The whole defense industry leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Once you peel the narrative that we are supposed to be the good guys (hint: in some/most cases, we are not), you realize that you really just help to kill people.
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Or you can wake up to the reality that a strong defensive, and sometimes offensive capability is required in order to enforce the state of peace that we all take for granted, and be part of the process of keeping all the sheeps safe.
The sheepdog is a scary beast. It growls, it bites, and it intimidates sheep and wolf alike. But the herd is better off with it than without.
The russians launch missiles and drones at civilians, like me.
Last October, I was sitting at my kitchen table, writing Haskell and working on my startup, when outside my kitchen window the local air defence successfully blasted a Shahed 136 out of the air. Both the missile trail and the cloud from the explosion hung in the air for several minutes. I have a good photo of it.
The air defence doesn’t always work. Sometimes it’s extremely loud, even when we’re sitting in the underground shelter during an air raid. Sometimes people die. So far it’s mostly been women and children.
I might have misinterpreted your comment, but “it made the sheep less safe” seems both wildly inaccurate and offensive. And to characterise it as the sponsoring of “Banderites”, well, I’d ask you which department of the kremlin you work for.
https://mwkworks.com/onsheepwolvesandsheepdogs.html
It is not meant as a disparaging remark in this context to call people sheep.
ChatGPT's summary: Dave Grossman explores the concept of three distinct types of people in society: sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. He characterizes "sheep" as the general populace, who are peaceful and vulnerable; "wolves" as those who prey on the sheep, representing criminals and threats to society; and "sheepdogs" as individuals who protect the sheep, often law enforcement and military personnel. Grossman emphasizes the importance of recognizing and supporting the sheepdogs who keep society safe, and he encourages readers to understand the roles these groups play in maintaining a secure and orderly society.
My own note: to the sheep the wolves and the sheepdogs can often seem the same. They both have scary fangs, make growling noises, chase and bite, etc. It is common for the sheep to fear both wolves and the sheepdogs. Some sheep fail to distinguish the two, and if sheep wrote political essays they might call for defunding the sheepdogs as they are a menace to society. But wolves and sheepdogs are not the same, and it is a mistake to equate defensive investment in military capabilities to keep the peace (even if that sometimes involves military interventions and/or small-scale preemptive wars) with hostile, aggressive conquest of the sort we see carried out by actors like Russia, or the genocide conducted by Hamas.
The reason why Ukraine still exists today is because Ukrainian soldiers managed to kill so many russian invaders and destroy so much russian armour in the first couple of months of the war. This is largely thanks to Western ordnance.