I’m all in favor of free speech but you know this is an interesting concept.
Haven’t thought about it much but maybe a good idea.
Lithuania is friends of Taiwan by the way. Seems like they’re running as hard and fast as they can from anything that is not democratic.
That’s pretty funny, considering they operated one of the most authoritarian regimes on the planet during 2020/21. All kinds of stupid restrictions. The untermensch were completely excluded from pretty much all social and economic activity, and it was enforced.
Level of self-awareness: zero.
They were genociding people?
Right. Unless you kill millions of people you’re not authoritarian, and all is well. 'kay. 
I didn’t say anything of the sort. It sounds like you are putting words into my mouth.
I asked you a question. It seems the answer is being evaded.
Well, not one of the most authoritarian
“Authoritarian” isn’t a boolean. It’s a continuum. Or perhaps a slippery slope.
Either way, I suggest when a government starts passing laws like this, they’re probably not thinking clearly. Heard the saying “the best revenge is to live well”? IMO the same thing applies to countries. It’s a pity, because I really thought Lithuania was on the right track a few years back.
I never said it was
No, I know you weren’t. I was just making a general observation. Something along these lines:
3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
A lot of the countries pointing hysterical fingers at Russia right now are, IMO, doing it to distract public attention from their own wrongdoing.
If Russia killing Ukranians and stealing their land in an apparent attempt to wipe out a country, or at least subjugate them into being meatshields for the Russians is a speck of sawdust, what exactly is our alleged ‘plank’?
Never mind the poisonings, repression, extrajudicial killings, intimidation of media and jailings that go on everyday in Russia.
GIYF.
Two things here:
Russia has been a disaster zone since at least 1917. There’s been a lot of pissing contests since then, but the present level of hysteria is getting bizarre. Are you old enough to remember when they were bombing the crap out of Afghanistan, and the cold-war context? There was a bit of handwringing, and that was about it. Sure, the Americans took it as another opportunity to start a proxy war and fund some terrorists, but everyone else sort of shrugged and got on with life. International military involvement was mostly covert. Nobody was waving Afghan flags or trying to painting Russia as the worst country that ever existed. It was just another war in the endless sequence of wars that humanity gets embroiled in.
The law being proposed seems largely superfluous, since what they’re trying to do is already covered by existing law. I’m objecting to the claim that it’s somehow aimed at preventing “authoritarianism”, since there is no reference in the debate to Lithuania’s shameful display of authoritarianism last year. Nobody is saying “we don’t want Lithuania to end up like Russia”. Clearly, the target here is not authoritarianism as such, but Russia specifically; the law being proposed is nothing more than virtue-signalling.
I didn’t ask Google. I asked you. If your argument is on solid footing, you wouldn’t need to retort with such a childish reply.
Your quote was:
So what we have here is a metaphor describing two brothers, each with a foreign body lodged within their eyes. The metaphor describes that both brothers have a problem that needs to be fixed by taking out the foreign bodies currently residing in their eyeballs. But the original brother pointing out the speck in the other brother, is described as having a bigger problem due to him having a ‘plank’ of wood in his eye. The metaphor suggests that the wood is a problem, the size of the wood is the size of the problem and that the removal of the wood will solve the problem. Reasonable. Since this is written in the present tense, your post suggests something that happened 40 and 20 years ago…
Let’s look at the post.
The quote, again, describes two people having a current problem, and that one problem is worse than the other and that one should have their problem solved first before pointing out or assisting others with their problem. Your post points out a thing that happened FORTY years ago, another thing that began TWENTY years ago and ended more than a year ago. Is the foreign body not removed? And in addition to this, your post describes several whataboutisms and that oh but one brother has always had a foreign body lodged within his eyeballs and that nobody gave a shit before about the other now-removed foreign bodies that were in each of the two people’s eyeballs, which is COMPLETELY irrelevant to what you are saying and what I am asking. What is it exactly that we are doing that suggests what we are doing is worse than the Russians killing and pillaging Ukrainian cities? Please note that the question is written in the present tense and that your metaphor is written in the present tense and has nothing to do with what what happened, 40, 20 years ago.
The question is not who is without sin, that is definitely nobody.
So is the law worse than what the Russians are doing? Is what the Lithuanians are doing worse than:
Killing innocent Ukrainian civilians far away from the front lines?
Pillaging of Ukrainian cities?
Torture of Ukrainians?
The unlawful detention of Uighurs in concentration camps?
The destruction of independent media and thought in Hong Kong with frivolous lawsuits that only seem to magically affect Pan-Democrats?
The sending of North Korean family members to concentration camps for the actions of one?
Threatening Taiwan with its destruction?
Caning people for chewing gum?
Committing people to capital punishment for leaving Islam?
Forced organ harvesting?
Forced amputation of limbs as punishment for offences under Hadud laws?
Please tell me with a straight face again that Lithuania is one of the most authoritarian countries on this planet. Please show me where this alleged plank that is in Lithuania’s eyes and now all of a sudden the whataboutism that is now the United States. Where is the plank?
If the invasion of Ukraine is a speck of sawdust, what is the plank of wood in the eyes of the Republic of Lithuania?
Forgive me if I am sceptical of the narrative being presented to me now.
Attempts to use my age to discredit my position or label me as a naïve person, both implicitly and explicitly are not only irrelevant, but downright insulting. Please show the respect you wish to receive.
My age is not relevant to this discussion.
I described to you in outline what the problem was, viz, that Lithuania went pretty “authoritarian” last year. If you don’t know the details, would it hurt you to do a bit of research instead of just barreling in?
Aiyo. Let me try this again. Any given population - Lithuania’s in this case - is going to be largely concerned with what their own government is doing to them. They will be largely unconcerned about how authoritarian other countries are, because that doesn’t affect them much (even if they happen to be next door). If a government starts making laws about how much it dislikes other countries, something has gone wrong. It ought to be making laws about the country which it is governing. And in this case, if it’s worried about authoritarianism, it should be making sure authoritarianism doesn’t take root in Lithuania. Again, though, the title of the article is misleading. The proposed legislation doesn’t seem to have anything to do with authoritarianism.
Yeah, it was a genuine attempt to answer your question with reference to a historical event. I was asking if you remembered it first-hand. It’s called “holding a conversation”. If you’re going to go off on another rant about being insulted and disrespected while insulting and disrespecting me, it’s all going to get a bit pointless.
So do you have an answer or not? Did you read my post?
You wrote this
Was lithuania:
Killing innocent Ukrainian civilians far away from the front lines?
Pillaging of Ukrainian cities?
Torture of Ukrainians?
The unlawful detention of Uighurs in concentration camps?
The destruction of independent media and thought in Hong Kong with frivolous lawsuits that only seem to magically affect Pan-Democrats?
The sending of North Korean family members to concentration camps for the actions of one?
Threatening Taiwan with its destruction?
Caning people for chewing gum?
Committing people to capital punishment for leaving Islam?
Forced organ harvesting?
Forced amputation of limbs as punishment for offences under Hadud laws?
Or similar?
What was Lithuania doing that made them one of the most authoritarian countries on the planet?
Lithuania has a plank in its eye. It is attempting to tell Brother Russia about the speck of sawdust lodged in the eye of Russia. Lithuania should remove the plank lodged in its eye first before telling Russia what to do. What represents Lithuania’s plank?
Is remembering it first hand relevant? If so, how? Were you there in Afghanistan witnessing first hand the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan?
I think I’ll have that drink that ReBorn suggested. 'Nite!
Alrighty. I’ll mark this as no answer received.
I figured this might belong here. Lithuania - which, we might remind ourselves, conducted one of the most dystopian COVID “protocols” on the planet - has hit upon a cunning plan for ensuring COVID vaccines cease to be a national embarrassment: instruct doctors to report side effects only for non-COVID products.
https://e-seimas.lrs.lt/portal/legalAct/lt/TAD/TAIS.204745/asr
Google translate works pretty well here. Scroll down to Chapter 6.
It’s a good thing totalitarian ideology is illegal in Lithuania, or this might look a bit like the sort of thing done in the bad old days of the СССР.