While this is true, I also kind of doubt that Reddit isn’t just one mistake away from accidentally deleting an old db and losing the historical data. So it may in fact mess up their ability to sell the data.

Also potential GDPR violations etc if you’re in the EU

It is tiny, but far more parity in terms of arms and the whole being an island thing makes it exponentially harder to invade than say, a country you share a a land border with including roads leading you to where you want to go.

This is somewhat misleading. According to that Wikipedia page, just using the US estimates, Ukraine has had 70k deaths and Russia has had 120k+. While these are similar in that they both round to 100k perhaps, Russia has almost double the Ukrainian military personnel losses.

War is miserable, but I don’t think Ukraine is losing military personnel by nearly the same clip that Russia is.

Fish don’t really swim, they are flying through the water.

If taxes are robbery then using public infrastructure like roads without paying taxes is also theft.

Taxes exist because public goods are actually good, and benefit everyone. The sum of the parts is greater than the individual parts. Your taxes pay for roads and public transit which are used to get people to work to create wealth for a community. It turns out the thing that makes humans great is community and banding together. Taxes are a formal way of doing that.

Now, we need equitable taxes, but that would involve taxing the rich proportionally. This is economically sound because wealth doesn’t trickle down and the mega wealthy are, well, mega wealthy because they hoard wealth. That money would be better spent creating better roads, better public transit, better education, or in short, a better community. The prospect of a better community only upsets those who are not members of the community, because their insane wealth puts them in a different class, and those who think defending that class will somehow get them privilege. The only privilege we need is a better community.

Certainly a possibility, but I almost think US quietly supporting Ukraine will make it easier, since it won’t be in the far right zeitgeist as much. Ukraine needs financial and military support. Passing bills individually for Ukraine is getting harder. Tacking another line item on to a “Support Israel” bill that provides military and financial assistance to Ukraine may be easier than new bills aimed at just supporting Ukraine would be.

Edit: to be clear, I’m hoping Ukraine gets more support from this, as my personal view is strongly in support of Ukraine. I don’t know that this will pan out that way, but I see a potential angle for it if democrats have the savvy to do it.

I think Russia probably encouraged this, but I think it’s another miscalculation. America is set up at this point to fight proxy wars. Now all that happens is Israel weapons gets added as a line item alongside Ukraine on a defense budget bill that’s now easier to pass. So they may have been involved or just encouraged, but I think it’s gonna backfire.