..

but if the handheld systems can't win the conventional war, what's their real purpose? — boethius

This is very worrying. Notice how specific weapons have been provided, as if to see how they work, without changing anything? Anti-tank weapons. Hand - held SAMs. As I mentioned Ukraine asked for some weapons they never got.

First thing, Zelenskyy's options

1. Fight the Russians back
2. Stop the Russian advance and offer a ceasefire
3. Fight to the end.
4. Accept a ceasefire on mostly Russian terms

Putin aims to deny him options 1 and 2. 3 is an option that needs no negotiation. 4. May just save the day, and Ukraine can re-build.

So, going by Reuters, the deal the Kremlin offers is something like ...

Russia halts military operations in Ukraine
Ukraine cease military action against Russians in Ukraine
Ukraine change its constitution to enshrine neutrality
Ukraine acknowledge Crimea as Russian territory
— jorndoe

How about

Russia halts military operations in Ukraine
Ukraine cease military action against Russians in Ukraine
Ukraine change its constitution to enshrine neutrality
Ukraine acknowledge Crimea as Russian territory

Ukraine recognize the separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent states
Ukraine agrees to UN Peacekeepers in the east (proposed before, turned down by Russia)

These are good:

Russia recognizes Ukraine as an independent state
Russia rebuilds (or pays for rebuilding) what they ruined in Ukraine
Russia returns (or pays for) what they took from Ukrainians

However they are extremely dangerous to the forces that want to distabilise the region and put pressure on Russia. An Ukraine- Russia alliance will be a very strong bolster against any other country or bloc. Not acceptable.

Joining NATO to be taken as a separate discussion and agreement.

Your blind faith in capitalism is noted, but the charge involved impoverishment, not a failure to get richer. — Isaac

The inability to Russia to create a modern vibrant economy similar at least to it's former Satellite states in Europe and similar to the Baltic states shows how Putin has failed in economic terms. Or put in another more stark form: how many of the politicians that have lead the these states in Eastern Europe or the Baltics have become multi-billionaires when in offices or afterwards?

None, I guess. The closest to steal billions is the Yanukovich, the Pro-Putin ex-leader of Ukraine, whose ouster played a major part in the events in 2014. The whole reason for Ukraine desperately wanting to join the West is that they can see with their own eyes that joining the West has been a better option of those ex-Soviet countries that have had the ability to do that.

Corruption is a cancer and deeply institutionalized corruption in the form of a Kleptocracy, which Putin's Russia is, has been quite detrimental to the country. Basically only high oil prices has saved the Russian economy. And a dictator that focuses on wars of conquest and building up his military won't solve it.

It's whimsical you then start to defend the largest robber baron of our times.

"The greatest victory is that which requires no battle." — boethius

That does not make it right. Meddling with elections and installing your glove puppet as President may not be classified as a battle, but the morality of the idea is questionable. Are lives lost the only measure or is the freedoms lost also to be counted in the list of casualties?

War brings evil intentions to light. That is what it is for.

The inability to Russia to create a modern vibrant economy — ssu

The inability for Russia to succeed has always been a source of joy for the United States and the most glorious moment was the destruction of the USSR. The ability for China to succeed, however is a problem that has only one solution: when you are losing the race, push your challenger off the road, like it is done in Formula 1 sometimes, allegedly.

This is very worrying. Notice how specific weapons have been provided, as if to see how they work, without changing anything? Anti-tank weapons. Hand - held SAMs. As I mentioned Ukraine asked for some weapons they never got. — FreeEmotion

Almost like it's exactly that.

That does not make it right. Meddling with elections and installing your glove puppet as President may not be classified as a battle, but the morality of the idea is questionable. Are lives lost the only measure or is the freedoms lost also to be counted in the list of casualties?

War brings evil intentions to light. That is what it is for. — FreeEmotion

Predicting Russian victory is not a moral justification for Russia's actions.

It's simply necessary to evaluate decisions of other parties, including Ukraine, of what to do about it. If you can't talk Putin out of the war for purely moral reasons, to give up and accept defeat, then trying to do that is just wasting time and not going to save a single life.

What matters during the crisis is what to do about the crisis; the blame game is something that is only morally justified once the crisis is resolved. Starting it before is morally abhorrent and, tacitly assumes, the crisis is actually desirable (you're not doing anything to help anyone in the crisis, so the alternative is that it's actually desirable to score political points and accomplish other objectives at the cost of the suffering and dying).

"Fighting to the last man" with insane civilian casualties and damages to people's homes and livelihood, is only morally justifiable if that last man can win or then the enemy is going to literally rape and kill everyone anyways; no one's proposing either of these possibilities.

Finland is praised as the archetype resistance to Russian imperialism ... yet Finland was literally part of the Russian empire for a century, and owned by Sweden before that. If Finns had this ethic of fighting to the last man ... no Finn would be alive to fight the Soviet partisans in WWI and the Soviet Union itself in WWII. Sometimes you need to live to fight another day, that's the first lesson to be learned from Finnish history.

And the Finns themselves are only there in the first place, because they invaded and took Salmi lands, so it's the kettle calling the pot black to begin with (and the Salmi are still alive and still have some lands because they too didn't fight to the last man).

There have been people's with a fight to the last man ethic in all circumstances, but history being full of variables, they are no longer around.

One does what is right with the understanding that it will usually fail — unenlightened

I agree. One acts in a way that is virtuous regardless of consequences.

Ukraine fights and probably loses, because 'better dead than red'. Or perhaps, better to die in the gas chamber than to operate the gas chamber. — unenlightened

The problem is Ukraine is not a person. There is no virtuous course of action for a country because virtues are the sorts of things people have, not the sorts of thing countries have. The people in Ukraine, the political leader specifically, have to act as virtuous political leaders, they have to exhibit the virtues a political leader ought to have - protection of the vulnerable, willingness to take unpopular-but-right decisions, taking just account of future, as well as current citizens... those are the virtues of a politician. Playing to social media to heroise oneself at the expense of innocent lives is not a virtue.

As soon as you invoke 'freedom' as a goal you are moving into consequentialist ethics because you have to have made an assessment of which course of action will lead to it. Kill the enemy, or talk to the enemy. Both could potentially best maximise 'freedom'. Fighting and talking are both virtues depending on the context.

Fighting for freedom in of itself is clearly a virtue, but it requires one to pick which side is 'freedom' and which isn't. That's precisely the problem I've been trying to discuss. Ukraine/US/Europe are no white knights. They're not the forces of freedom fighting the forces of evil. They're mired in corruption, oppression, and deceit. The fact that they are less so mired than their enemy doesn't suddenly turn the situation into high contrast black-and-white and no simple 'fight to the death' narrative can properly fit the battle between Western economic tyranny and Russian political tyranny.

It's whimsical you then start to defend the largest robber baron of our times. — ssu

Calling them both as bad as each other is not 'defending' one of them. Calling one worse than the other is not 'defending' one of them.

'Defending' someone consists of claiming their actions to be justified or the accusations against them untrue. If you can find a quote where I've said any such thing about Putin then crack on, otherwise fuck off.

Predicting Russian victory is not a moral justification for Russia's actions. — boethius

I believe there is no moral justification for war. There is a moral justification for protecting you country. I am not justifying Russia's actions - not morally.

There are other justifications : the argument from freedom as in 'freeing the Iraqi people from oppression'. Preserving Russia's security is another example. These may be based on disputable facts, but they are justifications no less.

This is what I was trying to point out: there are many basis for justification: in the current context where war is not a crime, war can be justified : reasons can be given for starting a war, and the populace will largely accept it: why? Economic competition, ideology, religion, etc.

People have to demand that their governments rule out war as an option, forever.

Countries with No Military
According to the CIA World Factbook, 36 countries and territories do not have a military. Per the CIA’s definition, several of these states do not have a “regular military force,” but their national police forces act as de facto military forces. For example, Costa Rica’s Public Forces of Costa Rica are responsible for protecting their country’s borders.

Andorra
Aruba
Cayman Islands
Cook Islands
Costa Rica
Curacao
Dominica
Falkland Islands
Faroe Islands
French Polynesia
Greenland
Grenada
Iceland
Kiribati
Kosovo
Lichtenstein
Macau (China S.A.R.)
Marshall Islands
Mauritius
Federated States of Micronesia
Monaco
Montserrat
Nauru
New Caledonia
Niue
Palau
Panama
St. Lucia
St. Vincent and the Grenadines
Samoa
San Marino
Sint Maarten
Solomon Islands
Svalbard (unincorporated region of Norway)
Tuvalu
Vanuatu — World Population Review, CIA Factbook

Finland is praised as the archetype resistance to Russian imperialism ... yet Finland was literally part of the Russian empire for a century, and owned by Sweden before that. — boethius

Interesting information. It just shows how things can change over the years. I like the status quo, though. That means no imperialisms.

Yep. It also has a reasonable hope of losing hundreds more of its people and not getting anything more than it's already got. Again, simply presenting one of the two options doesn't constitute an argument for it. — Isaac

Likewise, presenting another option does not constitute an argument for it.

I didn't ask you why they keep on fighting. I'm quite well aware of their motives. I might well feel the same way if I were in their shoes. I'm asking you why you encourage them and vehemently suppress any discussion of alternatives. — Isaac

Oh stop lying, I'm not in the mood. I don't and couldn't suppress anything and you know it. Stop lying. It will do you good.

People have to demand that their governments rule out war as an option, forever. — FreeEmotion

Totally agree, that's my anarchist dream for sure.

But unless you can convince Putin of this anarchist philosophy today, we need to do other things if we want to avoid killing or traumatizing for life even one child through what we can do; letting that child be killed of traumatized knowing that we could have done something, but didn't because we rather blame Putin for it ... is political opportunism and not any morally justifiable action. The morally justifiable actios is: How do we actually avoid as many children being traumatized or killed as we can.

Evacuating children out of sieged port cities ... by boat, can take literally no time nor any political capital.

The reason Mariupole is reported on without ever showing visually it's a port city is that nobody asks ... why don't they just evacuate them by boat?

This is never attempted because Azov brigade is defending the city and does not want civilians to leave, and exposing this fact will call into question the West actively supporting Azov brigade for 8 years.

The West doesn't want Putin to have a "easy win" that shows he does not want to kill civilians for no military purpose with unfortunate but necessary collateral damage, and is happy to agree to let them be evacuated by the EU by boat: the safest, common sense, way to evacuate people from a coastal area ... especially when the alternative is a 1000 km Lassie style adventure through a war zone.

The escape from Dunkirk wasn't a long arduous trek to Portugal.

This is a discussion ... Putin's not in this discussion — boethius

Yet to understand this war of conquest one shouldn't forget the culprit.

if Ukraine simply can't win. — boethius

Your so sure the Ukrainians cannot force Putin to the negotiating table? Putin is already talking to the "neo-nazis", so I think his denazification attempt hit some bumps on the way in just two weeks.

The more-or-less official position from actual Western officials (who do have lot's of intelligence and so can base their statements on something) is that Ukraine can wage an insurgency ... but that assumes losing the conventional war. — boethius

Ukrainians have already surprised them. Kyiv was estimated to fall in 90 hours, that's less than in 4 days.

If you can't talk Putin out of the war effort for just "moral reasons" and no concessions from anyone, then it's basically like just talking to a big rock that's blocking your road. — boethius

Then you simply fight the war. And see how long Putin is willing to fight it and what are the peace terms. Or look how much the Ukrainians are willing to suffer before accepting Putin's demands. Or do we basically have in the end an armstice and no peace agreement, just like in the Korean war.

Many things are open.

So you finally start complaining about no one actually helping you. — boethius

17000 antitank weapons in less than a week is actually help. You can already see Ukrainian troops with British/Swedish weapons (NLAW), German weapons (Panzerfaust 3) and American weapons (AT-3, Javelin). They did however mess up with the Polish MiG-29s. And what Ukraine would need is medium range surface-to-air missiles. The aid isn't just talk. The US Congress passed just two days ago a bill of 13,6 billion USD to Ukraine of which 6,5 billion USD is military aid. Just to put even this into perspective, Ukrainian defense expenditure was from 1993 to 2020 was somewhere like 2,3 billion USD and last figures put it at 6 billion USD in 2020. So just two days ago, just one country (the US) doubled that. Then there is the military aid from all other countries, which include United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Romania, Croatia, Estonia, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. And the European Union.

And then there are about 20 000 volunteers going to help and fight in Ukraine, which isn't so crucial, but shows how people have reacted to the conflict. Yet it is the Ukrainians themselves that have to defend their country from this attack.

Let's say that the inevitable victory of Putin hasn't been declared yet.

:grin:

I did not know that. It just shows how things can change over the years. I like the status quo, though. — FreeEmotion

Status quo inevitably changes, our actions participate in determining where it goes.

And why did Finland manage to defeat Soviet partisans (the Reds) and then (not defeat, still lost in a negotiated peace deal ... because claiming victory as part of the deal would not have made Stalin happy about and so the war would have continued and Finland would be part of Russia right now) successfully avoid full invasion?

A lot of people were "part of the team" but basically came down to one military leader.

Marshal Gustav Mannerheim.

Who was this guy? A lieutenant general in the Russian Empire up to 1917!

So trusted by the Czar that he was entrusted to:

With a small caravan, including a Cossack guide, Chinese interpreter, and Uyghur cook, Mannerheim first trekked to Khotan in search of British and Japanese spies. After returning to Kashgar, he headed north into the Tian Shan range, surveying passes and gauging the stances of the tribes towards the Han Chinese. Mannerheim arrived in the provincial capital of Urumqi, and then headed east into Gansu province. At the sacred Buddhist mountain of Mount Wutai in Shanxi province, Mannerheim met the 13th Dali Lama of Tibet. He showed the Dali Lama how to use a pistol. — Wikipedia

This is the kind of experience you need to win a war with an empire. (And again, Mannerheim didn't "win" because he knew no emperor would ever accept that.)

Let's say that the inevitable victory of Putin hasn't been declared yet. — ssu

I haven't said it's inevitable. I've made clear only Ukrainian military commanders can know their plan and chances of victory and further loss of life has some military purpose.

However, what I can see is Russia achieving relentlessly strategic objectives. It's reported now that Kiev is indeed encircled or then nearly so. If Ukraine had the means to create even a "stalemate" in conventional warfare then Kiev would not be nearly surrounded. You cannot lose critical strategic objectives and claim to be winning a war.

And, based on my own military experience, there is simply no way to win the sort of conventional warfare Russia is waging without armor and the heavy logistical supply lines armor requires.

Yes, Ukraine can harass and ambush Russian armor and make losses ... but Russia still has more of it.

There is no such concept of strategic retreat ... that's just called retreat.

Finland is praised as the archetype resistance to Russian imperialism ... yet Finland was literally part of the Russian empire for a century, and owned by Sweden before that. — boethius

I remember an interesting quote which a historian of Finnish 19th Century gave me. During the war of 1809, when Sweden lost finally Finland, a Russian general was asked asked if he needed more troops to pacify the Finns. He responded: "I don't need troops, I need more medals!" Medals to give the Finns. And Finnish history clearly tells how this all is seen: Finland was given autonomy, it was raised from the position of being just the Eastern provinces to a Grand Dutchy, that wasn't technically part of Russia. It was granted to have it's own Swedish laws and it's own institutions, even a small military for some time. The rumblings among the Finns started only when Russia started to take these away.

This example shows just how you successfully can annex land. Yet in the case of Ukraine, Putin has done everything the wrong way. Before it bullied the Ukrainians, the annexed Crimea, tried to instill a civil war in 8 provinces and succeeded in two in the Donbass. Then he has called the whole country artificial and the current administration neo-nazis that have to denazified. Then he made the obvious error of thinking that Ukraine would fall easily with a rapid stroke and that the West would be as dumbfounded as they were in 2014. Nothing could unite better the Ukrainians as the actions that Putin has done now.

The inability for Russia to succeed has always been a source of joy for the United States and the most glorious moment was the destruction of the USSR. The ability for China to succeed, however is a problem that has only one solution: when you are losing the race, push your challenger off the road, like it is done in Formula 1 sometimes, allegedly. — FreeEmotion

Actually, the US had similar hopes with both China and Russia. It hoped that economic growth would create a striving middle class that then would "naturally" lead these countries to join West. WIth China there's a multitude of examples where American officials hope that the integration to the World community and economic growth will lead to democratization. In the case of Russia, they pinned their hopes on Yeltsin.

Well, The Chinese communists...stayed as communists.

And after Yeltsin, they got Putin and the siloviks to lead Russia.

And, based on my own military experience, there is simply no way to win the sort of conventional warfare Russia is waging without armor and the heavy logistical supply lines armor requires. — boethius

We'll see. Similar war as now we haven't seen. So there can be surprises. The fact that Putin is willing to talk with the "neo-nazis" does tell something.

Corruption is a cancer and deeply institutionalized corruption in the form of a Kleptocracy, which Putin's Russia is, has been quite detrimental to the country. Basically only high oil prices has saved the Russian economy. And a dictator that focuses on wars of conquest and building up his military won't solve it. — ssu

Exactly. People treat everything as some capitalism vs [insert alternative system here], when almost everything boils down to, in any form of government and economic system, low or high corruption. Even the most outlandish systems could work if there was low corruption. Even an autocracy could in theory work if there's little to no corruption. The thing is that some systems are better than others to grow corruption. A power more concentrated in the hands of a few generally generate more corruption and this is why states with constitutional free speech, functioning democratic elections (i.e without any part manipulating the outcome) and functioning legal system generally have much lower corruption.

Instead of people just having ideological ideas thrown around, maybe people need to look at what generates the best quality of life for their citizens, while also not making it into a black and white fallacy where the negatives of capitalism are used as some kind of argument for why some high corrupted government that puts a boot down on free speech is better.

The most basic thing is to acknowledge that for a functioning society to be good for its citizens it's based on free speech and democratic elections (with no party manipulation). We still don't have any tested systems in the world that long term has worked better. Any opposition to this need to provide an alternative system that has been proven to function better. It's not even based on capitalism, all of this is based on a society being able to challenge the people in power and replace them if they don't meet the people's will. As a foundational system, any nation that removes these foundational pillars will eventually become a less functioning state.

People treat everything as some capitalism vs [insert alternative system here], when almost everything boils down to, in any form of government and economic system, low or high corruption. — Christoffer

The whole criticism about capitalism is that it leads to corruption of the democratic process. That's the whole point.

The whole criticism about capitalism is that it leads to corruption of the democratic process. That's the whole point. — boethius

Yet authoritarianism protects that corruption from the safety valves of a democracy... like people getting fed up with their corrupt leaders then voting somebody else to lead the country.

For example voting as a president a comedian that has played in a sitcom where an ordinary person accidentally becomes a president. :wink:

Democracy can fight corruption, not always but still, while authoritarianism basically just protects it.

Totally agree ... I wouldn't say classical authoritarianism is somehow a better democratic process.

Again, the criticism of the kind of capitalism we actually have is that it simply displaces state authoritarianism with authoritarianism within multi-national corporations, what Chomsky calls "Private Tyranny", of which states become beholden to and enforce this private tyranny, instead of responding to the needs of citizens.

You're forgetting a little something...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/11/russia-ukraine-war-numbers-casualties-refugees-aid

549 civilian deaths
between 2,000 and 4,000 Ukrainian armed forces, national guard and volunteer forces killed.
According to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, the invasion has resulted in more than 2.5 million people fleeing Ukraine

It's not enough for you to simply say that life in Ukraine would be better than life under Russian puppet governance.

It has to be 500 civilian death's worth, 4000 soldiers death's worth, 2.5 million refugees displacement's worth. It's not like picking out a better colour of wallpaper.

Just give me a single metric of life in Belarus (for example) that you think is worth 4000 lives to pay for. But not just that, a metric which cannot be achieved by any other less deadly means.

The whole criticism about capitalism is that it leads to corruption of the democratic process. That's the whole point. — boethius

And yet, it can work well in a society like in Scandinavia. I'm guessing that you only focus on the US now, but that's just one of many democracies. If there are laws and constitutional articles that focus on lowering corruption, it also protects democracies from growing corruption. Yet, corruption is still greater in nations without a free market and free press. Part of democracy is to have free speech and free press, those aren't disconnected from the government system. Even in a nation with high corruption like the US, the press and free speech can take down corrupted officials. That cannot happen in nations without it. A democracy without free speech and free press is a sham democracy, which is how Russia's "democracy" has been viewed over the course of the entire post-Soviet era.

That capitalism could lead to corruption of the democratic process is not an argument against democracy being the best form of government we have in the world to date. Comparing a completely mud-dirty shirt to a fresh clean one and then saying "you can't say one is cleaner than the other" based on the fact that you found one small dirty spot on the clean shirt just makes everything into a "black and white" fallacy.

And yet, it can work well in a society like in Scandinavia. — Christoffer

That's why I live in Scandinavia.

That's why I live in Scandinavia. — boethius

Then you know what I mean.

Then you know what I mean. — Christoffer

Scandinavia is not an example of how "capitalism works", it's an example of how socialism works and a "free" market (heavily regulated and large limits to private capital in the democratic process) can add some value to a largely socialist state.

Finland deciding simply to not have any homeless people at all ... is not some capitalist ideal.

Yet authoritarianism protects that corruption from the safety valves of a democracy... like people getting fed up with their corrupt leaders then voting somebody else to lead the country.

For example voting as a president a comedian that has played in a sitcom where an ordinary person accidentally becomes a president. :wink: — ssu

But you've yet to address the fact that people in Russia are all much happier than people in Ukraine.

... See what we can do when we just make shit up!

Ukraine index of corruption ranks it 123. Russia is ranked 120. Russia is less corrupt than Ukraine 2021 figures, by an independent assessment agency https://risk-indexes.com/global-corruption-index/.

It's pointless arguing unless you're actually going to address reality. The reality is that the Ukraine you're talking about fighting for is more corrupt by independent indices of corruption than Russia.

It's not enough for you to simply say that life in Ukraine would be better than life under Russian puppet governance. — Isaac

They don't want to live under the boot of Russia and Putin. They fight for their right to be free, they fight for their will to live in their country under their own free will. They don't agree with you, even if they're getting killed, they don't want Ukraine to be part of Russia and it's Russia who's killing them.

If a killer killed half your family and then said to you that you all need to live under his rule or else he kills everyone. With a chance to fight back and regain freedom, would you either accept his rule or would you try to fight back? You might accept living under his rule, you might dance around as his puppet, but people with experience of that, with a history of that, might just want to fight back in order not to erase all progress they've made so far to be where they are today.

The question at the core of your argument is really if it's worth fighting for freedom or not. You conclude that no, it's not worth it. With the risk of going into a life of totalitarian repression, this is more favorable to you than risking your life for freedom.

Ukrainians, however, seem to disagree with you. And I disagree with you. The reason is that the rise of a totalitarian power has over the long term in history led to more bloodshed than the concentrated bloodshed during a war. There's a reason people fight for their freedom, there's a reason people stand up against people like Putin. And it's my moral conviction that fighting totalitarian powers is always the right thing to do. For others and yourself. In my perspective, setting such powers lose by not standing up against them will never lead to freedom for anyone, it would lead to a worse state of the world.

Scandinavia is not an example of how "capitalism works", it's an example of how socialism works and a free market can add some value to a largely socialist state. — boethius

Yet, Scandinavia's free market system is still capitalism. Your argument was that capitalism corrupts democracies, then it should corrupt Scandinavia as well since we still have a free market and live under capitalism. Neoliberal ideologies of capitalism corrupts, but we don't have that, not in the sense that the US has. So it's not this black and white thing, capitalism isn't the problem. The problem is first and foremost that nations who reject true democracy are worse societies and it has been proven over and over again in the world. There might be a better system of government, but so far we haven't been able to invent one or tested one. So until that happens, true democracies will be better and more peaceful than other forms of government.

The question at the core of your argument is really if it's worth fighting for freedom or not. — Christoffer

Ukraine index of corruption ranks it 123. Russia is ranked 120. Russia is less corrupt than Ukraine 2021 figures, by an independent assessment agency https://risk-indexes.com/global-corruption-index/. — Isaac

You cannot just keep arguing ignoring reality. It is not 'freedom' that's the prize for winning and it's not totalitarian dystopia that's the result of losing.

You go on and on about verifying everything with facts but you've presented absolutely zero evidence to support your claim that a victorious Ukraine would be some kind of bastion of freedom, nor that an independent Donbass would be the authoritarian nightmare you describe... Not a shred of evidence.

I've provided evidence from independent agencies showing barely any difference between them as far as corruption is concerned and you given nothing at all to counter it.

And none of this even touches on how 'free' a Ukraine would be after being devastated by another year of war and crippling reconstruction loans.

Your hysterical 'visions' don't count as evidence.