Such a tough and heartbreaking situation. Of course I'm pretty sure most of us would like to think we'd step up if our country was brutally attacked but I honestly have no idea what I'd do. Facing seemingly endless meat waves would be hell by itself let alone thermobaric bombs and drones.
No fucking way. I ain't gonna' die fighting for the inflated egos, of the morons in charge of the world powers and their ass-lickers. I'd gather up my loved ones and leave in a heartbeat, if my country started forced conscription. I'm not enough of a nationalist to die "for king and fatherland", no matter how much i like this little country.
You don't have to be patriotic to end up stepping up. When you see the shit Russia did to the Ukrainians in the areas they annex in 2014, it's easy to see why people wouldn't want that to happen to their family, and why they'd be willing to step up.
There have been times in my life when I would have fled, and times in my life when I would have fought. Never for the idea of country, but certainly for the people in the country. I’m a middle aged American woman and having no family anymore, I have considered fighting for the families of Ukraine. Though not too seriously and I don’t even know if they’d take me
I'm not fighting for this shithole country unless I am fighting against MAGAs instead of for MAGAs.
I personally think that's the only likely scenario where there'd be war on American soil.
Fuck my country. My loyalty is to my family.
(Completely different country here, no present risk.) The unfortunate reality for me is that I have three kids who might be called up if the shit hits the fan, and I've had 30 odd years longer on this planet.
If its not me, it's my kids.
I'm too old and too sick to ever be called up to fight unless it's hopeless. But I have a 14-year-old daughter and I see no reason for the modern U.S. military to keep its "women can't be drafted" policy in such a situation. I can't lose her. My biggest fear, one I have nightmares about, is outliving her. Even if I was super patriotic, I don't think I'd risk her being forced to fight. I would flee.
Maybe so, and this may be callous of me, but I would not sacrifice my daughter over them. I don't know whether or not you are a parent, but I don't think many parents would be willing to sacrifice their children because others wanted them sacrificed.
How many other sons and daughters are worth your's? Ten? A hundred? A thousand? Does it matter if they're children, or legal adults? Does it matter if they die quickly, or held, raped for a month, and then tortured to death?
Are you a parent? Because otherwise, I don't think you really understand why I feel this way.
Do you lack empathy for other parents and other children? Do you expect them to die to save you and your's, or will you just expect enough of them to die to stall for the duration of your lifetimes? How direct does your contribution to the deaths of others have to be? If your daughter was held hostage, would you go to the camps every day and pull the lever on the gas chambers, or would that be 'too much'?
My mother loves me, and I know she'd die to save my dumb ass. She'd kill a few people at the least too. But I also know she would be deeply ashamed of me if I was bound by common morality to assist in the prevention of a great evil, and chose instead to flee - not just spur of the moment, but continually, every day of my life, until either the evil was successful in its genocide or until other people paid the price on my behalf.
Could you look your daughter in the eyes, and tell her a hundred children raped to death were the price to not risk her life? Not even a guaranteed trade, just not to risk her life? What other risks to her life are unacceptable?
I'll take that as a no.
The need to protect your offspring doesn't just transcend species, it transcends kingdoms.
I'm sorry, but trying to reason or shame me into abandoning my parental need to protect my offspring that goes back literally billions of years is not something you're going to be able to do. There is a long, long history of parents begging their children not to go to war.
The need to protect your offspring doesn’t just transcend species, it transcends kingdoms.
Cool, the need to reproduce also transcends kingdoms, but I wouldn't be making moral arguments for reproducing at any cost either.
I’m sorry, but trying to reason or shame me into abandoning my parental need to protect my offspring that goes back literally billions of years is not something you’re going to be able to do. There is a long, long history of parents begging their children not to go to war.
There's also a long, long history of parents shaming or even killing their own children for not going to war for a just cause. This idea of a child being worth committing any evil to save is very modern. You can claim that it's something that you could never fight, that it's some biological imperative that takes precedence over everything else, but history, and fuck, recent examples for that matter, very clearly points to that being nothing but an excuse.
I don't remember making a moral argument. When did I do that? Can you please quote it?
I don’t remember making a moral argument. When did I do that? Can you please quote it?
If your argument isn't that saving your child under these circumstances is moral, what you're saying then, is that you recognize full well that what you're proposing, since it is seemingly entirely without limits, is unforgivably evil, but you're 100% okay with it anyway and have no interest in examining or questioning it.
Fight someone else's war...? And risk my life??. Fuck fighting for 'my country' - or some prick who might be in charge of it today. Its a fucking parasite that squeezed me for everything it could get, and relentlessly continues.
All the Ukrainians that were voluntarily willing to serve and fight are either already on the field, injured, or dead.
I believe Ukraine needs foreign soldiers to finish the war, or they will have to surrender eventually. The Russians have no problem dragging this out, sending millions more of their people to die for this war.
Terrible situation. I had a temp come work for me that had fled from Ukraine. I judged the situation at first, but I considered what I would do in his situation. I'd like to think I'd stay and fight, but we only get one life. My guy was just trying to to survive.
During the first year (Jesus I can't believe I'm saying this), my colleagues in Ukraine thanked us for the work we had and disappeared. I saw him post in a gaming blog comment about Elden Ring dlc so I think he's alive.
Most of the world wants to be left alone.
Your life is worth more than some money the wealth are tryin to obtain by using stupid af patrios.
Fighting for your home made more logical sense when the consequence of losing your home meant you most likely had nowhere to go and either were stuck under brutal occupation or left to wander for a place to live with a high risk of dying before finding anything. With how much more accessible distant travel is these days, I can't imagine any piece of land worth dying for, especially when considering the typical lack of support that veterans get when the fighting is over.
I respect those with the courage to fight for defense, but I wouldn't look down upon anyone who left.
considering the typical lack of support that veterans get when the fighting is over.
I've heard this about American vets, but is it true in eastern european countries too?
I wouldn't trust them. But then I’m a vet.
I have the biggest respect for all the people defending Ukraine from Russia.
But if everybody decided to not go to war. There would be no wars.
Utopia. I know.
For me there is a distinction between people volounterly choosing to defend imaginary borders and forcing people to do so. Since Ukraine decided to force even more ppl to do it, I have only mixed feelings.
"Just cede all land to bullies and live under tyrants" isn't as appealing of an alternative to fighting Russia.
What quote would you use to describe situation where country fighting russian empire starts to use russia' own tactic of feeding battlefield with cannon fodders forced to do so by force?
This doesn't matter what are the colours of tyranny above me. I hate them all.
That's not what's happening at all. Feel free to keep regurgitating Russian propaganda.
Ukraine doing anything bad is Russian Propaganda™
No one said that.
Keep lying.
yeah, people who do not care about country or do not want to die, are totally free to flee away. Men aren't blocked at the border at all.
Do not understand me bad. I was supportive all the time for the Ukraine, but west lost it, Ukraine lost it, all governments felt under russia influence, choosing profit above human lives. And in this situation I do not care about UA corrupted government, if ppl do not care, let them live.
When the likely outcome is death, most people don't want to fight. If people were just allowed to flee to some other country, not only the bully country gets a free and repeatable pass but the neighbouring countries get some immigration crisis which lead to not-so-fun rhetorics.
The Finns were some of the most vigorous defenders in history, but if they just had the option of moving en mass to Sweden, consequence-free, they probably would. If that was to be the case every decade or so, today's Russia would be bigger than the USSR ever was and without any republic whatsoever, only Russians given that everyone else fled. They have quite the history of chomping territory; that's how they got this big to start with.
You probably understand that this wouldn't fly. That the other countries wouldn't allow it to happen anyway. But at the end of the day, you need boots on the ground to do anything about it.
looking at things that happened during this war, Ukraine was able to defense itself and foght back with volounteers and "patriots" or just their own military with help from the west.
So rn their forces are depleted, the west is turning prorussian and is starting to talk about stopping support of ammo and arms to Ukraine.
One of the reasons russians started the war, was their expectation, that countries (fe Poland) wouldn't allow mass migrations of Ukrainians (they tested it before on poish borders, but forgot that polish ppl are fucking racists, and with mostly whiteUA population, ppl had not so big problem with immigration). They (russians) thought by killing civilians they will be able to force UA to surrender. Again, this plan had failed, due to ppl escaping Ukraine succesfully, allowing the volounters to fight for their imaginarry land with orc cannon fodders foghting for their own imaginary land.
Ukraine is losing, ppl across the Europe started rumoring about "forced relocation" of UA imigrants back to ukraine in order to fkrce them to fight in war, the EU, and USA is willing to lose due to capitalism and their own russia influence.
And right now, you want to allow those poor folks to die on the battlefield, bc billionaires from across the EU and USA want to save money, or just directly get even more from russians directly?
yeah, better find more quotes to try to justify this nonsense
These last year's of fighting were not exclusively done by volunteers and patriots at all.
Source: Gave a place to stay to a men (28yo) dodging the draft, weeks after the war started. He told me that his friends were either hiding in some grandpa house, pretending that they never knew about any draft invite, or straight up ran to some other country (some of them bribing border guards in the process).
These situations happened in 2022, not now. You can probably imagine that this is far from "with volunteers". A lot of these were caught (or didn't hide in the first place) and were sent to some army outpost.
No one is made for war... except 007 after he caught that brain eating amoeba from the gulf coast.
No one is made for war, but the world's military medical research teams are working on it.
Yeah I'd do the same.
I can't judge, prople have different mental strength and courage, i may do or feel the same if i was in place despite believing that all people should resist invaders
Interesting reading all the comments about how you can understand those who don't want to fight.. yet, most of you support financing this war...the Democrats are sending BILLIONS of dollars, and god forbid we question where all the money is going... right?
This seems consistent, not hypocritical. If someone supports financing Ukraine, then one should want Ukraine to have enough money for recruiting. Conscription is like an inefficient and regressive tax.
And if you stop helping Ukraine and it runs out of resources, what do you think will happen?
Russia will see this and be like: "oh sorry Ukraine i'll continue when you are rich"
I dislike war as much as the next guy but I also dislike the idea of Russia taking over Ukraine. And Poland. And Moldova. And any other former USSR state
War is hell, can't blame them
Such a tough and heartbreaking situation. Of course I'm pretty sure most of us would like to think we'd step up if our country was brutally attacked but I honestly have no idea what I'd do. Facing seemingly endless meat waves would be hell by itself let alone thermobaric bombs and drones.
No fucking way. I ain't gonna' die fighting for the inflated egos, of the morons in charge of the world powers and their ass-lickers. I'd gather up my loved ones and leave in a heartbeat, if my country started forced conscription. I'm not enough of a nationalist to die "for king and fatherland", no matter how much i like this little country.
You don't have to be patriotic to end up stepping up. When you see the shit Russia did to the Ukrainians in the areas they annex in 2014, it's easy to see why people wouldn't want that to happen to their family, and why they'd be willing to step up.
There have been times in my life when I would have fled, and times in my life when I would have fought. Never for the idea of country, but certainly for the people in the country. I’m a middle aged American woman and having no family anymore, I have considered fighting for the families of Ukraine. Though not too seriously and I don’t even know if they’d take me
I'm not fighting for this shithole country unless I am fighting against MAGAs instead of for MAGAs.
I personally think that's the only likely scenario where there'd be war on American soil.
Fuck my country. My loyalty is to my family.
(Completely different country here, no present risk.) The unfortunate reality for me is that I have three kids who might be called up if the shit hits the fan, and I've had 30 odd years longer on this planet.
If its not me, it's my kids.
I'm too old and too sick to ever be called up to fight unless it's hopeless. But I have a 14-year-old daughter and I see no reason for the modern U.S. military to keep its "women can't be drafted" policy in such a situation. I can't lose her. My biggest fear, one I have nightmares about, is outliving her. Even if I was super patriotic, I don't think I'd risk her being forced to fight. I would flee.
That only causes the sons and daughters of others to die
Maybe so, and this may be callous of me, but I would not sacrifice my daughter over them. I don't know whether or not you are a parent, but I don't think many parents would be willing to sacrifice their children because others wanted them sacrificed.
How many other sons and daughters are worth your's? Ten? A hundred? A thousand? Does it matter if they're children, or legal adults? Does it matter if they die quickly, or held, raped for a month, and then tortured to death?
Are you a parent? Because otherwise, I don't think you really understand why I feel this way.
Do you lack empathy for other parents and other children? Do you expect them to die to save you and your's, or will you just expect enough of them to die to stall for the duration of your lifetimes? How direct does your contribution to the deaths of others have to be? If your daughter was held hostage, would you go to the camps every day and pull the lever on the gas chambers, or would that be 'too much'?
My mother loves me, and I know she'd die to save my dumb ass. She'd kill a few people at the least too. But I also know she would be deeply ashamed of me if I was bound by common morality to assist in the prevention of a great evil, and chose instead to flee - not just spur of the moment, but continually, every day of my life, until either the evil was successful in its genocide or until other people paid the price on my behalf.
Could you look your daughter in the eyes, and tell her a hundred children raped to death were the price to not risk her life? Not even a guaranteed trade, just not to risk her life? What other risks to her life are unacceptable?
I'll take that as a no.
The need to protect your offspring doesn't just transcend species, it transcends kingdoms.
There are trees that will protect their offspring.
I'm sorry, but trying to reason or shame me into abandoning my parental need to protect my offspring that goes back literally billions of years is not something you're going to be able to do. There is a long, long history of parents begging their children not to go to war.
Cool, the need to reproduce also transcends kingdoms, but I wouldn't be making moral arguments for reproducing at any cost either.
There's also a long, long history of parents shaming or even killing their own children for not going to war for a just cause. This idea of a child being worth committing any evil to save is very modern. You can claim that it's something that you could never fight, that it's some biological imperative that takes precedence over everything else, but history, and fuck, recent examples for that matter, very clearly points to that being nothing but an excuse.
I don't remember making a moral argument. When did I do that? Can you please quote it?
If your argument isn't that saving your child under these circumstances is moral, what you're saying then, is that you recognize full well that what you're proposing, since it is seemingly entirely without limits, is unforgivably evil, but you're 100% okay with it anyway and have no interest in examining or questioning it.
Fight someone else's war...? And risk my life??. Fuck fighting for 'my country' - or some prick who might be in charge of it today. Its a fucking parasite that squeezed me for everything it could get, and relentlessly continues.
All the Ukrainians that were voluntarily willing to serve and fight are either already on the field, injured, or dead.
I believe Ukraine needs foreign soldiers to finish the war, or they will have to surrender eventually. The Russians have no problem dragging this out, sending millions more of their people to die for this war.
Terrible situation. I had a temp come work for me that had fled from Ukraine. I judged the situation at first, but I considered what I would do in his situation. I'd like to think I'd stay and fight, but we only get one life. My guy was just trying to to survive.
During the first year (Jesus I can't believe I'm saying this), my colleagues in Ukraine thanked us for the work we had and disappeared. I saw him post in a gaming blog comment about Elden Ring dlc so I think he's alive.
Most of the world wants to be left alone.
Your life is worth more than some money the wealth are tryin to obtain by using stupid af patrios.
Fighting for your home made more logical sense when the consequence of losing your home meant you most likely had nowhere to go and either were stuck under brutal occupation or left to wander for a place to live with a high risk of dying before finding anything. With how much more accessible distant travel is these days, I can't imagine any piece of land worth dying for, especially when considering the typical lack of support that veterans get when the fighting is over.
I respect those with the courage to fight for defense, but I wouldn't look down upon anyone who left.
I've heard this about American vets, but is it true in eastern european countries too?
I wouldn't trust them. But then I’m a vet.
I have the biggest respect for all the people defending Ukraine from Russia.
But if everybody decided to not go to war. There would be no wars.
Utopia. I know.
For me there is a distinction between people volounterly choosing to defend imaginary borders and forcing people to do so. Since Ukraine decided to force even more ppl to do it, I have only mixed feelings.
"Just cede all land to bullies and live under tyrants" isn't as appealing of an alternative to fighting Russia.
What quote would you use to describe situation where country fighting russian empire starts to use russia' own tactic of feeding battlefield with cannon fodders forced to do so by force? This doesn't matter what are the colours of tyranny above me. I hate them all.
That's not what's happening at all. Feel free to keep regurgitating Russian propaganda.
Ukraine doing anything bad is Russian Propaganda™
No one said that.
Keep lying.
yeah, people who do not care about country or do not want to die, are totally free to flee away. Men aren't blocked at the border at all.
Do not understand me bad. I was supportive all the time for the Ukraine, but west lost it, Ukraine lost it, all governments felt under russia influence, choosing profit above human lives. And in this situation I do not care about UA corrupted government, if ppl do not care, let them live.
When the likely outcome is death, most people don't want to fight. If people were just allowed to flee to some other country, not only the bully country gets a free and repeatable pass but the neighbouring countries get some immigration crisis which lead to not-so-fun rhetorics.
The Finns were some of the most vigorous defenders in history, but if they just had the option of moving en mass to Sweden, consequence-free, they probably would. If that was to be the case every decade or so, today's Russia would be bigger than the USSR ever was and without any republic whatsoever, only Russians given that everyone else fled. They have quite the history of chomping territory; that's how they got this big to start with.
You probably understand that this wouldn't fly. That the other countries wouldn't allow it to happen anyway. But at the end of the day, you need boots on the ground to do anything about it.
looking at things that happened during this war, Ukraine was able to defense itself and foght back with volounteers and "patriots" or just their own military with help from the west.
So rn their forces are depleted, the west is turning prorussian and is starting to talk about stopping support of ammo and arms to Ukraine.
One of the reasons russians started the war, was their expectation, that countries (fe Poland) wouldn't allow mass migrations of Ukrainians (they tested it before on poish borders, but forgot that polish ppl are fucking racists, and with mostly whiteUA population, ppl had not so big problem with immigration). They (russians) thought by killing civilians they will be able to force UA to surrender. Again, this plan had failed, due to ppl escaping Ukraine succesfully, allowing the volounters to fight for their imaginarry land with orc cannon fodders foghting for their own imaginary land.
Ukraine is losing, ppl across the Europe started rumoring about "forced relocation" of UA imigrants back to ukraine in order to fkrce them to fight in war, the EU, and USA is willing to lose due to capitalism and their own russia influence.
And right now, you want to allow those poor folks to die on the battlefield, bc billionaires from across the EU and USA want to save money, or just directly get even more from russians directly?
yeah, better find more quotes to try to justify this nonsense
These last year's of fighting were not exclusively done by volunteers and patriots at all.
Source: Gave a place to stay to a men (28yo) dodging the draft, weeks after the war started. He told me that his friends were either hiding in some grandpa house, pretending that they never knew about any draft invite, or straight up ran to some other country (some of them bribing border guards in the process).
These situations happened in 2022, not now. You can probably imagine that this is far from "with volunteers". A lot of these were caught (or didn't hide in the first place) and were sent to some army outpost.
No one is made for war... except 007 after he caught that brain eating amoeba from the gulf coast.
No one is made for war, but the world's military medical research teams are working on it.
Yeah I'd do the same.
I can't judge, prople have different mental strength and courage, i may do or feel the same if i was in place despite believing that all people should resist invaders
Interesting reading all the comments about how you can understand those who don't want to fight.. yet, most of you support financing this war...the Democrats are sending BILLIONS of dollars, and god forbid we question where all the money is going... right?
This seems consistent, not hypocritical. If someone supports financing Ukraine, then one should want Ukraine to have enough money for recruiting. Conscription is like an inefficient and regressive tax.
And if you stop helping Ukraine and it runs out of resources, what do you think will happen?
Russia will see this and be like: "oh sorry Ukraine i'll continue when you are rich"
I dislike war as much as the next guy but I also dislike the idea of Russia taking over Ukraine. And Poland. And Moldova. And any other former USSR state