re: To all the Ukraine/Russia experts on the board

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Please explain to me in real terms how Russia taking Ukraine would affect me.


Because something doesn't affect you, it's not important or worthwhile?

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One can recognize that something is important and worthwhile, and hope that things change in the direction you prefer WITHOUT having a gun placed to your head and forced to give up your earnings to support it.

What I want to happen is that I cheer my college football team to a win on Saturday. What is happening is that my university is holding a gun to my head and stealing my earnings and giving those stolen earnings to the players and coaches, and no one seems willing to stop them. I don’t want to win on Saturday so badly that my life is threatened and I’m forced to lose my house.

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Because something doesn't affect you, it's not important or worthwhile?

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When it's the foreign policy of the United States and will cost the American taxpayer hundreds of billions of dollars and directly involves us materially and politically in active warfare against a nuclear power on the other side of the world, yes, you need to have a pretty detailed and convincing argument as to why we should be involving ourselves and how it is in our vital national interest.

Something can obviously be "important and worthwhile" to someone's interests, but not ours. Does what's important or worthwhile to Ukraine compel the American population to commit its tax monies and national security to Ukraine's interests? Do the American people have a right to say no to the government using their tax money to fund a foreign country's war? Do we have the right to tell our government that we don't want to take a side? Do we have a right to question the state narrative that Russia poses a threat of aggression against the United States or NATO? Do we have a right to question whether the US and NATO's policies have served to worsen our relations with Russia instead of to ensure trust and security?

Is it worth our riches, national prestige, and possibly a major war in order to pursue a policy of "weakening Russia" or maintaining a status quo relative power balance over them? Is it wise policy for the United States to volunteer ourselves to take on the financial costs and the nonsensical risks of conflict in order to take a side in this war between two Slavic states that fundamentally does not harm any tangible US interests? Americans have every right to ask these questions of their government BEFORE this involvement occurs and we have every right to tell them no. The unelected and unaccountable neocon defense and intelligence establishment has a stranglehold on both parties and manipulates the political discourse to promote a narrative that demands U.S. intervention as standard operating procedure. They attempt to smear and destroy any political actor that might effectively push a message of change to American foreign policy.