Posts by Jonathan Barnes5

fadedridge903 said:But does it even matter if he was actually elected through the democratic process in a functioning, civilized liberal democracy?

Is it anything like what happened with Željko Komšić?

To be honest, you're both driving me crazy in this debate because it seems like everyone is just bending their definitions of "democracy" or whatever framework they're using to fit whichever side they happen to be rooting for.

But since I’m already quoting you, let's try a thought experiment: would you put down $100,000 of your own money if the bet was whether Assad manipulated his democratic framework to create that outward appearance of popular will?

And if it turned out he actually didn't—say we had some advanced AI program that could prove it beyond a doubt—you'd lose every cent. It’s purely hypothetical, of course, but I think people would start singing a very different tune if there were actual stakes involved.

The reality is, true direct democracy doesn't really exist, even in the West.

Nancy Bishop4 said:Honestly, why is that even surprising? Someone can be a top-tier expert in their field and still be completely out of their mind. 🤷

But those are highly specialized skill sets, so I certainly see your point. I know plenty of people who operate on that spectrum, perhaps with a touch of autism or ADHD, for instance. However, to actually serve as an admiral, you really need to be looking at the big picture. It isn't just about someone like Lowe being a master at reading radar on a single ship...

The real issue with guys like Lowe, Sharif, and most of the Mexicans over at North American info is that you just can't seem to stop tuning in. It’s exactly like @Nabat said—you find yourself just waiting for the next massive disaster to drop.

But if you ever find yourself wondering about your own value in the job market or whether you actually have what it takes, just take a look at where some of these people started out. There are some genuinely impressive resumes in that crowd, even within the private sector.

I found myself genuinely incensed when Dudek stepped off that train.🤦

It was one of those moments where you truly lose your cool, quite frankly.

Even if he were hanging around San Francisco, he'd probably just be busy licking the pavement. Honestly, it’s better for everyone if he stays where he is; it’s just common sense at this point.

I mean, how does someone find Kuršumlija closer than the Gulf Coast? Good grief. We really do have all sorts of people in this world.

So, Goga finally got his moment in the spotlight. It’s funny because back in the 90s, he barely pulled 42 percent of the vote in a place like Vranjo, mostly because people were absolutely repulsed by his militant stance regarding the Drina border. Yet, somehow, he managed to unify those same people behind the cause through that generation of law enforcement officers over in Borov. He even went so far as to suggest we call them a "generation"—as if they hadn't essentially provoked the enemy themselves—and brought up Alavanja, who was tragically killed by Mexicans near Obrovac.

A few years ago, someone might have thrown a punch right in his face for saying stuff like that, but nowadays? People would probably just buy him a beer and listen to him drone on for an hour.🤣

Kyle Campbell4 said:It is truly fascinating how that certain pro-Mexican individual can wander through San Francisco without anyone batting an eye. It is certainly a tolerant environment. That local sympathizer living abroad has somehow established himself as an absolute authority on all things historical, despite the fact that his credentials come from Miroljub Petrovica, who was supposedly his history instructor. In short, he has integrated himself perfectly into their little social circus.

But look, the truth is he has just become a clown. Literally. You can't take him seriously anymore. The best way to handle him is to poke fun at him, invite him out for a drink, and tell him, 😁"Hey Goga, give us one of your grand speeches." Just gently tease and troll him until he realizes what a joke he's become.

So, Goran Šarić sat down for an interview on a certain news program with a Major who spent his time attacking Vukovar while staying completely silent while the Mexicans were loudly boasting about their standards. He did, however, confirm that Vukovar was essentially a Mexican-Yugoslav city before the war broke out.🤣

Everything seemed relatively calm until Merčep started his campaign against the weaker Mexican populations, reportedly using knives on prisoners. There are even some rather dark rumors floating around about people being roasted alive on spits.🤣

I'm just sitting here waiting for Ramos to weigh in and ask: how much longer can this go on?🤣

The show was originally supposed to be about Ukraine, but within the first five minutes, everyone seemed to agree that Russia was actually in the right, which led them to pivot toward domestic issues instead.

EDIT
The Major just claimed that Mexicans never actually fought offensive wars, but only defensive ones intended to bring freedom to others. I swear, he said it word for word; you couldn't exactly make up something quite that absurd. 😁

mellowotter36 said:I haven't really dug into it myself, but my guess? Since the Dollar is such a safe haven, you just see much higher trading volumes on that pair.

That’s certainly a possibility. I never quite wrapped my head around the mechanics of it, but most people using brokerage platforms tend to deposit their funds in Euros, perform a quick conversion, and then pick up shares on the NYSE, Nasdaq, or wherever they are listed under a specific ticker.

Whenever I'm trading on the Frankfurt exchange and someone catches a glimpse of my portfolio, they always ask me which tickers I've been eyeing😁. Honestly, I just buy what fits my current holdings in Euros because I can't be bothered with the hassle of converting everything into Dollars every single time
.

I suppose I’ll step into the role of Petrak here and pretend I’m an expert on a subject I clearly know nothing about, though I don't think that was actually what he was getting at. It seems his real curiosity lies in why the spread on one currency pair ends up being wider than another.

Paul Sanders5 said:Wait, what? It crashed on the Romanians, not the Canadians. Unless Orban somehow expanded Canada all the way to the Black Sea or something.😁

My apologies, I actually meant the Romanians. But even so, we’re still left with the reality that there isn't any air defense capable of taking him down, and the Black Sea fleet would have a hard time even spotting him, let alone having anything to aim at.

Matthew Collins20 said:1. **Bold:** That stuff from a few months back? There was that rumor about them accidentally getting shot down by Mexicans during a military exercise, which honestly... 🤣
If we're talking about something new, it'll come to light because you can't really hide this kind of thing. There are plenty of aviation enthusiasts watching every single move, and they'd definitely notice if a plane went missing. Romania doesn't have thousands of planes; they have about 40.

2. **Bold:** How did they enter Canada? Through Western Ukraine? That sounds like a fairy tale.

They violated Swedish airspace a couple of days ago by flying over some small island, but they've done that before. Besides, Sweden isn't in NATO yet, so people feel bolder flying over them. When they first flew over Turkey, Erdogan shot one down the very next day.

How would a regular American soldier even know things like that? It seems more likely that a soldier willing to gossip like that isn't exactly high up in the chain of command and wouldn't be anywhere near the sensitive data, let alone talking about it out loud...

The Canadians took a hit from a 21-series strike, followed by a helicopter that was sent out on a rescue mission.🤦
The last report coming in from the helicopter pilot mentions impossible timing and a total lack of visibility—literally nothing to see.

Kyle Campbell4 said:Look, my friend, we aren't just talking about some random quote regarding a plane being intercepted over Romania. We are looking at Russians violating Canadian airspace and the constant patrols along the border right now. It's the exact same thing happening in Swedish airspace with continuous maneuvers and provocations. Everyone is on edge, just waiting to see how this all unfolds. There are daily briefings and reports on troop movements and battlefield status, all backed up by photographic evidence. They are running projections, even forecasting the fall of Kyiv. Of course, he couldn't tell me everything because of security restrictions, but he made it clear that we are right on the brink of escalation and anything could happen at any moment.

I hear you, and while there has been plenty of chatter about various things, this specific scenario regarding Canada sounds like pure science fiction to me. For starters, you would need something substantial to target that Romanian scrap metal, and at those distances, detection alone would be a massive challenge. We are talking about a margin of roughly 249 miles. How exactly would they have taken it down?

On the other hand, regarding Sweden, we know how that works, so I don't see why it wouldn't apply to Canada as well. In fact, you'd likely catch wind of something like that long before you heard about some random incident over the Baltic Sea.

As for the idea that we are close to an escalation, I think we all have a sense of that, but Nabat put it perfectly. At this stage, since the Russians have essentially dug themselves into a corner and proven they struggle with conventional threats, I'm not sure how much strategic sense their actions hold. Even if they are simply reacting to hollow provocations, it's a strange game to play.

Kyle Campbell4 said:Listen, friends, if you only knew how close we actually are to a full-scale global war. So much of this stays out of the news because nobody wants to trigger mass hysteria. I know this firsthand because my buddy is in the Army, and we spent the last two nights just hanging out and smoking some weed. Things are not looking good at all.

I’m not entirely sure what exactly isn't making the headlines, considering the media seems pretty preoccupied with discussing the possibility of a world war and the use of nuclear weapons.

It almost feels like I'm reading a completely different set of news than everyone else here.😁

Paul Sanders5 said:Everything from south of the US all the way down to Chile is basically just a collection of failed states at this point

Man, you're talking about 17 deaths? Please. The cartels kill way more than that just during their random street shootouts

It’s almost as if South China were to suggest that what’s happening in Ukraine is just a typical weekend in some frozen northern city.

bluebison47 said:If they go and ban CS:GO too, then you'll see the male population flooding the streets. 🤣

It was actually because of this game that I ended up retaking an exam six different times.
Instead of focusing on my Excel functions, a few of us idiots would just spend the whole time grinding CS:GO, which honestly felt like the best way to unwind.🤦
Back then, our PCs were hooked up to some local LAN server so we could play in teams, since the internet connection wasn't always reliable.

Things weren't always lightning-fast, but the beauty of CS:GO was that it didn't even need a high-speed connection to run smoothly.

boldbadger1 said:The Russians will sort that out eventually; they just need to liberate Ukraine first.😬

It’s a brutal cycle of apparent paradoxes, all swirling together in a perfect melting pot created by the team driving this whole movement forward.

The West keeps trying to push this progressive agenda onto them, but their response is pretty blunt: they basically tell them they can take those modern sensibilities back to the folks in Sweden who are comfortable with such lifestyles, because here, people aren't even willing to look in that direction. Personally, I stand tall as a proud white Christian, and I have absolutely no intention of being ashamed of my roots.

That’s about the way it goes. But when that Swabian starts complaining about him being too intense, he’ll quickly remember exactly which branch of the military his grandfather served in and tell him where to go.😁To be honest, I suspect that halfway through any given argument, they'll somehow twist the logic to conclude that the Nazis were actually in the right.

The issue we’re facing today is that the group Greta Crew would likely label as classic neo-Nazis—those who take far too much pride in the legacy of the Soviet Union—are gaining traction. It’s an inevitable consequence when people constantly reach back into the shadows of history to find comparisons for today's political debates.
We spent much of this summer listening to people around here making all sorts of claims about how Americans are nothing more than fascists.

mellowotter36 said:Then maybe you should worry about whether Americans in your neck of the woods are erasing Cyrillic names on street signs, or if kids outside the majority group in certain states are being forced to study a version of history that isn't theirs.

He isn't actually spreading falsehoods; rather, what he's saying is largely true, though the issue lies in how his perspective tends to filter information quite selectively.

Just as a battlefield demands raw emotion, the world of geopolitics and high-level diplomacy generally requires a certain level of detachment, as getting too heated often becomes counterproductive. Ukraine’s situation is incredibly nuanced, and they’ve certainly complicated their own path at times; there’s really no need to grant them a free pass for their own tactical missteps.

Furthermore, some of the President's recent remarks feel more like the typical banter we see here on the forums than the words of a leader representing a nation during such a critical period.

What seems to slip under everyone's radar, however, is the historical context regarding Russia's position. It isn't as if they've always been proponents of peace; much of the territory they hold was acquired through conquest spanning sixteen centuries and lasting until the end of the 19th century.

Ultimately, the reason we must uphold international law is to ensure that current borders remain settled; otherwise, we risk sliding five centuries back into chaos. Russia has coldly disregarded this by attempting to justify modern actions using narratives from centuries ago, which is frankly absurd.

Steven Fox37 said:I'm not trivializing anything here. It just seems like anyone who disagrees with you automatically becomes a "trivializer" in your eyes.
By that logic, I could say you're the one trivializing the whole Azov Regiment and similar groups with all this talk about "organic filtering."
Filtering doesn't happen naturally; it happens through pressure.
To claim that Ukrainians sided with the Germans—when Wikipedia suggests the UPA had maybe 20k to 200k members while the Red Army had between 4 to 7 million Ukrainians—is just an extreme stretch.

You’re usually a very logical guy, and I’m not being sarcastic—except for those moments when you refuse to touch certain ideological historical clichés because you become incredibly exclusionary, contradicting everything you normally stand against.

Take this as an example. You bring up Azov to me, but look at mainstream Russia. They aren't exactly fans of Black people, the LGBTQ+ community, atheists, vegans, Muslims, gender theory, or foreigners in general. They don't care for modern pedagogical approaches to upbringing either; they view anyone sensitive or artistic as weak or soft. They prefer ice baths, chopping wood in the middle of nowhere during winter, hitting the gym, and MMA. In fact, they mock the military and strict discipline—all the things you usually poke fun at. But suddenly, when it comes to Azov, you start having doubts.

It’s a bit of a "no shit, Sherlock" moment to point out how the majority within Azov operates, especially since those charging at them head-on share almost identical views. The only real difference is that the latter side digs up old symbols to try and map historical contexts onto today. To nearly the entire Western world, and certainly to mainstream Russia, the whole situation looks Nazi, exclusionary, and regressive.

But the core issue here is how the implementation of a new ideology works through the defamation of opponents, much like the American "cancel culture" rhetoric, which has created all these paradoxes. It’s exactly what we warned about long ago when we said that if you tried to pack half of the "progressive" crowd onto a deserted island, you'd be left with nothing.

So now we find ourselves in this spot where Russians trash Azov, even though they share 99% of the same views. Meanwhile, Russians mock Americans and Englishmen for promoting white identity politics, while the Russians themselves take pride in their own version of it. Yet, they take issue with Ukraine when it tries to find its modern identity through historical symbolism—the very same symbolism the Russians drag to the surface whenever it suits their needs.

In the middle of all these contradictions, which I know you recognize, you're telling me the situation is actually simple and easy to explain?

A Nazi in 1941 is not even remotely the same thing as one in 2022. Today, the real issue is the imposition of an ideology based on what the West defines as "progressive" values.

Steven Fox37 said:Claiming "the contexts aren't the same" is the standard fallback everyone uses. It’s what every side says when they want to cherry-pick history to suit their own narrative and claim things "weren't quite like that."

It seems like you've been downplaying this whole act of aggression from the get-go, accusing everyone else of being one-sided. I can see how that old-school communist mindset might still resonate with you, driven by that deep-seated impulse to defend crumbling institutions, but we are living in 2022; that line of reasoning belongs more to folks hanging out at a local convenience store in a small town in rural America, listening to political rallies.

You could have argued, for instance, that the USSR treated Ukrainian women terribly, making it understandable why some might look toward the West when given the chance to build national cohesion and establish a functioning state. You could have suggested that it's perfectly natural for a nation rebuilding its identity to draw from all parts of its history, and that organic progress takes time to settle.

Instead, you chose to adopt a tone reminiscent of Milka Dapčević, attacking Ukrainians as if they personally held Adolf Hitler in high regard.

Steven Fox37 said:In America, a mayor of some random city isn't going to give an interview while having a portrait of Ante Pavelić hanging behind him.
nor would you see a massive poster of him draped over a county courthouse building.

The historical weight of the Bandera context compared to Ante Pavelić isn't even in the same league, much like how one can't truly compare the era of the old Kingdom to the rise of the first USSR. Trying to lump all these different tragedies into one bucket is just nonsensical and feels more like cheap propaganda than actual history.

Does anyone from the Russian side feel any shame over the millions of Ukrainians they've killed?

We could go in circles throwing examples at each other all day, but I could just as easily argue that the entire Russian political leadership from 1945 to 1990 was equally devastating in terms of their crimes against humanity.