Ample records of disproportionate strikes? Yes. Ample records of targetting civilians? No. Those rules of engagement are absolutely followed, and we know this from the thousands of instances where strikes were called off because civilian presence in the area changed. They keep endless records because they are accountable to Congress.

It's a moot point when comparing America to ISIS because terrorists definitionally don't have any concept of proportionality because killing civilians is the goal.

I don't really care to argue I/P, that conflict is forever fucked and nobody knows anything about it.

I mean if you want to argue that it should be an even standard across the board I might agree with you, like I would hold Iran in infinitely lower esteem for hanging political dissidents, to say nothing of them doing it publically.

But something rubs me the wrong way about America, the shining city on the hill, even dipping its toes in this kind of barbaric spectacle.

Whether it's because I hold them to a higher standard, or because I view it as a betrayal of what liberal democracy means.

Yes you're right, the standard we should hold for the US is being able to see into the future, but for ISIS the standard is not killing some women they can sex traffic because you think they are savages with no moral agency. Very woke of you.

the material destruction and collateral casualties are left to others to clean it all up.

You're lies aren't even convincing, like why do you think America spent so much time there after Saddam was deposed? They were pumping billions into the country trying to stabilise it. Iraqi leaders had every opportunity to capitalise on that but chose to pursue sectarianism and corruption instead.

Ah yes, the pro-American, pro-NATO, pro-Ukraine Russian bots, I must be one of those 🤡

Hope you got a good look at my profile while you were desperately searching for something besides my arguments to talk about.

Lmao, yea Saddam was a great guy, everyone was cheering for him during the Al-Khald Hall purge. Glad to hear you defend a dictator so openly while speaking about the evils of a secular democracy from the other side of your mouth.

It's really gross how you remove all agency from literal terrorists because apparently you think so little of Arabs. "ISIS had no choice but to fill a power vacuum with civilian blood, they're just poor little guys :("

And again, you are lying about what terrorism is to suit your obvious propaganda.

Iraq and Saudi Arabia don't do public executions these days, and none of them besides the US live stream them. Apparently they're the first country to ever do it.

The real problem is the reasons some of these countries condemn people to death, regardless of the barbarism they engage in while carrying it out.

The US's actions are only notable because they are held to a higher standard, rightly so.

How myopic. I didn't realise America's sole focus since it's inception has been terror and barbarism. I guess PEPFAR, USAID, the civil rights act, the Marshall Plan, fighting smallpox and polio, and international disaster relief were just cosmic whoopsies that materialised from the ether.

Blah, blah, blah, America bad, America bad. I thought the attack on the Russian data centres put you guys out of commision?

I'd rather a lessor evil framework than... Oh wait your not suggesting anything because you're an empty vessel for campist brain rot.

Nobody cares about "imperialism", they care about living standards, representation, and economic prosperity. America has strived to realise these ideals and helped other nations reach them to through its international humanitarian efforts and security guarentees.

Any failure to meet their own standards pales in comparison to actual terrorists who don't have those standards to begin with, so your use of that word really exposes your ignorance.

Btw the UN means nothing, it's a glorified group chat for tinpot dictators and despots. A majority of the member states fall below 6 on the democratic index, i.e. they are corrupt authoritarian shit-holes.

Exactly, to spread terror. You've correctly identified that motive is a part of the definition. Congrats.

The US is chiefly concerned with fighting militants for material strategic goals, and has laws against targetting civilians.

ISIS is chiefly concerned with butchering anyone, regardless of civilian status, to gain, and maintain through fear, power in a region.

The world super power and global hegemon for secular western democracy is the same as a theocratic insurgency terror org? Wow I had no idea.

America is evil, got it 👍

What should we do about it?

It's obviously a democracy, so idk why you would deny that. Idk what a "warmongering duopoly" is.

So we shouldn't be a US client state? What should we be?

It's funny to me you're listing things we're already aware of thanks to the US being a transparent western democracy. Things that are the subject of heated discussion within the country as well.

That's not the reason ISIS are labelled as terrorists.

Sounds like a tautology, like the reform can only happen when the economic conditions necessitate it, like no shit.

Also even the article explains that Joe Hockey's tenure saw stupid deficits, so he can shut the fuck up for the rest of time.

Nobody likes to trash populism more than me, but blaming it for increasing spending when you used it to cut taxes is insane.

Conversations about national deficits are always like this, no one wants to talk about taxes so they ratchet down while we juggle spending a million different ways. We need a government brave enough to tell voters to get fucked and raise the tax rate to cover what they want to spend and not be apologetic about it.

If the market continues to trend downwards then illegal trade will fall as well until it's below pre-excise levels.

If the market plateaus with the illegal market still above pre-excise levels then I'd agree they should remove the excise and call the policy a failure... Well, maybe, you might be able to argue some marginal increase is worth a massive decrease in smoking, not 4x, but maybe 1.1-1.3x.

It is kinda weird how the arguments for this can sound like neocons arguing for the war on drugs.

The difference is the policy is working, with smoking continuing to trend down consistently.

Opt-out is pussy shit. Why do they care about being disruptive to an industry that is destroying the minds of everyone on the planet?

It's not "simply" anything. Ofc if you assume police are just lazy that makes sense, but if you acknowledge that law enforcement is operating at capacity it's clear they don't benefit from more reports. They will need to sacrifice more hours sifting through more reports, many of which may be lower quality or even false because of the perverse incentives. Rest assured every store in the country will quickly accrue many reports against it, and police will spend more time investigating innocent stores than guilty ones.