Right. The country in which officials insist that soldiers should be entirely free to sexually abuse Palestinians can investigate itself.

Israel is a rogue state.

Even “the pot calling the kettle black” isn’t enough to sum this up.

It’s more like “the pot calling the salad bowl a pot.”

Who said anything about the “owner class?”

The oppression I’m talking about is that which the “vanguard party” (the new owner class) will direct against those of the people who don’t submit to their claimed authority.

“People’s Army” = the violent thugs in the employ of the new state, to replace the violent thugs in the employ of the old one.

“Support of the Proletariat” = the alternating oppression and indoctrination of the people will continue, under new management.

And all in support of:

“Vanguard Party” = the new ruling class.

That’s so perfectly Turkeyish.

It’s a funny place - so obviously a result of its geographical location. It had its era of power-struggling against other Mediterranean civilizations, but as soon as the known world expanded out to include Asia, Turkey, stuck literally at the crossroads between the two, started playing both sides against the middle. And that’s what it’s done ever since.

That’s no surprise, and entirely irrelevant.

The US political system is broken. It doesn’t legislate according to what is thought to be best for the country or its people - it legislates according to what will bring the most money from wealthy individuals, corporations and interest groups.

Fossil fuel corporations and industry groups have very deep pockets and have well-established channels by which to funnel that money into the hands of politicians, party officials, and assorted powermongers, so the government is going to generally legislate in their favor, entirely regardless of any other considerations.

Imagine how much better the world would be if there was just a simple process of psychological screening for would-be politicians, and psychopaths were barred from holding office.

And again I find myself wondering by what purported authority it is that Israel “approves” the construction of settlements on someone else’s land.

That’d be like reading that the Mexican government had “approved” the construction of Mexican settlements in Texas.

that argument stops working when it’s a large portion of a society.

Not the person you responded to, but I’d disagree with that. I’d say that if a large portion of a society can be said to be insane, then that doesn’t change the standard for sanity - it just means that the society itself is insane.

Our understandings of right and wrong are somewhat a social construct, and so subject to social change.

Only reasonably within a particular range. There are points beyond which societal notions of right and wrong become self-defeating, and thus irrational at best.

For instance, if one holds that the killing of innocents is such an egregious wrong that it justifies the killing of innocents, then one has created a closed loop in which every purportedly justified killing in turn becomes a wrong that purportedly justifies the next killing, which in turn becomes a wrong that purportedly justifies the next killing, and so on, endlessly.

That’s rather obviously irrational at best, and arguably insane, since it justifies that which it condemns and condemns that which it justifies. And that’s the case entirely regardless of how many or how few people believe it.