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Statement by Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands,Norway,Sweden,UK

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Re: Statement by Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands,Norway,Sweden,UK

#591

Post by int_19h »

ben_w wrote: post #437
fatbird wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump's passing and his admin getting tossed won't erase the memory that a good third of America was always happy with him and wanted what he actually did. America is now branded with MAGA in a way that will take generations to fade.

At this point, I'd say terms rather than generations. I mean, I'm old enough to remember people saying "Never Forget" about 9/11, but it's barely in any discourse at this point, and that was a single generation ago and had two major wars a bunch of PoW scandals, war crime scandals that led to Manning, and domestic surveillance that led to Snowden. And yet, despite all that, I've only heard 9/11 mentioned exactly once…

9/11 - and the US response to it - is still very much remembered by people outside of US as an example of how US foreign policy works in practice.

Re: Statement by Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands,Norway,Sweden,UK

#592

Post by tsoukase »

Clearly the DJT's obsession with Greenland has to do with some short term gains of his billionaire friends and not real national interests. Similar to all his other recent shortsighted surprises. So, hold on for 3 years until he retreats into oblivion and the new POTUS reverses the situation. It happens constantly in my country when an incompetent and corrupt leadership causes temporary trouble but the next restores the longtime policy. In the meantime the 2028 Olympics will be the most interesting of the last decades.

Re: Statement by Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands,Norway,Sweden,UK

#593

Post by mdnahas »

oliwarner wrote: post #302
EastLondonCoder wrote: post #252

This isn’t really about Greenland’s strategic value; it’s about the category error. You can trade goods, sign treaties, and negotiate basing rights. You can’t “buy” a people or their sovereignty especially when they don’t consent. That’s why Europe responds with process and principle: normalize coercion-as-bargaining among allies and you’re reviving a pre-1945 model of politics Europe built institutions to prevent. I…

The US has some grace here as most of the negative feelings towards it dies with it's government. You're going to pick better next time, right?

For Americans, many foreigners use the word “government” where we would say “administration”. So, a “new government” or “the government falls”, would be a “new administration” or “the administration’s party loses the next election”.

Re: Statement by Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands,Norway,Sweden,UK

#594

Post by mdnahas »

cogman10 wrote: post #568
scoofy wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of folks this message will reach are in tech heavy cities… almost all of which have Democratic Party representatives. It’s honestly just very difficult to communicate with Republican parts of the country on open, reddit-like social media.

Republican politicians are ignoring their constituents. It's quiet depressing, because a large number of them know they'll be just fine regardless what they do. We, in Idaho, recently had a school voucher program rammed through even though a huge number of people called to oppose it. Like 90% against 10% for. They still signed it into law. It's all very disheartening.

Same happened in Texas.

Re: Statement by Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands,Norway,Sweden,UK

#595

Post by azan_ »

drysine wrote: post #569
azan_ wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

>fighting poorest country in the Europe You are conveniently forgetting ~400 billion dollars[0] of Western military and economic aid to the Ukraine which is ~60% of the Lend-Lease program[1] during the last World War. So in some way this war is comparable to the WW2 with the Germany being on the wrong side of history again. [0] https://www.cfr.org/articles/how-much-us-aid-going-ukraine [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…

400 billion dollars and it's like 5% of actual Western capacity. Imagine how obliterated Russia would get if West actually tried! I really wish that Western world would finally start giving ACTUAL support and not just drip. Russia has been meddling with world peace for far too long, even before you've invaded Ukraine you kept meddling with elections and stirring uncertainty all around the world. Defending against unprovoked Russian aggression absolutely is being on the right side of history. It's a shame that country with history of so many great figures has become such a cesspool.

Re: Statement by Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands,Norway,Sweden,UK

#596

Post by drysine »

azan_ wrote: post #595
drysine wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>fighting poorest country in the Europe You are conveniently forgetting ~400 billion dollars[0] of Western military and economic aid to the Ukraine which is ~60% of the Lend-Lease program[1] during the last World War. So in some way this war is comparable to the WW2 with the Germany being on the wrong side of history again. [0] https://www.cfr.org/articles/how-much-us-aid-going-ukraine [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…

400 billion dollars and it's like 5% of actual Western capacity. Imagine how obliterated Russia would get if West actually tried! I really wish that Western world would finally start giving ACTUAL support and not just drip. Russia has been meddling with world peace for far too long, even before you've invaded Ukraine you kept meddling with elections and stirring uncertainty all around the world. Defending against unp…

[flagged]

Re: Statement by Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands,Norway,Sweden,UK

#597

Post by rendall »

mkw5053 wrote: post #414
rendall wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's only part of it. It feels worse now because everything is visible. Information moves instantly. Evidence is public. Financial trails can be followed. Citizens now expect ethical behavior from their leaders as a baseline rather than a bonus. In earlier eras, people slept better largely because they didn’t know what was happening, not because leaders were more virtuous. For decades now, elite self-dealing, insti…

Watergate, Iran-Contra, Vietnam, and the Pentagon Papers were all exposed through mass media, and they triggered resignations, prosecutions, and electoral consequences. Nixon resigned for conduct far narrower than many of Trump’s actions. Reagan officials went to prison. Trump didn’t reveal hidden corruption, he openly violated constraints that previous leaders still treated as binding. Calling him a “stress test” mi…

What you’re describing is real, but it actually supports the opposite conclusion in my opinion. Watergate, Iran-Contra, Vietnam, and the Pentagon Papers were exposed because institutions, media, and elites still broadly agreed that certain lines existed. Nixon resigned because his own party, the courts, and the press treated those constraints as non-negotiable. Reagan officials went to prison because enforcement still mattered. Trump sits downstream of intervening decades of tolerated elite self-dealing, regulatory capture, and partisan blindness that have trained voters to believe that rules only ever apply selectively. When people see one side excuse its own violations for years, it lowers trust in the legitimacy of enforcement itself. Trump’s novelty is the abandoning of pretense. Calling him a symptom doesn’t excuse norm violations, but it does explain why so many people are willing to tolerate them. The collective decision to lower standards didn’t begin with Trump; it culminated in him. Stress tests don’t create weaknesses, they reveal where faith in the system has already eroded. That erosion happened long before 2016.

Re: Statement by Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands,Norway,Sweden,UK

#598

Post by rendall »

csa wrote: post #294
rendall wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's only part of it. It feels worse now because everything is visible. Information moves instantly. Evidence is public. Financial trails can be followed. Citizens now expect ethical behavior from their leaders as a baseline rather than a bonus. In earlier eras, people slept better largely because they didn’t know what was happening, not because leaders were more virtuous. For decades now, elite self-dealing, insti…

> Citizens now expect ethical behavior from their leaders as a baseline rather than a bonus. Amongst the MAGA voters I know, ethical behavior is very much a “hope for” bonus than an expectation. There is a lot of ends-justify-the-means rhetoric in that voter pool that I talk to.

There has always been an ends-justify-the-means element across the entire electorate and political class. It isn’t unique to MAGA, and it isn’t new.

All of the United States law and jurisprudence is a kludge of principle and practicality and naked self-interest. It’s an accretion of ideals layered onto compromises, expediencies, and power struggles. The Constitution itself is a bundle of moral claims stitched together with practical concessions to slave states, property interests, and elite fears of democracy.

To me, unfortunately, the mid-to-late twentieth century norm of relatively principled incorruptibility now looks less like a permanent achievement and more like a historical exception.

That period stood in contrast to much of American history before it, which was more openly transactional and tolerant of self-dealing. Think robber barons, Jacksonian patronage, open graft, speculative profiteering, outright theft of public funds, Tammany Hall. Against that backdrop, the period from roughly the 1940s to the early 1970s stands out.

What feels so unsettling today may just be a quiet reversion toward older historical norms. I'm sad to think that what once felt like progress was always just a transient anomaly.

Re: Statement by Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands,Norway,Sweden,UK

#599

Post by s_dev »

rchaud wrote: post #575
codingcodingboy wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the case if the US joins the autocracies.

Autocracy isn't a switch you can flick. To establish one, you first have to win a protracted civil war, likely between loyalist paramilitary groups like ICE, the standing US Army and regional defense paramilitaries that would spring up. The likely result of this is a stalemate that leads to secession into separate countries.

>Autocracy isn't a switch you can flick.

Plenty of precedents for Autocrats to assume power in legit democracies and seem to flick it handily enough.

Hitler, Mussolini, Putin, Erdogan, Orban etc.

No battles or violence, just democracies that become autocracies through election.

Re: Statement by Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands,Norway,Sweden,UK

#600

Post by TabithaES »

causal wrote: post #584
causal wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, probably a majority of Americans look down on people using Ozempic

To be clear, since I'm past the edit window: I think Ozempic is an amazing drug, it's just unfortunate how popular it is to hate on people for using a drug they need.

My understanding is that the hate is mostly related to influencers selling you weight loss products while hiding the fact they struggled until they found Ozempic, then to a lesser degree some people think it's cheating or w/e.
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