Thread by @BretDevereaux

So ever since Russia lawlessly invaded Ukraine (again), there's been a lot of very stupid whataboutism floating around this platform.

One of those dumb lines is "Why is separatism in XYZ ok, but Donetsk and Luhansk are illegitimate?"

This line is stupid, let's discuss why. 1/11

What this relies on is that most people are guided by moral intuition in this, and so not prepared to offer a logical response - they feel it - so the questioner (who also doesn't have an answer) gets to score a point, despite being very dumb.

But there is a logical answer! 2/11

The questioner is advancing along the lines of 'national self-determination.' But - as the UN Kenya ambassador put it so well - that's road that ends in a river of blood. Europe DID bleed itself into ethno-states and it very bad. 3/11

https://twitter.com/ThomasVLinge/status/1495978202728210435

No one is insisting that every linguistic, religious or ethnic subgroup has a right to their own state. That 20th century idea turned out to be foolish; trying to create states along those lines was incredibly destructive and remains so. 4/11

Instead, the correct moral intuition is working from an 18th century idea - that governments exist to secure human rights and therefore a government that is in the present tense grossly failing to secure those rights loses the right to govern those people. 5/11

Thus, the PRC's treatment of its ethnic minorities - genocide and ethnic cleansing - justifies their efforts to leave. The PRC has surrendered the right to govern those people. Likewise the Kurds under Saddam Hussein or *everyone* under Bashar al-Assad 6/11

The Ukrainian government didn't violate the rights of the people in the Donbas; there was no genocide, ethnic cleansing or butchery there except what Putin and his thugs have brought with them. 7/11

Which is of course why there was never popular majority - or even plurality - support, even in Donetsk and Luhansk, for secession from Ukraine, and why the seceding regions only hold where Russian troops hold them. 8/11 (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_pro-…)

Instead, of course, both 'republics' are manufactured quisling puppet governments meant to offer a fig-leaf to justify Putin's naked imperialism - modern Reichkommissariats.

And of course today's Fritz Julius Kuhns and Father Coughlins are all too eager to buy in. 9/11

But I also see this line from bits of 'red rose' twitter, which is a good reminder that Useful Idiots quoting the Pravda line as the tanks roll didn't go away, nor does it bother them that the communist is a fascist now.

It was always just for the Love of Jackboots. 10/11

Of course Putin's useful idiots don't represent all of red rose twitter (just as they don't represent the whole GOP)...but for the pro-Putin crowd and the whatabouters, who think they're being terribly clever, I just want you to know - you will never outlive my contempt.

end/11