Ironic that a good chunk of your comment history is evaluating this or that news story, conspiracy, or talking point from this or that social media outlet. What a miserable way to live.
Sorry to shatter your illusions, but unlike the leftist NPCs I mentioned I don't care what others think. I was never afraid to speak up during my time at an Ivy League university where the most common political posters were for the "world socialism" movement. In more than a decade on Reddit (or here) I have never once complained about being downvoted, and the first time I mentioned the concept of being up/downvoted at all was many years into my tenure there in response to some question/discussion not dissimilar to this.
The next time you are about to post something online, or say something to friends, or patronize a business, do you first ask yourself "What would it do to my public image if other people I knew saw me doing this?", and let that affect your behavior? Not me.
PS - I can also say that I have never up/downvoted a comment anywhere simply because I disagreed with it. I have upvoted many comments critical of me, or something I believe in/agree with, because of their eloquence or wit. I downvote very, very, very few comments, and only because they are completely useless (say, off topic), or ridiculously foul-mouthed in an inappropriate context (by the same token, I have upvoted such if funny enough). Even if few others seemingly believe in the original rationale for up/downvoting, I still do.
“ The ethnic cleansing of Zamojszczyzna by Nazi Germany (German: Aktion Zamosc,[4] also: Operation Himmlerstadt)[5] during World War II was carried out as part of a greater plan of forcible removal of the entire Polish populations from targeted regions of occupied Poland in preparation for the state-sponsored settlement of the ethnic German Volksdeutsche.”
Genocidal activities with the goal of removing the ethnic people entirely from a region. I didn’t wish to “refute anything”, not sure what you are commenting on.
You are not wrong but the point I was making was that framing this as a war is incorrect.
Wars have armies on both sides.
Wars aren’t fought between an army and a bunch of trapped civilians who can’t escape between people with the latest high tech military equipment and another group who have some small arms, ancient equipment and rocks.
