Tell me you’re a foreign intelligence agent without saying you’re a foreign intelligence agent.

Tomato, to-illegal.

And think of the vomit!

Nope, we are commemorating it.

I’m sure that’s what these people got together to commemorate and no other events at all.

Remind me again how that started?

Never run for office. I implore you.

I have encountered more lunatics on Lemmy than I have in any other place in my entire life. It’s fucking astounding.

Yeah, that was my take, too.

I’m a man who was sexually abused by a woman when I was a child. If I point out that the sign in the thumbnail is both untrue and is a dangerous oversimplification am I a rape apologist?

If that’s the case, holy shit does that need to be specified.

Speak for yourself.

The whole “people can’t be illegal” thing is an attempt to bypass negative attitudes people have towards people who - ya know - break the law and violate the sovereignty of the country they’re in. It’s what dovetails with rebranding to saying “migrants”, it’s a bald-faced attempt to manipulate the public and get them to accept people jumping borders and overstaying visas.

Twelve hours, folks.

You see less AI generated fewer.

Three whole hours and the descriptivists haven’t come by to tell us there are no rules to language. This might be a record.

Christ, I hate Lemmy.

I’ll take “no shit, Sherlock” for 500, Alex.

The worst part is that the article says that Wilson took the sequel trilogy on a sudden left turn, but then blames Abrams for not playing nice when he tried to clean up the mess. That’s like blaming the EMTs for a car accident.

Think of foreign policy as a ladder, and you are the person in charge of your country (or at least their foreign relations). Each rung is a new action you can take to influence the behavior of other countries.

The first step is formal communications. That’s easy, you’re probably on that step with just about every other nation. The next few rings are all other friendly diplomatic steps, things like opening embassies, making trade agreements, non-aggression pacts, etc.

Now let’s say a neighboring country is doing something you don’t like. Your nation’s grievance with them will fall into one of a few broad categories: they are a threat to your security, they are a threat to your interests, or they are a threat to your honor (meaning your international reputation). Whatever the reason, your job is to change their behavior and none of the previous steps on the ladder have worked, so now you climb higher.

The next rungs are less friendly, but are still diplomatic. These are things like denouncements, cessation of trade, tariffs, and sanctions. At the very top of this set of rungs, you close your embassy and demand they close theirs. You break off most communication. Finally, you tell the whole world why they have wronged you.

Now you’ve done everything you can diplomatically, but their behavior is still a threat to your security, interest, or honor. How do you change their behavior? There are more rungs on the ladder.

Going all the way back to Sun Tzu, generals have known that their job was to take over when the diplomats failed. This doesn’t mean that total war is immediate or inevitable. The military could conduct raids, surgical strikes, or enforce an embargo. Warfare is simply the top rungs of the ladder of foreign policy. Some nations climb it more quickly or willingly than others, but war exists on the same spectrum as diplomacy.

How the fuck do you think gas pumps work?

I’m done feeding the trolls.