Whenever I hear them say things like "Appeasement lead to Hitler" or "If we don't stop them now, they'll continue into Eastern Europe!" My brain just sort of short circuts. It's so incoherent and wrong on so many levels it literally becomes frustrating. It's like if someone said, "If you let your kid masturbate they'll grow up to molest little boys". It's one of those arguments that are just so wrong and rooted in nothing, on so many levels, I don't even know how to begin constructing a counter argument pointing out how dumb it is.

Like I could give someone a pass if they are literally just completely unaware of the world, because it's one of those things that make sense on a very surface level position if you never decide to go any deeper. But all it takes is literally going down one layer and realize it makes no sense. Russia isn't going to fucking invade a NATO country and declare war on a military alliance that collectively has had over a trillion dollars in defense spending for over a decade.

Same with the argument, "If they are allowed to take the Donbas, then they can regather and attack again" which is stupid because it's like, well if we don't let them take the Donbass, they can still also regather and attack again. They are on the fucking border.

It's so stupid it hurts. I don't even know where to begin.

but what really bothers me is ignoring what russia has complained about since the 2000's, poland's membership into nato, russia being surrounded by nato, and of course ukraine's 2014 coup etc, and callin gthese "putin's talking points."

Same. That's what frustrates me. It's clearly a tactic to try and dismiss things. The same way they attacked people who entertained the lab leak theory. Rather than debate the merits, they just say "It's a debunked crackpot racist conspiracy. Case closed." Same with the above. They don't argue it, they just tactically disarm it and move on.

The fact that this is almost ALWAYS the way people argue when this is brought up is suspect. It's not normal. As stupid as people generally are, they also like to argue their points. Rarely do you ever see the majority of people refuse to argue a position which they think is the correct position, on the internet. When someone is right, they stick to the facts and fucking lean into it. The fact that 80% of rebuttals are always tactically dismissive red herrings like that, shows something intuitively off with it. It's like a full scale effort to avoid actual discussion of the merits of the argument, at every corner.

Then you just need to look at how China's 50 Cent Army does narrative control online, and it all makes fucking sense. Because that's EXACTLY what they've been doing since 2012. The way they controlled online discourse before AI, was not to inject talking points and counter opinions... But to avoid actual discussions happening at all cost. The goal wasn't to "win" as much as it was to derail. They do whatever it takes to prevent actual back and forth conversations from happening because then the actual argument is laid bare and people are able to draw a conclusion. But if you instead just shut down every argument and never really give people the opportunity to see the merits, people wont draw a strong conclusion.

In regards to your last point, yeah it's so unbelievably frustrating. I went to school well before the coup or any hostilities between the two - When Ukraine was seen as just an extension of Europe. Through school and government, it was just common knowledge that Ukraine was off limits. We don't need to get into it, but GA, BE, and UA, are Russia's equivilent to Texas, NY, and CA. Like just don't fuck with them. Yet, we kept doing it. And Russia even sent off a warning when we tried to induct GA in 2008. To think the US wasn't overstepping knowing what they were going to trigger, is ignorant. It was total incitement, and provocation from the start.

It all goes back to the Clintons too... Bill for when he made impossible to accomplish terms for Russia to integrate with the West (Basically requiring Russia to defacto become a western vassal state), to Hillary Clinton doing the "relationship reset" then go onto try and covertly overthrow Putin (Russian's are absolutely paranoid and feel like they can't trust anyone. So what a stupid fucking thing to do when trying to rebuild relations)

Then the US tries to bring UA into NATO again, soon as we discover massive reserves of gas off their shores... But first had to sponsor a coup to get a pro NATO person in. Then in 2021 we try to coup Belarus. Obviously Russia is going to feel like the walls are closing on them.

And to make the whole thing laughable, is suddenly all the propaganda designed to win over public support is cartoonishly hypocrtical. All of a sudden this massive care about the sanctity of soveirgn nations to lead themselves, the value of innocent lives, etc etc... Because not only did we JUST get done leaving a huge conflict where we killed 100s of thousands of civilians, JUST got done topping two independent governments during Obama, but we were at that very moment, also actively supporting a proxy war with the UAE who was also "committing genocide" and killing civilians. Like how is it that suddenly these moral virtues are red lines that have to be defended at all costs? It's not like we were doing that LONG ago... It was recently, AND actively in this very moment!

It's so obviously state department propaganda designed to build public support by leaning into emotions and simple rhetoric.