Ukraine vs Russia: Who has the moral high ground?

[Ksihkehe]

It was a genuine question. Let me explain.

There is no need to explain and you already got a genuine answer. I interpreted the question within the full context when I responded the first time.

The explanation is that you encumbered my statement with a bunch of political baggage in your head and then injected personal disagreements you had with others into a very simple statement I made.

Comments about sucking Putin's dick and all this baggage you're trying to heap on me are exactly why I'm not interested in what team WWIII have to say. I don't need all that political baggage and animus heaped on me, that's not mine to carry. I'm not a practice dummy to pin your enemy's face on and that's exactly how I feel you've engaged with everyone here. I'm happy to return that favor and I think you know exactly how it feels now, do you not? Didn't you feel every one of those barbs I threw at a bunch of groups? You sure seemed to. You felt that way because you thought that I was just heaping all these complaints on you. I don't actually know you though... and you don't know me... so how can any of that really be personal?

My position is very simple. I don't approve of any state dropping bombs on any civilians, ever. If you would you care to manipulate that into "so you think only Ukraine has bombed civilians" or "so you think Russia doesn't bomb civilians" then by all means, apply whatever proprietary mix of political baggage you must in your interpretation. I'm just not interesting in carrying that baggage, so there's no need to share it with me.

Not only have your posts been nothing but personal attacks, you even played your moderator card. Another pathetic display. If anyone is showing "blind hatred" here, it's you.

   

I know less about you than I do about Magic the Gathering and I only knew enough about that to amuse myself with a card generator. I only know that you do things like get upset over meaningless banter and call people a dick sucker when you don't like their opinion. You lose focus on important things for unimportant reasons.

As for playing the moderator card, there is no real path to me winning there. If I warn you that this kind of thing will be removed as spam if people are not willing to engage with it and you persist in doing it, then I'm playing the moderator card and you're the victim. If I just delete it when it gets to the point of being spam, you're still going to be the victim. It's okay, I know that you'll be the victim and I'll be the villain in every story. I'm fine with that, but it doesn't really change the end of the story nor the disposition of its characters. This is your thread, spam away. I engaged with it, so obviously it doesn't even fit the criteria I laid out. I'm not interested in talking about whose bombs landing on children are more morally justified, but this tiresome moderation stuff is what I'm here for so I'm responding.

In my opinion it would be unethical to simply remove your posts in the future without making an effort to inform you of what to expect and why, because you aren't just an ad spammer. I honestly never thought that we would have somebody here that doesn't understand that adding a bunch of ad lib from the boogieman in their head, relating it to personal disagreements from others, and then injecting it into a third party's very simple statement isn't how you make an effort to get serious engagement. It's bait. I didn't even say you can't do it... I just said it's transparent and when people stop wanting to play then you're going to need to dial it way back or you'll end up with posts deleted. These are simple statements of fact. People want to be engaged with in an authentic manner.

What bothers me is that I have given you probably a dozen incredibly valuable tips in several posts in different threads and you've chosen to ignore every one of them. You've been eager to focus on irrelevant political banter and get distracted by mean words. In this very thread I pointed out that this is not a good OP for a serious discussion and that has nothing to do with what side you want to promote propaganda for. Surveys and vague questions aren't going to get you what you want. You dropped a soapbox on the corner with this OP and you were waiting for a crowd to gather before you started preaching from it. It doesn't matter if you didn't understand what you were doing, I did... others will too. If you want to be perceived as a bad actor, these kinds of things will do a fine job of keeping up appearances.

I have no idea what you consider a personal attack here. True statements you don't like are not personal attacks. Did you look up what false axioms are and why you shouldn't use them? Did you look up what constitutes deceptive rhetorical techniques or what constitutes deception in rhetoric? Did you look up how to craft a premise that isn't so loose as to be easily falsified? Did you take a single thing I've provided you and run with it or was it all written off as personal attacks and disrespect? This is a serious question, not just theater. You didn't ask about any of them, but you also haven't stopped using them.

If you hadn't considered it, some of these things you're doing that you claim to not understand are actually quite disrespectful in the culture in which you've found yourself. I have provided you with plenty of things I fully expected you to find disrespectful and I did so willfully. Who has the higher moral ground? One that cares to understand the culture of another enough to know when's he's breaking with it, or one that doesn't care at all? I care enough to understand, but in spite of these specific things I've offered you to make learning easier for you... you don't seem to care. They're things that would benefit you beyond posting here for a couple hundred eyes, so it's up to you to act on it. It's out of my hands beyond offering you a path.

Nobody is forcing you to remain if you find it not to your liking. There are plenty of forums out there that have sufficient moderation that you will rarely be distracted by seeing things you find objectionable. You'll never really experience much authenticity under those conditions or be forced to face uncomfortable truths, but that's the price. It will be safe though and you'll never be meaningfully challenged on anything you find important because it's all one big slop pile. Your false axioms will be accepted, your weak rhetoric will never be argued against or derided, and you'll not grow or learn anything, but it won't be hard at all. It's all just a click away if that's what you want.

It's entirely up to you. If you sincerely think that you're unable to handle not letting your need to bait engagement from disinterested parties turn into spam, I guess this is a problem. I can't imagine that if you chose to that you couldn't simply learn about the kind of tactics in question and make an effort to avoid them, but I'm not you. I just know that the people here, at least the ones that are active, see through these kinds of things and will probably make your life difficult for using them if they bother responding to you at all. Many of them may not have a name for it, but they can smell bullshit when people start smearing it on the walls of a thread. It probably would have helped if you didn't choose a screen name that intentional puts a political target on your forehead, but I didn't choose it. You set the tone there.

If you're willing to make an effort to stop being disrespectful on our terms, then I think you'll find others more than happy to resume trying not being disrespectful on your terms. That doesn't mean you'll always like what people say and that doesn't mean that they'll always like your style of rhetoric, but it's a much easier gap to bridge when everyone makes an effort. Many people here have made an effort by simply not replying to you when you do these things, but several have given you flak in return. That's going to get out of hand very quickly, so it's best if you lean into the culture in which you're finding yourself or get off at the next exit.

You can either get past it all or you can't. I think the time you've spent being offended by things or feeling disrespected would have been much better spent by building the toolkit that I gave you the shopping list for and using it to throw it all back in my face. If you catch me sleeping and make me look a fool, good on you. Why not do it?

All of this time is the most respect I'm able to give anyone. Time, effort, and honesty, are all there is. My time and effort aren't limitless, but they're free while supplies last. I would quite literally help you make a thread better, actively and before you even post it, but you would need to accept that I know more about the audience than you do and you'd need to find a reason to believe that criticism of work product doesn't constitute a personal attack.

That's about all the bleeding heart honesty I've got in me for now and it's about as authentic as you're going to find from any moderator, on any open forum, anywhere in 2025. If you just want to play grab-ass with that kind of transparent rhetoric full of all your assumptions that's your choice, but there are much better ways to do things and they'll provide much better results. Don't expect many more walls of text trying to turn you against the dark side of rhetoric.