yeah if your only point is how much the price of oil or gas affects you personally, then I agree that it's a non-point and should be called out. the broader issue for me is the idea of a catch-all wealth tax which effectively hits those without any actual wealth to begin with. or even the idea of a wealth tax which is suitable for wars and arms manufacturing but not for domestic social policies. during the last election, as an example, the idea of a wealth tax was roundly savaged with all the news outlets scrambling to feature a representative of the market who would warn about capital flight and magic money trees. now, though, there's a sense of "we must suffer so they can win". that's well and good but where's that spirit when it comes time to end poverty and homelessness? and in that context the two issues clash.
there is or will be massive resentment from enormous parts of the population who are told to suffer more at a time of record inequality when the richest people in these countries and their representatives were at pains to stress how counter productive it would be for them to suffer a wealth tax for the sake of everyone else. that resentment isn't toward Ukraine btw but toward representatives of the richest who lecture the poorest about what it is to be selfless. at which point it doesn't matter how noble your cause is because governments have demonstrated that they don't care about the poorest in their own countries enough to make any substantial sacrifice at all. that is, the people who advocate social spending cuts, like universal credit not so long ago, are the same ones who will say we should do more or there's no limit to what we can do, and that is a massive problem. it takes on the same character of people in highly comfortable living situations telling the rest, a large section of which barely copes with the cost of living, that they shouldn't be "selfish" and that's where I draw a line.
But if your only point is that Ukraine should capitulate because the price of oil is inconvenient, not because of a much broader underlying context of establishment and governmental hypocrisy and greed, then I agree that that's something else completely and laregly irrelevant. likely I misread Zehner's original post either way and don't want to go more off topic here than already done. my point, largely, has nothing to do with Ukraine itself. i don't think they should capitulate and do think there is an obvious argument for arming them within reasonable limits, to the extent that we avoid direct confrontation between Russia and NATO, and also an obvious humanitarian argument in terms of refugee accomodation and the rest. my point is more about the domestic social context and the arguments you hear, from some people at least, about being selfish because you're worried that your own living situation and that of millions of other people is seriously in doubt. and that's no small thing especially when the government and establishment have demonstrated no will to care about the very people I'm speaking of in any context at all.
