I believe our basic assumptions of other people reveal more about ourselves than them. Still yikes, don’t double down on wishing death on people.

Yikes. That is still a person you are wishing death for.

Sorry man, but we both know there is a distance between “kidnapping people off the street” and illegal procedure in the procurement of soldiers. The martial law, with grounds in the Ukrainian constitution, allows pretty much for conscripting any male within age 18 to 60 something. That the process is not done in due order is concerning, but also to some degree understandable given the circumstances. Do I think they should even be allowed to conscript just about anyone, of course not, but that doesn’t make talking about what is actually going on fair game and what you are really saying true. As an addendum I want to say that something being founded in law or not doesn’t make it morally right or wrong. Hence the problem is not the distribution of forms nor the method of extracting unwillful populace for war (which is what the article mentions and uses as grounds for it claims of kidnapping), but the almost unbounded conscription itself. This is also why war is terrible, allowing for situations like this, and none should be happy for using Ukrainians or Russians for fighting the West nor anybody else.

The problem is rhetoric matters, and kidnapping implies abduction for the purpose of gaining claims, money or exercising terror. Lemmygrad is too stuffed with people using rhetoric that in turn allows them to react with hateful comments. That is why I want to split hairs. We all know what kidnapping means and what context it is usually used for, but you guys really want to use the term even though a better fit is just the plain truth that they are doing illegal and forceful recruiting. The reason you want to do this is to call Ukraine and the West special in this regard, which is not truthful, showing why rhetoric matters.

Sure, but you can’t ignore the other half of the definition. It is the same with wrongful incarceration: checks some of the boxes but is not really kidnapping. Still the main point is also ignored regarding the uniqueness of the situation: It is not a special case by any means.

Literally kidnapping means

to steal, carry off, or abduct by force or fraud, especially for use as a hostage or to extract ransom

making the usage of it in terms of illegal mobilization seem a bit disingenuous. Not to say that is not problematic, but my main point was that illegal detention of people for use as soldiers in war is hardly unique to western countries nor Ukraine in this conflict. You, and the article, can easily make this point without misrepresenting the facts.

Conscription and full mobilization in wartime is not really a western thing though and not really the same as kidnapping. This coming from the point of someone hating the idea of even having a military, narrowly evading conscription myself a few years ago. If you do have some other sources for your claim I would be happy to take a look at them.

I don’t see why you assume that they adhere to horseshoe theory. How I understood them was an attempt to call out the discrepancy between being commie while supporting a fascist regime, albeit the killing part was not tasteful, but again no worse than “the only good nazi is a dead nazi”.