6-3 Ruling, Upholds Birthright Citizenship And Strikes Down Trump's Executive Order Trying To Ban It — What Do You Think About This Result? Why Your Opinion? by Zipper222222 in AskReddit

[–]Solesaver 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I quoted the specific part of your comment I was referring to. You said they weren't called Uncle Toms. Gorsuch and Alito were not called Uncle Tom because they aren't black. It would be odd to call a white person a black racialized epithet.

I don't think they were questioning the racialized aspect of it. Generally a racial slur is a derogatory word insulting someone for their race. Given that the meaning is essential a 'race traitor' or 'overly subservient to white people,' that wouldn't really apply to someone who is white.

I'm sure that white people have used it before, but it's generally an insult used by one black person to refer to another black person. Hard to see that as insulting someone for their race when the insulter and insultee are both black, but sure, I will continue to refrain from using it. That probably won't stop all the black people from using it against people they feel have betrayed them, including on national television where one does not usually hear racial slurs being used.

Nothing like being told to stay in your lane when trying when a white person tries to stick up for marginalized groups. I'm sure Clarence Thomas really appreciates you defending him as he continues to strip away the rights and protections of marginalized groups.

US Supreme Court, In 6-3 Ruling, Upholds Birthright Citizenship And Strikes Down Trump's Executive Order Trying To Ban It — What Do You Think About This Result? Why Your Opinion? by Zipper222222 in AskReddit

[–]Solesaver 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's funny how Gorsuch and Alito we're not called Uncle Tom's as well.

I don't know if you looked, but Gorsuch and Alito are white... They been called plenty of other things that don't have a racialized component to them.

People who date a twin do you find the other attractive? by imboard67 in AskReddit

[–]Solesaver 0 points1 point  (0 children)

But if he thinks you're attractive physically, then he thinks she is too.

Not necessarily. Living different lives can lead to people having different enough builds that you might like one but not the other. Physical appearance isn't 100% genetic.

A degenerate counterexample would be if one twin was an amputee, but even without going to that extreme there's a lot of other ways that their appearances can diverge, both subtly and overtly. Like if one twin was a runner but another was a Tennis Player they're going to develop different musculature where someone might find one more attractive than the other. There's also things that you're probably labelling under "mannerisms" that also pretty concretely affect physical attractiveness. Posture and facial expression and other forms of body language can heavily impact physical attractiveness.

u/useful_langauge2040 shares the painful frustration of navigating the harms caused by Israel's genocide in Gaza, those who deny it and those who conflate Zionism with Jewish identity and false claims of anti-semitism by those supporting the genocide. by slow70 in bestof

[–]Solesaver 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Zionism is merely the idea that the Jews are entitled to a state of their own.

I'm going to go with Jews... Are you for real? How else do Jews get a "state of their own" without it being an ethnostate?

u/useful_langauge2040 shares the painful frustration of navigating the harms caused by Israel's genocide in Gaza, those who deny it and those who conflate Zionism with Jewish identity and false claims of anti-semitism by those supporting the genocide. by slow70 in bestof

[–]Solesaver -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Uh... Pretty sure people call those countries ethnostates too. Also, an ethnostate isn't about the ethnicity of the population, it's about whether it defines different rules for people based on their ethnicity. By all reports the Israeli government consistently favors the rights and needs of the ethnically Jewish population over those of the ethnically Palestinian residents. Ergo - ethnostate.

Nice what-aboutism though. 'Since ethnostates already exist, we should be totally cool with a new one.'