Without getting any further into it, this is a far more complicated situation and isn’t a really good example.
There’s an old line that “the best lies all contain a core of truth to them”. A lie is often much more effective when parts of it are true, since that adds verisimilitude to the false parts. So it’s quite possible for a “complete and total jerk ass” to “happen to be right” with ill intent.
Motives matter. The problem with focusing on arguments and facts while acting like the source doesn’t matter is that some people have hostile intent and nobody is perfect, so no matter how careful you are sooner or later they’ll slip something past your guard unless you treat everything from them as untrustworthy.
Well there’s the old saying, “Even a broken clock is right twice a day.”
A number of famous scientists were insufferable to be around, according to interviews with people that worked with them. Like William Shockley and Isaac Newton. And by all accounts, Thomas Edison was not a Nice Person.
Its not just that, its also their motivations.
For example I remember years ago watching Sean Hannity talk about some new tax policy. I didn’t know the details, but because it was Hannity I assumed the tax policy would benefit the rich and harm the middle class. After investigating the tax policy, that was exactly what it would do. Knowing the kind of person Hannity is, I could extrapolate the effects of a policy he supported.
So its not just that they can sometimes make good points, its also the fact that their motivations usually do not align with yours even if the policy may sound good.
With the example of NATO spending even though the far right has a point that the rest of NATO isn’t spending 2-3% of GDP on military, their motivation is to destroy US alliances that help reign in Putin. So the fact that their argument has some validity doesn’t change the fact that their motivation is to destroy US alliances to empower Putin.
Or like Trump using the terror attack in Colorado to justify his muslim ban. The issue is that far right wing white supremacists are a major source of terrorism but they don’t care about that. They’re using terrorism to justify their desire for an ethnostate.
The issue is even if you agree with a policy, the motivation isn’t going to be something you agree with as the motivation will usually be plutocratic, pro-Putin, authoritarian and promoting a domestic ethnostate.
There’s an interesting book by John Waller, published by Oxford University Press, called Fabulous Science: Fact and Fiction in the History of Scientific Discovery whose central theme is that some of the most famous scientific discoveries were based on fudged data and flawed premises, and that the celebrated heroes of these discoveries were subsequently rehabilitated through the power of mythology.
The point of the book isn’t that the scientific discoveries were wrong, it’s that, at the time, they weren’t actually supported by adequate evidence. As it turns out, there is some truth to that, but the book’s overall premise has been criticized. Still, I found it interesting reading.
But they didn’t mention the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the peace treaty between the Central Powers and the Soviet Union. The Treaty of Versailles was lenient by comparison, and it also superseded the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, had no long term effect, being in effect only about a year. while the Treaty of Versailles ruined the economy of Germany for decades and some think helped lead to the world wide economic depression.
Ironic, considering the bludgeon Germany used in the treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1917 which ripped away large chunks of resource-rich territory from Russia including Ukraine and the Baltic states, and imposed reparation payments.
France paid off its huge reparations debt without German-level resentment.
German outrage over the Versailles Treaty was fueled by factors including false soldiers’ beliefs that it could still have won WWI, lack of homeland occupation that would have driven home the reality of defeat, and above all the perception that Germans had a right and necessity to dominate Europe which the Treaty temporarily frustrated.
Wrong.
Germany’s gains were annulled but Soviet Russia still lost lots of territory including Finland, Poland and the Baltic states.
The point is that Germany was repeatedly happy to inflict ruinous peace treaties on countries it defeated, but whined about unfairness when given a portion of the same medicine.
None of which really happened. Since the Russian government went into revolt and then the war ended. Did any substantial reparations get paid? The treaty was signed 3 March 1918; the war ended by an Armistice in November 1918, like 7 months later. Did the Russians pay over anything durinbg the brief time?
The Versailles Treaty was in full effect until 1938, during that time the French invaded the Ruhr and started grabbing stuff. The Germans paid about 21 Billion Gold marks.
And modern economists think the Versailles treaty went too far-
In his book The Economic Consequences of the Peace , John Maynard Keynes referred to the Treaty of Versailles as a “Carthaginian peace”, a misguided attempt to destroy Germany on behalf of French revanchism, rather than to follow the fairer principles for a lasting peace set out in Wilson’s Fourteen Points, which Germany had accepted at the armistice. He stated: “I believe that the campaign for securing out of Germany the general costs of the war was one of the most serious acts of political unwisdom for which our statesmen have ever been responsible.”[185] Keynes had been the principal representative of the British Treasury at the Paris Peace Conference, and used in his passionate book arguments that he and others (including some US officials) had used at Paris.[186] He believed the sums being asked of Germany in reparations were many times more than it was possible for Germany to pay, and that these would produce drastic instability.[xii]
So comparing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk,- which in reality did nothing, to The Treaty of Versailles (which caused WW2) is bogus.
They went independent. They did not stay as part of the German Empire, and the main reason they went independent is the Russian Revolution, not a meaningless treaty.
None of this blather obscures the fact that Germany imposed equally or more harsh terms on nations it conquered compared to the Versailles Treaty, and that it brought Versailles’ economic consequences on itself (without having to fully pay reparations until many decades later).
Trying to compare Germans’ lust for conquest with temporary occupation of the Ruhr by an economically devastated France trying to enforce the Versailles treaty is ludicrous.
Successful military commanders tend to be ruthlessly unlovable people. (MacArthur, Montgomery as examples)
I wasnt.
Okay, sure but that wasnt the argument. But in any case that treaty likely caused WW2 and maybe helped cause the world-wide great Depression. And remember- France and Russia declared war in WW1 first, they were the initial aggressors. Mind you it can be argued that the idiot Kaisers “blank check” to Austria-Hungary was one of the causes of The Great War. Remember- WW1 was not a war of Good Vs Evil like WW2. France, Germany, Russia, GB, etc were all imperialistic warmongering nations and all thought they could win the war “before Christmas”. Yeah, Germanys treaty to end the Franco Prussian war is often argued as one of the causes of The Great War, so it goes around and around- Imperialistic warmongering nations starting wars. They were no Good Guys in the Great War. Imperial Germany wasnt alone and hardly exceptional in have a lust for conquest, either. Look at the French and British colonies and how the French and the Belgians treated those people. No Good Guys.
Wilson warned that the treaty was too revenge based and would cause problems- and here is a example of a jerk-ass (Wilson, a racist jerk) being right for the OP.
The world remembers that WWI began with Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia, and Germany invading Belgium.
They were the aggressors.
Learn some basic history.
True,
After France and Russia declared on Germany.
But like i said- there were no good guys. It was warmongering imperialistic nations all the way, and there is plenty of blame to go around- since of course Serbia did arrange for the assassination of the Archduke.
So, we can blame Serbia. Or Austria Hungary. Or the Kaiser who gave AH a blank check. Or Russia who mobilized first. Or France Who declared war on Germany a day before Germany did the opposite. Plenty of blame. And certainly Germany’s invasion of Belgium was aggression, too, altho it didnt start the war- but it might have led to GB joining in. No good guys in the great war.
(and if you read about what Belgium did in the Belgian Congo, they certainly didnt qualify for Good Guys either. Altho certainly they didnt start the war)
But yeah the World remembers things that arent always true or are simplistic. Did Russia need to attack Germany and AH to protect Serbia?
I mean think of how the USA would react if some nation committed an act of terrorism against them- wait, we dont have to, we know what the USA did. Was the USA right in going into Afghanistan? Tough question, with no easy answers.
Large international issues are hardly ever simple, and the causes of the Great War are many and have been debated endlessly. Try reading " The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914", perhaps the most authoritative book on the subject. It does bring in some new facts- like France declaring first- but it doesnt blame any one nation- there were many causes and a lot of blame to go around- including- of course- Germany.
Social Security originally was designed to keep poor people from starving in old age. Under those conditions, keeping it tax-free made sense. But it’s gradually included more prosperous people. The devil is always in the details, but I don’t have a problem with the concept of well-off retirees (which I count myself as) paying tax on our SS benefits.
No- it always included anyone who paid in, whether minimum wage worker or CEO of a company.
And the reason why we have to pay tax on Socsec is that Reagan cut the Top tax rate to help out his rich buddies.
You’re correct–everyone paid in, from the beginning.
What I was trying to say was that as the contribution rose from 1% (2% if self-employed) to the current 6.2%, comfortable retirees began expecting more of a return.
Also, the original wage base limit was $3,000. In 2025, that is equivalent to around $71,000. But the current wage base limit is $176,100.
So IMO Social Security is still more generous to well off retirees than it was intended to be. Even though it’s subject to taxes. The fact that we vote and complain in such high numbers keeps things this way.
And you’re also correct that Reagan’s upper-bracket tax cut was paid for by the tax on SS benefits. In my opinion, those tax cuts were a greater injustice than the tax increase. And did more damage to the economy (via the deficit).
My 2nd favorite thing is to be found correct. My 1st favorite thing is to be proved wrong. Given that context, I don’t delight in schadenfreude or hold any particular ideology too tightly.
The strong position knows the oppositional position better than anyone else, and yet maintains the high ground.
Still spectacularly wrong.
Germany initiated war with Russia with its declaration of August 1, 1914. Germany declared war against France on August 3d, leading to France’s own war declaration against Germany later that same day.
Germany and Austria-Hungary began WWI in an effort to crush longstanding enemies. Make an effort to learn the facts. Stop making false claims obtained from some cartoon history source.
Technically, the French declaration of war (or, rather, the recognition of the state of war that was already a fait accompli) is dated 2 PM, August 4th (or possibly August 5th; in any case, after the invasion of Belgium was underway) with explicit reference to the German declaration at 6:45 PM, August 3rd.
Of course, even if the Germans declared war first, France pushed them into it. After all, the first man killed on the Western Front was a German soldier. Yes, he might have been leading an armed patrol across the French border, and yes the Germans might have fired first, but the French didn’t have to return fire, did they?
They certainly didn’t have to pull back from the border like that to avoid provoking German troops, leaving the German patrol no choice but to enter French territory. After all, if you desire peace, prepare for war—what better way to demonstrate your commitment to peace than by developing, implementing, and executing an offensive invasion?
(The Library of Congress has a good collection of the various declarations of war and the demands preceding them. Curiously, there is a German ultimatum to France and one to Russia, but no corresponding French or Russian ultimatum to Germany)