Great man theory is bunk

How was fighting against the Nazis different from being the Nazis?

No, I do not. I will not stop. The question remains unanswered: What’s the difference? Would it be justiified for France to notice that Wallonia hasn’t held a referendum on joining them, invade and then hold their own referendum there?

Look, obviously I’m not going to humour this deliberately playing dumb. You know what the difference is.

I reject that Russia is credibly representing the self-determination of the people of the Donbas, Zap Oblast or Kherson by holding sham elections in territory they don’t even entirely control. What about those who fled those areas?

I have repeatedly told you that the referendum was before the invasion. I can only assume that you pretending otherwise is just another instance of you deliberately wasting time.

So you unironicaly believe that someone must believe that any referendum ever, regardless of context, regardless of voting methods, regardless of conduct should be accepted or all rejected?

Better system than your “referendums are only legitimate if they agree with what I want” perspective.

You mean the referendum held in an area 1/4 the overall size of the Donbass? Where most people from the Donbass couldn’t vote? That referendum?

The one you had to be repeatedly told happened before the Russian invasion.

So no ability to answer. As usual.

Ok, I’ll start doing it to. What do you mean? I clearly gave you an answer. As I have mostly. What do you think “giving an answer” means? And what do you think “usual” means?

You do realise that (1) that referendum only took place in a small pocket of the Donbas.

You didn’t even know what year it took place in before this conversation

Nor that does that, even if somehow representative, account for the citizens of the Zap or Kherson oblasts.

You also clearly don’t realize that they aren’t part of Donbas.

Yes, it was.

Nope. Anyone can go back and read what you said.

Why would Ukraine acknowledge and legitimise a referendum held by occupying powers who forcibly took land from them?

I have repeatedly told you that the referendum was before the invasion. I can only assume that you pretending otherwise is just another instance of you deliberately wasting time.

Absolutely. But do you have any credible evidence that a majority of people from the Donbass wanted to leave?

So no, you don’t recognize the conflict of interest.

So you do, what, reject or accept all referendums do you?

Better system than your “referendums are only legitimate if they agree with what I want” perspective.

You still haven’t given me a single reason to accept the Russian referendums held in 2022 in occupied Donbass/Kherson/Zap as fairly conducted.

I have repeatedly told you that the referendum was before the invasion. I can only assume that you pretending otherwise is just another instance of you deliberately wasting time.

That is indeed a good argument for voting, but voting third party

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Your point was, indeed, you pinkwashing

No, I do not. There’s no difference here. The question remains unanswered: What’s the difference? Would it be justiified for France to notice that Wallonia hasn’t held a referendum on joining them, invade and then hold their own referendum there?

Look, obviously I’m not going to humour this deliberately playing dumb. You know what the difference is.

Why should a referendum take place at all? Should military conquest be legitimised by sham elections? Why should I trust that Russia would hold a free a fair referendum here?

So, in short, you do not support the right of self determination for the people of Donbas.

So all proposed referendums are equal, in your mind? The 1938 Anschluss was completely fair, was it?

Better system than your “referendums are only legitimate if they agree with what I want” perspective.

Is it not a reasonable response? Would you not expect a state to reject another country invading and occupying their territory and then trying to legitimise it through a referendum?

I have repeatedly told you that the referendum was before the invasion. I can only assume that you pretending otherwise is just another instance of you deliberately wasting time.

How is this irrelevant, and nitpicking?

For the obvious reasons you’re well aware of. If you keep doing this, I’m going to start doing it too, so don’t complain about it when I do.

Seems to me that given hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, most of them likely pro-Ukraine had fled Kherson, the Zap Oblast and portions of the Donbass - that any election there would be illegitimate on those grounds. But what about the timescale? Were people openly permitted in those regions to publicly campaign in favour of remaining in Ukraine? Were there any debates

I have repeatedly told you that the referendum was before the invasion. I can only assume that you pretending otherwise is just another instance of you deliberately wasting time.

Ironically though, that means all of your arguments now apply to Ukraine. Hmm, yes, were people permitted to publicly campaign for leaving Ukraine? Oh wait, never mind; Ukraine just declared the whole referendum illegal. Oops

My logic is that a region should decide if it wants to join another country or not, or become independent, and not a neighbourly country.

No. That was not your logic. Once again, you can’t even remember your own position.

There’s an immediate and obvious conflict of interest when an larger neighbour invades and occupies a portion of another country and then immediately holds a hastily designed referendum.

What about the immediate and obvious conflict of interest from the country that controls the region refusing to recognize their desire to leave?

Also, I have repeatedly told you that the referendum was before the invasion. I can only assume that you pretending otherwise is just another instance of you deliberately wasting time.

Are you implying that every single referendum, no matter how it emerges - the result is automatically above board and should always be respected?

Better system than your “referendums are only legitimate if they agree with what I want” perspective.

No, that was never the point, you just randomly brought up LGBT rights in China to pinkwash

Look, I don’t agree with the democracy index fully either. Its set of criterias isn’t entirely ideal imo.

That a very softened way of saying that it’s blatant propaganda with zero credibility.

But I intended to bring it up as a separate source from OP’s claiming something else than them, not as a source of truth.

“You can’t trust the Chinese people themselves, because a right wing western propaganda outlet says something different!”

You clearly don’t understand my problem with the original source presented.

No, I understand it extremely well.

my country has a mechanism that ensures the people are effectively the highest power in the country.

Yeah, nothing biased about this sentence, lol. Please tell me about this perfect anarchist utopia you live in.

but USians see (or saw before Trump) themselves as a role model of democracy.

When you actually poll them, they really don’t. At best the feel that there is some platonic ideal of America that has perfect democracy, but they never think the current government lives up to it.

The reason I brought up propaganda is because it absolutely influences perceptions.

Like how you think you live in a country “that ensures the people are effectively the highest power in the country.”

but unlike the source given by OP it’s based on observations of facts, not feelings.

Bahaha. Yeah, sure mate. Unlike those irrational orientals, those perfect icons of rationality at the Economist are able to create a metric for measuring “Democracy” that it pure fact, no feelings or perceptions involved. And what do you know, it just happens to give the exact result that aligns with ideology they already held! Yes, the Chinese people may think they know what they think, but they’re too underdeveloped to know their own thoughts, we need enlightened western pundits for that.

Of course, the observers or facts could be biased, that is a valid concern.

“Could be biased”. Lol, in the sense that it’s outright propaganda where they start at the conclusion then with backwards to arrive at it, yes.

But then the counter is a Chinese facts-based source, not an opinion survey.

You do realise that opinion surveys literally are a form of “fact”, right?

No, fuck off

And how is that playing dumb?

Because obviously you do actually know what the difference is, and are just trying to waste time.

But they did

And now they don’t. So why should they still have to be the one overseeing the referendum?

I would also not accept that outcome as valid either.

Of course, we’ve already gathered you pick and choose on this matter.

Does this surprise you?

No, it doesn’t surprise me at all. Whether it is “surprising” has zero bearing on the point at hand and you’re only bringing it up to waste time and dodge the point.

We are not just talking about the Donbass, as Russia also held referendums in those regions I mentioned. And for that matter though, when did the Donbass-at-large demand referendums prior to Russia invading? The Donetsk/Luhansk Republics only at maximum managed to occupy about 1/4 of the entire region.

This is all completely irrelevant nitpicking, and you know it.

That’s not what I asked you. Is there a reason Russia should be seen as trustworthy when it comes to election outcomes? Would you trust any referendum held by any state on earth yourself?

Sounds like you don’t actually believe in people’s right to self determination at all. Here’s a question for you: why should the PRC trust any referendum that the RoC does that suggests the people of Taiwan don’t want reunification?

How a referendum begins does matter. I obviously don’t respect the legitimacy of the 1938 Austrian plebiscite, and I assume neither do you. A referendum held by a revanchist state occupying a region militarily after invading it, driving the old local government out and driving hundreds of thousands of people from their homes is going to be pretty lown down on the list of “valid and fair” referendums that could happen.

Sounds like you only support referendums you agree with the outcomes of. Not to mention you’re ignoring the referendums that took place before the Russian invasion.

Is it “tough luck” for Tatarstan by your logic then? Is it “tough luck” for Tibet too?

That was your logic, dumbass. You can’t even remember your own claimed position anymore

No, fuck off

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And the answer to that question is “there’s no such thing as a source with no bias”

Damn, I didn’t realize I - a non-eligible voter not living in a swing state - was that powerful. That makes it even more egregious that the Democrats didn’t try to win my vote. I personally chose who would win and they wouldn’t even not do genocide to convince me

ie: the lesser evil position is just Accelerationism

Yeah, but then they couldn’t just mindlessly regurgitate them every time they’re proven wrong.

Yeah man, the Neo-liberal turn? The war on terror? The GFC? All irrelevant, “people not voting” is the reason we have a goddam Cheeto in the white house.

No, an ad hominem is when you attack someones character as a way to dismiss your arguments: like when you tried to dismiss mine by bleating “projection”.

I’m not calling you an insufferable reddit shitheal, who spurts copy pasted logical fallacies from Wikipedia because they think they’re magic spells, to discredit your argument. I’m calling you that because that’s what you are.

Can we please ban this genocide denier?