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Chuck L's avatar

I don't agree with the conclusions of your argument because I don't agree with the premise of your argument and I'm frankly unsure of where to even begin.

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Andrew Van Wagner's avatar

Let me know if you want to respond; I know that the piece is a fierce attack on the way that our discourse is regarding this war, but it's an ongoing war, so I wanted to experiment with a fierce style instead of being meek while real human beings are dying.

I'm pretty pessimistic about how this war is going; I predict a lot of horrors ahead if our discourse continues this way. But we should have pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will.

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Chuck L's avatar

I haven't had the time to fully respond yet, but I thought you should see a quote from Ukraine's negotiator with Russia: ""Do not offer us a ceasefire - this is impossible without a total withdrawal of Russian troops. Ukrainian society is not interested in a new "Minsk" and the return of war in a few years. Until Russia is ready to completely leave our lands, our negotiating platform is weapons, sanctions and money."

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Andrew Van Wagner's avatar

Thanks! I appreciate your willingness to engage on this, since I know that I'm quite fierce in my writings on this; it means a lot that we're able to have a good civil discussion about this, despite our different attitudes toward the matter. :)

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Andrew Van Wagner's avatar

Thanks for commenting!

Let me know if you want to challenge something—I’m interested in any good challenge that you can find.

I apologize for the piece’s harsh tone but I just thought that it was weird to constantly write about this ongoing war—I’ve written how many piece on this now?—without any kind of explosive urgency.

It’s risky to try to scream from the rooftops, but I feel like the alternative is to be inappropriately meek.

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Shabooms's avatar

Maybe try arguing your points and flushing things out. This reads like someone’s brain storming notes- like it doesn’t even look like a first draft of anything. Sloppy and unconvincing. But thanks to how unoriginal it is I already was convinced that we need to think of a diplomatic means to ending the war.

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Andrew Van Wagner's avatar

Thanks for commenting! Sorry to hear that this piece disappointed you!

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