Monday, February 28, 2022

Maximum Belligerence

I try to resist including lots of obvious caveats when I write things, because it shouldn't be necessary ("obvious") and it always feels like surrendering to the people who like to do bad faith readings of anything I write, but:

Being concerned about how to deal with the mad man with nuclear weapons is not motivated by a concern for that mad man. 

Being concerned about the impact of sanctions, both on the people and the mood of the mad man with the nuclear weapons, is not motivated by a concern for that mad man.

None of these concerns are motivated by sympathy for the mad man or his invasion.

De-escalation is a desirable goal, largely separate from any concept of who is right and who is wrong, and the sad thing is that our politicians* are largely just like us, in that they're getting amped up on war fever and twitter memes. We all want to crush the guy who deserves to be crushed, but getting through this with minimal loss of life should be the priority, not indulging righteous rage.

I am dumb and am not in charge of anything, and it is rare that I have any influence on the world at all, but the voices suggesting that anything other than maximum humiliation of Putin and "regime change" is unacceptable are growing louder. Hey, maybe they are right, but maybe they are catastrophically wrong!

*It seems the Biden people are pretty good! Some Dems are not, and Republicans switching from "Putin is good" to "Putin is history's greatest monster" is not actually helpful! Many UK politicians are far dumber and crueler than our own. Hard to believe, but very true.