Are you ready to sign up and go fight in Ukraine or elsewhere and die to stop authoritarianism as a matter of practicality?
It's not a very fair question to ask, I know, but I think we really need to make sure we are honest about what we're asking people to do.
Cutting economic ties in these specific cases isn't enough to actually stop the bloodshed and bring about stability.
There are practical limits to our willpower and resources and we can't just stamp out every dictatorship in the world, remember Iraq and Afghanistan? I fully support our actions in Ukraine, by the way, and in terms of picking fights that's probably one of our better ones to help stop authoritarianism.
> Are you ready to sign up and go fight in Ukraine or elsewhere and die to stop authoritarianism as a matter of practicality?
Not necessarily, as I’m not directly threatened, but I’m more than happy to carve out a piece of my paycheck to give Ukrainians any and every piece of equipment they need to do it for me.
Ok but that's not enough to fight all of these authoritarian regimes that spring up. We don't have enough people, resources, or willpower to defeat all authoritarian regimes militarily forever. We have to be prudent, and sometimes we just have to live with such regimes.
It's not a very fair question to ask, I know, but I think we really need to make sure we are honest about what we're asking people to do.
Cutting economic ties in these specific cases isn't enough to actually stop the bloodshed and bring about stability.
There are practical limits to our willpower and resources and we can't just stamp out every dictatorship in the world, remember Iraq and Afghanistan? I fully support our actions in Ukraine, by the way, and in terms of picking fights that's probably one of our better ones to help stop authoritarianism.