To interject I’m really enjoying this conversation with you we’re mostly keeping things civil

Thank you, and I do think that people jumped down your throat too quickly.

On the other hand using said trauma as justification that military defence can not exist in other countries is an overreaction.

As I said, it can exist if there's an actual, material difference to the average person who wins, either because the state is doing things for the people, or because the alternative is exterminationist.

It's not that I'm unsympathetic towards Ukrainians. If we could go back, say, 25 years ago, and give them a bunch of foreign aid to build schools and hospitals and things all across the country, I'd be fine with that (although I would also like us to build schools and hospitals here at home). Perhaps if we'd done that, there wouldn't be any separatists, there wouldn't be any need for Euromaidan, or banning opposition parties, or any of that. And then if Russia just attacked, then it'd be worth fighting for, and the people in the east would have believed in it more.

But nobody involved actually gives a shit about helping average, ordinary Ukrainians. They only want a chance to weaken Russia and expand their political and economic influence. This isn't a fight over whether Ukrainians get to live in a nice little progressive social democracy. It's a fight whether they will be an exploitative, capitalist state whose resources go east or west. That's why it's not a battle worth fighting.

There are countless countries in the world where our influence is slipping, due to neglect. They are where Ukraine was 25 years ago, where we have the option to solidify support through peaceful investment and actually improving people's lives, where we could spend "an ounce of prevention instead of a pound of cure." But we don't do that. Pretty much the only time the US spends money on other countries is when it's bombing them. Meanwhile, China invests both domestically and internationally, while steering clear of military entanglements, and that's the reason it's ascending on the world stage as the US is declining.

Even worse, there is a serious possibility in the US that the far-right will seize power to an even greater, and more permanent, way than what they've already done. And this is driven by economic conditions. It's not just other countries that are being neglected. And the threat that the domestic far-right poses is not a boogeyman, it is very real threat that is exterminationist, and there is a serious possibility that they will win and throw me in a camp. In fact, it's hard to see a way that they'll lose. I am not the most informed about the conditions in Europe, but I know that far-right movements are growing in strength there as well. And one of the things they take advantage of, rhetorically, is that governments keep spending money on foreign conflicts instead of spending it domestically, which resonates with people who are struggling.

It is crucial to shift focus, both because it would do more to actually benefit people, and because it's necessary to keep the far-right out of power. This is, again, especially true from an American perspective. People look at our country and see a backwards, capitalist hellscape, they see all our problems and think, "If that's how people in the US are treated, how are we going to be treated if we align with them?" In fact, that's exactly how I see things, when looking at Ukraine. If we're not getting healthcare, you think they will? We have to get our shit in order at home, and the same holds true for any country with a growing far-right movement.