Comment by RiverStone
11 hours ago
Sad that my comment got flagged, this is a major problem with hacker news - censorship of comments that prevent people from hearing all perspectives.
The point of my comment was to give a first-hand conversation with an actual Iranian.
You can react to it any way you want, but the point of my comment was to show how some Iranians are actually thinking. And yes, many Iranians want regime change and they see the supporters of the regime as the enemy.
The regime hangs protestors by the way.
> censorship [...] that prevent people from hearing all perspectives
A casual conversation is not to be held to the rigour of legal or legislative opinion. But perspectives, like other sorts of opinions, are not all equal in value.
Some opinions are just noise and there is no value in "hearing all the perspectives" from sources that have no interest in even trying to think things through.
The worst opinions are calls to violence -- that lead to actual violence in some cases -- from people who incur zero risk from their extremism.
Idle statements about bombarding civilians, flattening countries, committing war crimes, "sending countries back into the Stone Age where they belong", are examples of arm-chair blather from people of whom the best we can say is that they have never lived under bombardment nor served in a time of conflict in any capacity whatsoever.
I hear your point.
I still think it’s valuable to hear Iranian voices during this conflict.
I’m definitely not saying you have to follow through on what they say!
But it’s valuable to see where people are emotionally. Because when I asked my wife and she essentially said “bomb the regime supporters” it says a lot about where anti-regime Iranians are emotionally.
It also helps people understand why anti-regime Iranians have been pro Trump during this conflict.
Keep in mind that my wife is from Tehran, and has a huge network of family in Tehran. This isn’t some abstract thing to her. And it’s consistent with the other expats I know who want continued pressure on the regime.
> has a huge network of family in Tehran. This isn’t some abstract thing to her.
If the huge network of family in Tehran is clamouring to be bombed, I will concede your point, Sir.
Yes, many Iranians want regime change, but that's not going to happen by bombing everything in the country, and Trump isn't willing to send troops. I'm not sure what your point is actually.
I was responding to a comment about bombing bridges.
I quoted an actual conversation i had with an Iranian where they said essentially “go ahead and bomb the bridges”. That got flagged for some reason.
I’m simply trying to surface conversations I’ve had with Iranians. So often these Internet conversations occur in a bubble.
My point? I guess there’s this idea that Iranians are disgusted with Trump’s comment today. That hasn’t been my experience at all. My wife is Iranian. I’m connected to a large Iranian expat community. They are very pro Trump because of the war. The initial reaction I saw was disappointment with the ceasefire. They want continued pressure on the regime, and they feel that a cease-fire works against that.
You often find expat communities have the exact opposite viewpoint as those that remain, part of the reason they are expats. See cuban expats, nicaraguan expats, not to say they are wrong but they are not a monolith representing all of a civilization. Presumably those standing around the bridges don’t want them bombed.
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It's not because you've found an Iranian that wants their country destroyed that this is the right thing to do.
All military experts agree that bombing a country isn't going to trigger a regime change, and it hasn't so far after weeks of intense bombing. So the answer should be, keep bombing more things and target civilians?
Besides, the Iranian expat community is also a bubble, maybe not representative of the ones who are actually bombed.
Iranian expat communities have these radical views because they won't have to live with the consequences.
Uh no, your wife said to bomb the civilians on the bridges, because they're regime supporters. Clearly advocating for a war crime, so who gives a shit that she's an Iranian expat? No wonder it was flagged.
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