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From an essay, a statement I entirely agree with for what (I believe) is the 100% interests of the USA, before we get to any other nations. (I sometimes say, not interventionist nor isolationist, independent: I risk a guess that's the vision George Washington had in mind). "Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey" How NATO Empire-Building Set the Stage for Crisis Over Ukraine Since the Cold War's end, "NATO exists to manage the risks created by its existence" Brian McGlinchey Jan 31 "In his farewell address, George Washington said, “It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.” What an offensive notion to Pentagon generals, weapon industry execs, DC think tankers and State Department bureaucrats, who, rather than avoiding permanent alliances, have been relentless in their quest to pile on new ones. That impulse is vividly exemplified by the dangerously provocative post-Cold War expansion of NATO, and its consequences are apparent in today’s Ukraine-centered tensions with Russia. NATO was created to oppose a Soviet empire that no longer exists. Had American presidents followed Washington’s sage counsel, they’d have spearheaded the dismantling of NATO upon the end of the Cold War. Instead, with America’s encouragement, NATO has nearly doubled its membership—from 16 countries when the Berlin Wall fell to 30 today. With each new member, the U.S. government and American service members are tied to another far-off tripwire: Under Article 5 of the NATO treaty, an attack on any member country compels other treaty members to come to its aid. It’s the epitome of what Thomas Jefferson called an “entangling alliance.” While the growth in the number of NATO countries and U.S. war commitments is unsettling, it’s the direction that’s been most troublesome: NATO expansion has marched the alliance relentlessly eastward, right up to Russia’s border". [...]

What do YOU conclude from this?

Is that concept so hard to entertain? It is impossible to entertain this without evidence. But I won't hold my breath to ever get it from you.

https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/03/ukraine-nukes/

Not that I entirely disagree, but you don't have much of an argument here because it isn't based on sense of life. You're talking about sense of life, then bring in a whole context about what sex is, what makes a good, and why it matters. The question wasn't what is good or bad sex, it was the relationship between sex and sense of life. Picking an example about socially constructed agreements seems to focus on inessential issues (who cares about breaking social rules). You didn't mention what the person finds sexually attractive, rather you mentioned that the view on one's situation leads to some kind of sense of life. Besides, liberation from social mores indicates independence, and independence is partially about one's sense of power to get what they want. If you're only talking about fantasy, what I'm saying still applies. Tell me more about attraction.

Scandalously Happy Photo

Then I hope you realize it's a a bad bout source, with an error that big. That's because most people don't think authoritarianism, and Putin is to blame for this. Your position is more like "akshully the West is morally equivalent, on balance Putin is pretty good, and we should acknowledge he might truly have admirable and virtuous intentions". Just make the moral case that Russia didn't do anything wrong and is a force for good, instead of going in circles all the time and avoiding making your moral judgment. As much as this guy is pretty much scum, we don't have to wonder what he thinks. Forget your act of "people are mean to Putin", or realize that it sounds disingenuous.

A few of the military 'experts' I've seen, condemning more Ukrainians to the cannons:

By 'going against who they are', do you mean that they get their kink from pretending to be someone else - a hospital patient and a nurse? Then you missed my point. Fantasy is obviously a good-natured form of playing. It's the content of the game that's being analysed here, vis-a-vis sense of life. Role playing is versatile, For example, some people engage in role playing simply because it dissolves some of the familiarity that seeps into a relationship over time, a sort of return to the early days of dating where everything feels like treading new grounds, embarking on an adventure. And in other situations, it can be a philosophical kink. Implicit in sex is that pleasure is open to those who deserve it. Pleasure is open (benevolent-universe premise) to those who deserve it (sef-esteem). Having sex consummates this fact. The nurse-patient code of conduct is there for the sake of everybody else in that hospital (what they do somewhere else, in private, is up to them). Somebody who believes that the world stops him from getting what he wants (with the many necessary laws of conduct) might also conclude that a great (efficaceous) person is one that can plough through those limitations and get away with it. In other words, there's a dichotomy between the good (properness) and efficacy (one's sense of power, of being able to get what one wants). For such a person it's 'good to be bad', as it were. He thinks that by breaking the rules (perverting the good) he's an exceptional individual that can bypass the world's attempts to cripple his freedom and enjoyment. Such an individual is not going against who he is.

I still don't get your point. It sounds really besides the point to talk about "illicit situations", what counts is what you find sexually attractive. What are you talking about with what ordinary people can or can't do? You seem to be saying that some people find certain relations sexually attractive because they are perversely doing something against who they are. But Rand is saying people find these situations attractive exactly because of who they are, because of their sense of life, not that some people find things attractive because they are attempting to bypass who they are. Indeed people can attempt to bypass who they are, but what they find attractive cannot be bypassed, it's inherent whenever they feel sexual attraction. Somebody can deny their attractions, sure, but they still have the attraction because of their sense of life and who they are.

The section starts with some necessary prep for understanding Rand's theory that sex is "a celebration of one’s power to gain values and of the world in which one gains them." [OPAR p. 344] For some people, illicit situations - such as breaking the nurse-patient code of conduct - are examples of being able to do things that ordinary people can't, in lieu of who one is; think along the lines of the rockstar stereotype, who can allegedly bypass the normal courtship process which binds to ordinary mortals (since women stick to his windows like Playdoh) and sleep with women as casually as brushing his teeth. These examples signify greatness to some people, but not to everybody. This is why Francisco D'Anconia says "Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life." In addition to Branden's lecture (BPO 58), an interesting discussion of sex can be found in Peikoff's course Objectivism through Induction.

Not my writing. Baud's. You need to look for the quotation marks.

Is that concept so hard to entertain? But I see this difficulty all the time from those who are trapped in 'the bubble'. I observed the indoctrination methods from the media, leaders, intellectuals, think tanks, so-called experts - etc. and can see the effects. First task: *to dehumanize* a people (Russians) - and *to demonize* (Putin). Once accomplished, by the steady drip of mass disinformation and omitted information and psy-ops, the reactive feelings of people, "the group mind", take over. Then, every vile act is possible or likely, even, expected (in their minds) and any decent acts absolutely impossible: by Russians and him. Nothing new, a race or group or whatever, once publicly dehumanized, is the necessary precursor to committing injustice and violence against them. Against the deep background (NATO's long, ongoing and apparently meaningless expansion) - and the more recent anti-democratic acts of the assisted coup/Maidan and the Gvt. treatment of Russo-Ukrainians - a little later the militarizing of the Ukraine Army by NATO - now events led to this point, the clear and present danger of the UAF overcoming the "rebels" in a war with their Gvt. Consider a president across the border who has watched all those irrational and destructive actions unfold, and now, along with the rest to worry about, is faced with the immediacy of the conquest and very likely mass deaths and abuse (by Russian-hating, Nationalist extremists) of this group of embattled people (with a shared ethnicity, etc. - or not) and who now request from him military assistance. And it is feasible - to objective viewers - that he may well be humanely concerned for them--the decisive tipping point -- enough therefore to take "rescue action". (Additonal and extra to sorting out the over-riding, long term security concerns posed by Ukraine's excessive militarizing to his country). But to the masses this response is totally unthinkable. Established: Putin is evil. He's irrational/insane. He wants only to conquer and brutalize. He can't have human concerns. He is not permitted to hold values (e.g. in preserving his nation). Cognitive dissonance and denial is their only answer to these plausible alternative suggestions; rather than take independent thought that notion is blocked from their minds. I see this blocked mindset constantly from people's premises, online and personally.

I'm not even sure what you're getting at. All the quote really said is that sex has a lot to do with sense of life but it can be difficult to identify in that context. The section about sex seems out of left field, or not commenting on sense of life with regard to sex (eg what might role-play say about sense of life?)

lol Did you even read your link? “They have moved more troops in, number one. Number two, we have reason to believe they are engaged in a false flag operation to have an excuse to go in. Every indication we have is they are prepared to go into Ukraine, attack Ukraine,” Biden said. "

Usual problem. Here's the link again.

Here are two sources - which are at least as Swiss as Baud is😁, and which discuss Baud's opinions: https://www.heidi.news/articles/les-methodes-de-l-espion-suisse-jacques-baud-pour-disculper-la-russie-en-ukraine https://www.blick.ch/politik/editorial-ueber-meinungsfreiheit-in-kriegszeiten-ein-schweizer-geheimdienstler-auf-putins-mission-id17430444.html If you don't understand the respective languages, just install in your browser the Google Translate extension and you will get entire webpages translated with just two clicks (no repeated copy/pastes anymore). This will also open to you all sites in Russian, both governmental and private. A vast new world... PS. Just to clarify: you cited Baud, I cited anti-Baud. They cancel one another. Now what ? Let Baud alone, he is not an uncontested authority, he is not the fifth Evangelist. Therefore just prove his claims.

Ah, just that some people and countries do somehow object to a neighbor plonking nuclear-payload missile bases close by, like 10 minutes flight from their capitals. Silly, I know. You'd find that tolerable over in your country, wouldn't you (?), so why the fuss Putin's been making about Ukraine potentially getting nuke capability presented by that benign, 'defensive' organization? Is the fact that "some people and countries do somehow object to <something>" automatically means that that >something> is illegitimated or illegal ? For any action of anyone there is someone that will find it objectionable. IOW, you should first research the matter (what you never do) and establish: 1. what are the facts about "neighbor plonking nuclear-payload missile bases close by, like 10 minutes flight from their capitals", and 2. what about that is illegal? About "illegal": maybe you are not aware, but the number and placement of nuclear weapons and of the corresponding vectors is regulated by a series of treaties between USSR/RF and USA, which are still in force and which also foresee reciprocal inspections to insure compliance. So: do your research and try to establish an illegality: that the facts you found according to #1 violate the treaties. Hint: lookup "New START" in Wiki. It has been extended just last year for 5 more years. So: do your research about #1 and #2 above. It would be useless for you to comment before having done this. PS: in particular, regarding "10 minutes flight from their capitals", try to establish that Russia does NOT already have the same capabilities with regards to the Western European capitals, that there is a dissymmetry. A rapid search showed that Washington/DC is at 30 minutes flight time for Russia's nuclear bombs, and 10-15 if launched from submarines. And this is for Russia to USA, not for Russia to Western Europe !

Russia has nukes, and you're talking about Ukraine "potentially" getting nukes? My going into another country with its own problems?

An ample review of Richard Salsman's book Where Have All the Capitalists Gone? (2021) is in the latest issue of REASON PAPERS here.

Baud: "In February 2022, events were precipitated. On February 7, during his visit to Moscow, Emmanuel Macron reaffirmed to Vladimir Putin his commitment to the Minsk Agreements, a commitment he would repeat after his meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky the next day. But on February 11, in Berlin, after nine hours of work, the meeting of political advisors of the leaders of the “Normandy format” ended, without any concrete result: the Ukrainians still refused to apply the Minsk Agreements, apparently under pressure from the United States. Vladimir Putin noted that Macron had made empty promises and that the West was not ready to enforce the agreements, as it had been doing for eight years. Ukrainian preparations in the contact zone continued. The Russian Parliament became alarmed; and on February 15 asked Vladimir Putin to recognize the independence of the Republics, which he refused to do. On 17 February, President Joe Biden announced that Russia would attack the Ukraine in the next few days. How did he know this? It is a mystery. But since the 16th, the artillery shelling of the population of Donbass increased dramatically, as the daily reports of the OSCE observers show. Naturally, neither the media, nor the European Union, nor NATO, nor any Western government reacts or intervenes. It will be said later that this is Russian disinformation".

"In other words, we can naturally deplore and condemn the Russian attack. But WE (that is: the United States, France and the European Union in the lead) have created the conditions for a conflict to break out. We show compassion for the Ukrainian people and the two million refugees. That is fine. But if we had had a modicum of compassion for the same number of refugees from the Ukrainian populations of Donbass massacred by their own government and who sought refuge in Russia for eight years, none of this would probably have happened". Jacques Baud https://disq.us/url?url=https%3A%2F%2Flabourheartlands.com%2Fjacques-baud-the-military-situation-in-the-ukraine-update)%3AmCPlo3NZfi5WyE0zYb--ufnaUiI&cuid=3044921

Is this - "Russian-Ukrainians have been and are yet today being indiscriminately shelled and killed by their own government" - a fact ? What independent agency established that Russian-Ukrainians have been indeed indiscriminately shelled and killed ? Hint: there were at least two organization which sent monitoring missions to Ukraine: OSCE (started its activity in March 21, 2014 already) and UN. Important: - OSCE had almost 1'000 observers from 45 participating states. They issue weekly reports. Now, anyone of the participating states can stop the entire mission if, for example, it considers the reports as being biased. From March 2014 to March 2022 Russia approved every time the extension of the mission, which means it wasn't dissatisfied. The mission was discontinues on 31 March 2022 because Russia vetoed it. - the UN mission was mandated by the UNSC in 2014 and continued its activity until its extension was vetoed, in March 2022, by Russia Therefore: did these bodies establish, in their 8 years long activity, that Russian-Ukrainians have been indeed indiscriminately shelled and killed? That, in other words, there was indeed a genocide there, with civilians being targeted specifically (vs. simply a war, where people - military and civilians - are killed on both sides)? After you establish this as a fact, I will consider your question "what you think Putin should have done?" Please stay focused on this question and try not to go on a tangent ...

You have such strong opinions on this topic you appear to know nothing about. Tony has expanded upon this question many, many times -- you seem to be not paying any attention.

A civil war started by who, against who? Why is it Russia's problem? Is the current conflict a rescue operation to save innocent victims of this civil war?