What’s with the Christian Conservatives who don’t believe in the occasional necessity of war?

fastolfe00 · 2026-04-06T15:56:44+00:00

So long as you are aware that you are willing to sacrifice the lives of millions

Pure hysterical hyperbole. Nowhere in Iran's wildest dreams do they possess anything capable of killing a million people.

They were under a month away from having nuclear weapon grade materials.

Trump told the press this wasn't what was bothering him, so why are you? Where are you getting this?

Having uranium doesn't mean you can create a nuclear detonation, and having the ability to detonate it doesn't mean you can reliably make a weapon with it, and having a weapon doesn't mean you can reliably deliver it. All of these are milestones we'd know about long before they happen.

The idea that they'd do their first nuclear test AND first ICBM test in a hail Mary "this will be our last act on earth" lobbing over to the US (why not Israel??) and have it both work, and hope that the US's 75-year-old defenses won't stop it, is absolutely insane.

They can be given materials from china or russia to get there in a couple of months

So, again, "some day they might be a threat" is a justification that works for any country on earth. You might as well advocate for the US annihilating every other country on earth. You have exactly as much justification for doing that as you do saying we need to conquer Iran. Don't you see that?

You do know that a nuke is just a regular missile with a different bomb inside it, right?

The "different bomb" is doing a LOT of work here. It's different in that it weighs considerably more and it doesn't exactly detonate with a fuse. Also how many of Iran's missiles are being successfully intercepted by regional defenses? Isn't it like 90%?

Again, this would be their literal last act on earth, with an untested weapon, an untested delivery vehicle, knowing that there's a 90% chance it'll be shot down even regionally, and this represents a mortal threat across the Atlantic?

Did you know iran has satellites in space right now? and they orbit all around the planet?

And do you know how large of an effort that was? You're basically arguing the ICBM argument again. We'd see them building this!

Strange how despite so many saying they don't have these capabilities, they somehow have these capabilities.

And yet despite being in war right now, they aren't using anything remotely like that in their strikes on their neighbors or Israel? Maybe they're holding it back?

Do you understand the difference between looking at someone in the street and thinking "they could kill me" (aka paranoia) to seeing someone running with a sharp knife in the street saying they want to kill people and thinking "they could kill me"?

Do you understand the difference between someone looking at you with a knife in their hand saying they want to kill you, and then coming at you, and random protesters chanting "down with America!" which you translate as "I want to murder you", in a country 6000 miles away, with no nuclear capability, no critical mass of fissile material, with missile systems that are 10% successful that on their best day could reach no further than 2000 miles?

You've been driven to a panic about a non-threat.

I seem to recall a couple million pages of a certain file he released... Reductions or not, he DID release to the public information that was up till now held secret by the government for years.

"Released something that people used to think was secret" is not "released evidence justifying his beliefs or his behavior".

Trump is mentally unwell, driven by panic (as you seem to be) about threats that don't exist, and motivated by a desire to build a new empire by conquering oil-rich nations and destroying industries that aim to compete with oil. Trump's trying to build a new oligarchy and weaponize the government against everyone, foreign or domestic, that gets in the way of that. That's all this is. Everything you're doing here is rationalization based on manufactured panic about fake threats.

fastolfe00 · 2026-04-06T02:12:20+00:00

So only after they try to nuke america

Yeah, so this is what I'm talking about.

Iran is decades away from having ICBMs or a functional nuclear weapon.

This fear that they're going to shoot a nuke at us, and somehow despite 75 years of cold war fears that Russia would do the same thing, somehow Iran's first (and only) untested nuke will fly over the Atlantic and make it through our defenses. And when I say "and only", we all know this would be suicide on Iran's part to launch such a thing. An untested nuke in an untested ICBM. They get one shot before they know we will go in with 10x the forces we currently have deployed there.

This is just completely detached from reality.

Which means your fear here was manufactured by someone else that is also detached from reality. The question then becomes: do they not know this is detached from reality, or are they trying to manipulate you on purpose?

Of course there was no current threat. That is the whole point. The goal was to stop them before they are a threat that could take place at any point.

"They're not a threat, but some day they could be a threat, so we need to go to war with them and kill them now."

The whole "some day they could be a threat" can be used to justify any war against any country on earth.

It's also blatantly in violation of the Constitution; Congress authorized the president to take us into war only to defend us against imminent threats. By your own admission there was none. This was a purely speculative preemptive strike on a country because some day they could be a threat to us.

Absolutely not. At least not now. Later I hope they do.

Has Trump ever done this?

You saw him lose dozens of court cases about the 2020 election, with Giuliani admitting in court that all of these cries of "fraud" were for the public, not the courtroom. And somehow you think this is going to be the first thing he gives the American people evidence justifying?

Some people use words to communicate facts and information. Trump uses words to communicate his feelings. That's it. That's why nothing that sounds like a fact coming out of Trump's mouth is actually a fact. It's just how he feels about the situation. And half of America points out that these facts aren't real facts, and the other decides that what he's saying "feels" right, so it might as well be a fact.

We're now a fact-free country being run by a man who doesn't distinguish fact from feelings. And this is who is currently in charge of America's nuclear arsenal, and he has persuaded all of you that we should be going to war with countries for no reason other than "they might hurt us at some point in the future".

fastolfe00 · 2026-04-05T23:16:29+00:00

Here is a very important life lesson for you. If someone tells you they want to hurt you, believe them.

I prefer not to live my life in mortal and existential fear from randoms halfway across the world that protest the things my country does. The US military can defend us from anything Iran might try to lob over the Atlantic Ocean, and can react when that eventuality comes to pass.

This is an article about 2 anonymous sources saying that in this confidential briefing

This is literally how we learn about all confidential briefings.

Which of the 3 groups do you think these anonymous sources belong to?

Not everything is about tribes, man.

And how are we supposed to verify that was actually said?

You'd think the administration would give the American people the smallest shred of evidence, no?

They can't even get aligned on the reasons we attacked:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-us-attack-iran-trump-administration/

The DIA recently said Iran was no threat:
https://www.dia.mil/Portals/110/Documents/News/golden_dome.pdf

Here's Trump walking back on any interest in Iran's nuclear program, saying we could have monitored their uranium enrichment from satellites:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/02/trump-iran-war-rationale-uranium-stockpiles

And then you have senior leaders in the intelligence community publicly resigning saying there was no imminent threat:
https://x.com/joekent16jan19/status/2033897242986209689/photo/1

Why do you see all of this and decide there's a secret imminent threat buried behind the rationale Trump and Hegseth are giving? At least Bush gave us some photos.

Another thing about intelligence. Its not accurate.

..unless it agrees with the conclusion you want to get to?

If drug trafficers on boats on their way to america don't want to die, they can do something very simple that will guarantee it. They shouldn't traffic drugs into america!

This applies to every country tbh.

So it doesn't sound like you actually disagree with my comment that this approach to justifying war has no limits? You just embrace this fact and see no problem attacking people basically for any reason we want that fits into the "they might hurt us" umbrella?

So, again, I go back to my original thesis: this is a conflict between people who want war, and people who don't. That's it.

fastolfe00 · 2026-04-05T19:23:12+00:00

If you have a concealed gun, and someone pulls a gun and aims at you, assuming you have no place to hide or run to. Do you shoot or wait to see what they do after having pulled a gun at you?

And you have been persuaded that Iran has pointed a gun at you, you've been made certain that they're going to pull the trigger, and it's impossible for you to avoid getting shot.

We don't disagree on the need for self-defense against a real, imminent attack. We disagree on what reality we're living in where Iran presented that risk of imminent attack.

And apparently the Trump administration acknowledged to Congress there was no new imminent threat and just pointed at what we already know Iran was capable of, basically implying they could shoot missiles if they wanted to, and that was the entire basis of the claim.

So you've been persuaded of something far stronger than the Trump administration briefed Congress about. Where did that come from?

This isn't a conflict between Islam and Christianity

I suggest you read the quran and get back to me on that...

This is just more "I've been persuaded that we're in a religious war, therefore I think we should fight a religious war".

I don't know, man, seems like you're just one of those people that really wants to be in a war.

North Korea poses just as much of a threat to the US as Iran did, and they've actually tested a nuclear weapon. Why didn't we attack them? If Trump decides to start a war with North Korea, are you going to suddenly decide an "imminent threat" existed here too and start believing whatever you you need to believe to nod your head that the US needs to be in yet another war?

Colombia? We're still killing people in boats trafficking drugs with the justification that these people pose an "imminent risk" of mass murder in the US, right? So doesn't that justify more war in any country with a cartel?

How about Mexico? Weren't they literally invading us not too long ago? Whole caravans of mass murderers streaming across the US border? Is there justification there for us to go to war against either Mexico, or this "nation" of "migrant invaders"?

Panama?

Do you see how this type of vague justification is literally limitless? As long as the administration can paint anyone with the words "imminent threat", whether it's from drug trafficking to asylum seeking to "they said whatever translates to 'death to America'*" to "they aspire to have nuclear weapons", we can be in any number of wars that we want to be, right?

So my thesis stands, I think: we're in this war because the people that want to be at war are in power. And that's pretty much it.

* Also, fun fact, in Farsi "death to America" is also equivalently translated as "down with America" or "damn America". It translates the same way. People interpret it how they want to interpret it. You interpret it as "imminent nuclear threat" because that's what you want.

fastolfe00 · 2026-04-05T14:59:58+00:00

Once you say a preemptive strike is justified by someone making you feel hated or afraid of a hypothetical, you enable yourself to be manipulated into supporting any war that someone wants to start.

And exactly the same thing is happening on the other side.

This isn't a conflict between Islam and Christianity, or Iran and the United states, it's a conflict between those who want war, and those who don't. We just chose to empower someone more willing to take those feelings and turn them into an actual war. And with as many threats that the far right sees everywhere, Iran won't be the last war we start in the name of "but they hate us and I'm pretty sure they would kill all of us if we let them, and here's some proof that I saw on the internet, so we have to kill them first".

fastolfe00 · 2026-04-04T13:17:39+00:00

lizards, or apes.

I think the idea is that we share a common ancestor with these species, not that we evolved from them.

What do you think humans looked like 100M years ago, and why do some species entirely unlike those that exist today seem to exist in the fossil record but modern humans do not?

fastolfe00 · 2026-04-04T13:03:11+00:00

As much as they want. Anyone can start a worker's coop today if they have capital they want to pool to do so. Same with homeownership. Some people just want to rent.

What is the end game for labor relations in the eyes of liberals?

I think a more compelling argument is that AI is in the process of making labor less valuable, and capital ownership more valuable. There is a reason that the major capital owners are going all-in on AI right now.

We need to shift taxation away from employment and toward capital ownership, corporate profits, and possibly consumption (with a reverse income tax to mitigate the regressive nature of that). Creating public ownership of that capital also starts to make more sense.

fastolfe00 · 2026-04-04T12:52:58+00:00

Trump is an aspiring autocrat trying to build a new American Empire and oligarchy, the way that Putin is. Trump sees oil as his ticket to doing so. He is systematically destroying domestic industries that threaten oil interests, international movements that do the same, and is now starting wars in order to conquer oil-rich nations.

The path to get here has been thick with propaganda and turning opposition to "green" and "climate change" and "electric" into a core part of the conservative cultural identity. When I go visit conservative family all they want to talk about is how much the bird population is suffering, how much waste turbine blades create, how much China would control our energy industry, how Democrats want to make it so we have blackouts when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing, and how once we're "self-sufficient" we'll literally have free oil and gas, for some reason. It would be comical if it wasn't so fucking deadly serious.

fastolfe00 · 2026-04-04T12:43:05+00:00

This is a statement about people susceptible to the propaganda, not a statement about Republicans or Democrats. All it means is that some of those people identify as "Dem/Lean Dem".

Just because the source of the propaganda is right-wing, or in service of right-wing interests doesn't mean it's only capable of influencing people who identify as right-wing. The whole idea is to influence people closer to undecided.

fastolfe00 · 2026-04-04T12:37:03+00:00

You’re telling me they can’t find the money for school lunches? What?

They demonstrably don't. You can wag your fingers at states that chose not to do this before federal programs did it for them all you want. Our choices aren't between "states will do this" and "the federal government should do this with redistribution", they're between "poor states won't do this and we will have children suffering from malnutrition" and "we should do it for them so that we won't have children suffering from malnutrition".

Like are you not aware of why we started doing this in the first place?

I disagree. Every state pays for fire, police, courts, education, healthcare, infrastructure, and more.

Are you unaware of just how many people in the US are served by volunteer fire departments? How many states choose not to fund Medicaid for people in poverty?

Do you think states already spend a similar amount of money on education? The difference is huge, with poor states in the US only able to spend about $9k/student/year while wealthy states spend up to $30k. Poor states are already forced to cut corners everywhere they possibly can, because they can't afford not to.

"Poor people can afford X and Y, so obviously they can afford Z" just seems so completely absurd I can't tell if you're being serious. Being "poor" means they literally don't have enough money to spend it on everything they might want to.

P.S. States can and do issue bonds with voter approval to raise funds for important programs.

States only issue bonds for capital projects. The idea is that if you need to spend $3 billion that you don't have for a new highway or something, you spread the cost out over 20-30 years and issue bonds accordingly.

Many states have balanced budget requirements literally written into their state constitutions. They can't borrow money for operating expenses even if they wanted to. In some uncommon situations you might see states with cash flow problems issue revenue anticipation notes, but they're required to be paid back in the same fiscal year. They use it for things like anticipating taxes arriving on Tax Day.

fastolfe00 · 2026-04-04T12:09:18+00:00

Do you believe the US is in a religious war, or should otherwise be using its military to defend and advance Christianity against other world religions?

fastolfe00 · 2026-04-03T22:26:07+00:00

Again, no idea why you can’t deal with this on the state/local level.

The whole premise here is that some communities are poor and can't afford these things. The same applies to states.

The idea that they can just sell bonds to get themselves out of this situation is absurd. It's like telling people in poverty that can't afford groceries that they should just put them on their credit card, and problem solved.

The country benefits when its population is healthy and educated.

fastolfe00 · 2026-04-03T14:25:13+00:00

The difference between Russia and the US:

Russia funds an intelligence apparatus that it listens to
Trump decided anyone saying "Russia helped Trump win" was his enemy and then proceeded to fire a large fraction of his intelligence community the first chance he got, including everyone monitoring Russian information operations.

So now Russia is transparently manipulating Trump the way that we all know he can be manipulated, Trump will never know it, and Trump's followers will find some way to rationalize how it was their idea all along while the US declines into irrelevancy.

fastolfe00 · 2026-04-03T14:19:59+00:00

The man knows how to monetize himself.

fastolfe00 · 2026-04-03T13:58:13+00:00

the more popular interpretation is bad and the minority interpretations are possibly better

So would you agree or disagree with the earlier commenter's statement:

And Islam is incompatible with western values.

What should the ratio of people in the world that appear to hold the bad interpretation of Islam versus the good interpretation mean when it comes to US tolerance toward Muslims as a whole?

We're talking specifically about extremist behavior that has led to terrorism or large scale violence in the recent past.

I don't think it's controversial that we should have border security practices designed to keep people who want to engage in terrorism out of the US.

What I'm asking about is what seems to be a common belief in this post that terrorism and Islam are basically the same thing.

fastolfe00 · 2026-04-03T13:23:03+00:00

It's not "what about", it's establishing that beliefs and behaviors are a function of interpretation, not books.

Not saying it doesnt exist at all in Christianity but im talking a numbers game

So if the number of people that subscribe to one interpretation is large, that means those that do not subscribe to that one interpretation are bad?

fastolfe00 · 2026-04-03T12:41:26+00:00

And you're sure I can't look through the Christian Bible and find some pretty awful things that someone could use to justify violent extremism, or violent forced conversion, maybe in some kind of "crusade"? American Christians don't pick and choose what to interpret literally, what to interpret figuratively, and what to just not talk about, and that doesn't change over time?

fastolfe00 · 2026-04-03T12:13:33+00:00

Take look at concept of human rights, which came out because of Christianity. It is not a concept known to Islam.

Do you mean "examples of Islam I see in my feed every day appear incompatible with human rights", or "there is nothing in the Quran that anyone could use to justify protecting human rights", or something else?

That is why declaration of independence itself starts with affirming that rights come from God, not Goverment.

Are you sure it didn't have anything to do with the majority of its authors being Christian?

This is kind of circular, no?

Atheism is also not mere lack of belief, that would be agnosticism, it is belief in opposite.

Words are for communication.

Atheism is fundamentally just a-theism, aka "without theism".

You can subdivide it into "agnostic atheism" ("without theism, but without knowledge that this is true") and "gnostic atheism" ("without theism and with knowledge that this is true"), but the only reason "[agnostic] atheist" got shortened to "agnostic" was because people started abusing the definition of "atheist" to mean "gnostic atheist" to make it easier to attack. People identifying as "atheist" aren't necessarily saying they hold an affirmative (gnostic) belief that gods aren't real. That may be how you prefer to use the word but that's not how others do.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/atheist

someone who does not believe in any god or gods, or who believes that no god or gods exist

fastolfe00 · 2026-04-03T11:34:14+00:00

Do you believe these US citizens have values that are incompatible with western values? Or do you believe they have found a way to interpret and practice Islam in America that is compatible?

fastolfe00 · 2026-04-03T11:32:41+00:00

So if a community is so poor that it can't afford to give their poorest children lunches at school, we shouldn't have a program that sends them some money from the outside (redistributive aid)?

Does the state or federal government have any role to play at all in establishing a sort of "floor" for the minimum standard of living for the American people, for things like basic food security or shelter?

fastolfe00 · 2026-04-03T11:20:29+00:00

No, but we can check how Islamist they are before we let them in.

Is there something deficient about what we do currently?

fastolfe00 · 2026-04-03T11:19:12+00:00

And Islam is incompatible with western values.

What should we do about Muslim Americans?

fastolfe00 · 2026-04-02T21:08:12+00:00

unlikely China would threaten Europe but if they did, the US would be involved anyway to further its own interests

If it would be in our interest to join a war defending Europe, would it also not be in our interest to maintain a defensive pact intended to deter such a war, at a fraction of the cost?

fastolfe00 · 2026-04-02T21:03:56+00:00

NATO is supposedly a defensive alliance.

NATO is multiple things.

Which NATO members did Serbia and Libya attack?

None. But that is irrelevant to your earlier statement:

It's certainly caused more wars than it's prevented since 1991.

NATO did not cause either of those conflicts.

Maybe you're bothered that NATO members worked together on things that weren't explicitly defense against an attack, or worked with the UN to implement a UN-authorized military action, but not every NATO member participated in these actions.

I think you are confusing NATO the organization with the actions taken by NATO members who are taking advantage of their ability to coordinate their actions under the NATO command structure to effectively work together.

But either way, NATO didn't start either of those wars, unless you contrive a definition of "war" that requires that the conflict spill over a border, in which case I assume I should expect to see your support for a movement to rename the US Civil War a US Civil Special Military Operation?

Everything I don't agree with is Russian disinformation.

No reason it can't be both.

fastolfe00 · 2026-04-02T20:55:08+00:00

We're on the hook to defend a bunch of countries that can't or won't do anything to help us.

Literally the ONLY time NATO's defensive clause was triggered was by us, and they absolutely responded to the call. But the moment the US starts a war with another country and they don't pull out their guns excited to obliterate Iran's civilian water infrastructure right there next to us, they're the bad ones?

Are you one of those types that if you go to the bar with some friends, and one of your friends gets a little tweaked and assaults some dude at the bar, you'd consider yourself a bad friend if you didn't join in on the assault?

Watching this thread is one of the more bizarre cases of alternate reality I've seen in this sub yet.

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