There will always be stooges in any movement, suggesting that delegitimizes the movement is a completely different standard,

I have no idea what people you're thinking of. Outside of Russian I've only encountered a very small handful who supported Russia, and they wrote and argued so badly I actually felt bad engaging since I thought they were dealing with legitimate mental illnesses.

Kosovo is the big justification (because of their traditional alliance with the Serbs) but Iraq is certainly part of the narrative. And I only brought up Iraq because you explicitly mentioned it as an example of a protest movement that didn't have proper justification. As it turns out it was actually a very well informed protest movement as the invasion of Iraq was by any metric a disaster.

One of the things that makes it a real problem

Fringe opinion-makers whom I'd never heard of. I don't think they're really affecting anything.

I don't know many so I can't really speak to it but I doubt many are actually backing the invasion. It's also probably that their opinions have nothing to do with the propaganda, they're still Russian, they'll have a strong urge to identify with and defend their home country.

It should be noted that the West's hands aren't completely clean in this. NATO was started as an anti-Russia alliance, expanding into former Warsaw pact countries after the end of the Cold War was absolutely moronic. Without that expansion there's a decent chance that everyone is still on relatively good terms.

Again remember many grew up in the USSR, people are going to naturally defend their side. If Putin started threatening Germany they'd almost certainly switch sides. But in a fight between Russia and Ukraine many will be drawn to defend the entity they identify more with from their youth.

Unless she's running for VP.

It wouldn't be that hard for her to make a little noise in the primaries given she could be the only female (certainly the only establishment female).

Then if Hillary wins the nomination the Republicans are going to want a female or minority to stick in the VP slot. Right now that means Marco Rubio or Ben Carson but there's lots of reasons a nominee might not want one or both. In that case Fiorina might be the only option who isn't a white male, it's still a long shot but a VP nomination is far from impossible.

I know. Same thing with species. Earth's history is littered with mass extinctions, the switchover to oxygen in the Precambrian, the Permian-Triassic extinction event, the dinosaurs dying at the end of the Jurassic. Who's to say the current mass extinction has anything to do with humans, maybe the Passenger Pigeon's died on their own? And that cool forest where I grew up, forest's go away all the time, who's to say it had anything to do with the new suburb.

You're not overestimating the enemy's impact, you're accusing your ideological opponents of being stooges. I'm certain you're not nearly as concerned by the propaganda put out by those who agree with you.

Because:
a) People expect a lot more of the US than Russia
b) The US sets international standards, and by invading Iraq it helps legitimize things like Ukraine
c) The US is a Western country, it makes a lot of sense for Westerners to protest it because they have a chance of influencing the politicians. What the hell does Russia care if a bunch of Americans or Canadians come out in protest? And what should Canadians and Americans even protest for, we don't have a lot of leverage.

It didn't do squat. Yes there's a few fringe folks who are influenced, but they're pretty insubstantial.

In the EU it might be different, Greece in particular might have a legitimate problem, but in the English speaking West Russian propaganda is a joke.

You're talking about the public perception of the war, UN approval forms part of that public perception.

UN's approval or lack thereof, by all appearances, was used to justify the opposition to war later, when the questions like mine here started popping up. I could find no references to UN's decision (or absence of it) as a factor. Could you?

I'm not mining quotes from 60 years ago but it certainly would have affected the perception. Korean was very much a multinational mission, Vietnam was not.

It's possible, but a far more likely factor is the fact they were very different wars at very different times.

Well, I explained, how they were similar — only a few years apart and both in far lands without evident immediate threat to the US.

The Korean war was over in 3 years. In Vietnam the US stepped into a long running conflict which ran a lot longer.

I fail to see, how the length of a conflict affects the justification of it.

Wars become more unpopular the longer they go, that's fairly basic. The public wasn't particularly anti-War at the start of the war, it became that way later on (similar to Iraq).

You've also got media actually showing the home front what the battlefield actually looks like, that's a pretty profound change from previously where media pieces were basically clips from war movies.

Yes. And the fact that media at home chose to concentrate on the negative, instead of praising the troops in general and heralding acts of valor in particular is, in my opinion, explained by (at least, in part) by the enemy's propaganda efforts.

That would be a pretty small part. The moment the media came to the conclusion they could be actual reporters instead of propagandists the friendly propaganda effort was done.

Finally you had a completely different culture in the 60's that was largely based on a rejection of authority

And where, one wonders, did that come from?

From stuff that didn't have much to do with the USSR (though many were undoubtedly interested in leftist ideas).

And where is it now, when questioning authority is not only not patriotic, but racist?

It's only racist when the complainers start blowing dog whistles. As it happens referring to Obama as a community organizer, a job he held for 3 years in his mid-twenties before going onto far more impressive things. That could be just partisan bias, but there's a definite dog whistle quality to it.

You don't need Soviet propaganda to explain the Vietnam peace movement

Well, we know for a fact (an inconvenient one), that USSR and other Communists were behind at least some of the "peace" organizations, such as the venerable World Peace Council.

The practice is still ongoing — an establishment calling itself "anti-war", for example, is calling for international approval of Russia's invasion into and annexation of Crimea — do you think, they would've approved of Kosovo or Kurdistan voting to become a United States' 51st state? Is it really over-the-board to wonder, if, perhaps, this Justin Raimondo is manipulated by Kremlin — whether he even knows it or not?

So just because the USSR tried to manipulate the peace movement therefore delegitimizes the entire peace movement? And an 'anti-war' organization that virtually no one on the left listens to or agrees with is evidence of that fact?

Israel is certainly trying to sway US public opinion, does that make you a puppet of some Jewish lobby? (for the record I say no)

So what? You're talking about the public perception of the war, UN approval forms part of that public perception.

It's possible, but a far more likely factor is the fact they were very different wars at very different times.

The Korean war was over in 3 years. In Vietnam the US stepped into a long running conflict which ran a lot longer.

The US was also coming straight out of WWII, so the idea that you should deal with belligerent countries pro-actively sounded like a really good idea and provided a great narrative, the communist threat would have also seemed less intractable since you didn't have to deal with Nuclear arms race.

You've also got media actually showing the home front what the battlefield actually looks like, that's a pretty profound change from previously where media pieces were basically clips from war movies.

Finally you had a completely different culture in the 60's that was largely based on a rejection of authority, do you think that was going to mix well with the military?

You don't need Soviet propaganda to explain the Vietnam peace movement, the known facts are explained by the known facts.

It could also be that they he it would get reported anyway and wanted to get his version in first, he may have even thought they were in the right.

When I heard of this my thought was of Jion Ghomeshi, a CBC radio host who is being charged with multiple sexual assaults for a long pattern of behaviour. Before things broke the thing that got him fired was him showing a video to management with the belief that it would clear him, instead management realized the stuff on the video was sexual assault and fired him.

Or the person outspoken and abrasive television was even more outspoken and abrasive in person, why assume producer had it coming at all? With the right kind of people you "goad" them simply by being around them long enough.

It doesn't matter if they're the star of a show or an executive, if you break the rules there's consequences.

I can't speak to all the civil rights legislation, but as to the civil rights act itself you just ignored my entire point (and you were still wrong). Look at the vote totals:

        Southern Democrats: 7–87 (7–93%)
        Southern Republicans: 0–10 (0–100%)

        Northern Democrats: 145–9 (94–6%)
        Northern Republicans: 138–24 (85–15%)

Of course that has nothing to do with the era in question. If that person was white they'd probably get the service, but if they were black no matter how dignified they were they'd be denied service (or at least forced to wait behind the white person for service). Even if the owner themselves wasn't racist they'd have to discriminate or the prominent white folk in the community would single them out.

How do you approach that issue as a libertarian? Community groups forcing business owners to discriminate if they want to stay in business.

That article doesn't really disprove my point. No one claims that every Dixiecrat changed their party registration overnight, people are incredibly reluctant to change political identity and the first ones to do so will be the new ones entering the system. And I don't care about Goldwater as an anecdote, but if you were voting against civil rights for racist reasons (either personal or political) wouldn't you couch your vote in some better principal?

But to claim it has nothing to do with civil rights and racism is to be incredibly obtuse. The change started with the civil rights act, the south still has a lot of racism and civil rights issues, and the Republican party still has a lot of issues with civil rights and racism.

As the saying goes don't attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence.

There are countless harebrained startup ideas launched everyday, why can't Mars One be one of them?

It's relevant since there's still a lot of racism on the right and even some who defend slavery as something that wasn't so bad.

You misremember.

Southern Democrats were more pro civil rights than Southern Republicans, and Northern Democrats were more pro civil rights than Northern Republicans. But Southern Democrats were opposed to civil rights as compared to Northern Republicans, and since there were a lot of Southern Democrats there were a lot of anti-civil rights Democrats.

The Democratic party chose to make a stand on civil rights, since then the South has belonged to Republicans.

We're apparently talking about different Democratic parties.

Your point is rational but your math is insane.

Living in a Democracy comes with some responsibilities, mandatory voting is one I'm comfortable with (you can still cast a protest vote/spoil a ballot).

The people who come out to vote now aren't informed as much as they are rabid partisans. Get everyone involved and the knowledge will tick up.

That's a wonderful idea. The last person I want voting is rabid partisans who thinks their candidate losing means the end of the world. You know why McCain chose Palin? Because they figured she could motivate the base. She did that brilliantly but it really took a staggering amount of extremism and incompetence on her part to become a hindrance to the campaign. In a mandatory system you'd never let a representative like her anywhere near the campaign.

I think that would be cool but I don't think it's the cause of your voting woes. A preferential system inserted into the current US system would simply mean more chaos and an electorate who has no idea who's doing what.

The Republicans have a turnout advantage so mandatory voting would certainly help the Democrats. However, it's still a really good idea.

Here's the fundamental issue with the current arrangement. Turnout is very low, particularly during midterms, this creates two big problems.

The first is that the only people coming out to vote are the highly motivated, they may be informed but they're going to include the fringes of society which is why they're so motivated. They're the people watching Glenn Beck thinking Obama is founding a secular Nazi caliphate or reading the Huffington Post health section and trying to ban vaccines to stop autism, they're the last people who want steering the government.

The second problem is it's really hard to change people's minds. So even in a Presidential election you don't win by swaying people to your side, you win by boosting your turnout and depressing the opponents turnout. That means more scaremongering and mudslinging, the Tea Party didn't succeed by convincing people of conservative ideals, it succeeded by riling up conservatives to go to the polls.

Change to mandatory voting and the only thing motivation helps is your volunteer base. If you want to win the election you need to win the centre which means changing peoples minds, and that's where you get a better political system.

Doubtful, since when have you heard of a social networking site getting sued for failing to prevent a crime by snooping on its users?

Far more likely this is actually a sincere attempt to save lives. The US has 41,000 suicides annually. Assume 50% of those people are on FB, and 10% of those actually post stuff that's a really strong indicators (guesstimates). That would mean that every year there are 2,000 deaths that FB could prevent if they intervened early enough.

The realization you could save thousands of lives isn't something many people would take lightly. True there are some creepy aspects too this project, but if this is effective you have to admit that FB has the opportunity to perform a pretty spectacular amount of good.