TheSanSabaSongbird

You are seriously confused. OP specifically said that you're fucked if there is no visual cue.

This is how democracies die. Fascists come to power when their opposition fractures. I'm not telling you what to do, I'm just telling you how it is. Choose wisely.

You are how democracies die.

Because depending on what exactly one means when they say it, it's arguably true that it is in fact the oldest extant liberal democracy, that's why. There are a lot of potential objections, many of which are perfectly valid, but I'm not here to defend the proposition, I am simply telling you why people say it.

Ok guy.

Ok. And your point is? Not voting isn't going to do shit. You are not going to change the system by not participating. That's a losing strategy.

Because it's a stupid fucking reason not to vote and it's a misrepresentation of the post itself. You can't get much more idiotic than that.

I grew up around guns and totally agree with you as far as that goes, but my larger point, the source of my disappointment where this discussion is concerned, is that people are misrepresenting what you actually said in the first place.

It's one thing to disagree with an argument, but it's an entirely different thing to disagree with an argument that no one actually made.

My complaint here is that most of the comments in opposition to your initial comment were made on the basis of bad-faith or idiot misunderstanding of your original point.

In other words, my complaint is not about anyone's position so much as it is about how they use rational (or irrational) thoughts to arrive at said conclusions.

Looks like a mandolin case to me.

Right, whereas we see them as deeply stupid and naive.

If you don't know WTF you're talking about, it's better not to opine at all.

They've actually lost a lot of their senior officer corps. The reason is that in the Russian military the enlisted ranks and junior officers have very little autonomy, so senior officers are obliged to be in much closer contact with the front than we would expect in NATO, for example.