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pastage 3 hours ago

The complete disinterest in international allies from the American public is troublesome. I recently was in a discussion about what kind of responsibility we can put on the residents of the US for this situation. A US lawyer answered "well the 25th amendment ties our hands, and we do a lot of protesting so no blame on us". The judgement on US citizens was pretty harsh.

You guys have to work a lot harder to fix your issues.

coldpie 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> The complete disinterest in international allies from the American public is troublesome.

I don't think that's a fair characterization of the American public. I am interested in America's standing in the world. More than half of Americans do not support these lunatics. Unfortunately due to our inherently unfair electoral system which gives preference to money and land over voters, it requires about 60~70% of Americans voting against them consistently for at least a decade to overcome the lunatics. That's just a very high bar to clear.

> You guys have to work a lot harder to fix your issues.

Open to suggestions. The only ideas I have for relinquishing control of the US from the billionaires back to the people would, rightly, get me banned from HN.

2p3onf_Dfj an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There is a way in which this whole situation has been revealing to me about how little some outside the US actually understand about US politics and civic structures, or alternatively have their own form of isolationism.

The heterogeneity in the US — culturally and in terms of political-legal structures — is far greater than those in Europe and Canada seem to understand sometimes. This is now combined with a corruption of democratic legal processes (e.g., gerrymandering) that make options outside of outright civil war a needle increasingly difficult to thread. There is a reason people are bringing up Hungary — it would be absurd to equate the EU with Hungary for the same reasons it's absurd to paint the entire US with a broad brush.

Something like 90% of people in the US opposed what was going on with Greenland. Just about the only people in favor of it in the US were the presidential administration and people trying to curry favor with it. What do you expect the other 90% to do? The legislators being petitioned were busy with a deluge of other immediate domestic problems — maybe people outside the US didn't understand the scope of the unaccountable fascist police occupation going on in cities such as Chicago, Minneapolis, or Los Angeles? Protesters in Minneapolis were being murdered by these thugs. That's not even getting into the dismantling of social safety nets, rampant corruption, Venezuela, etc etc etc

People outside the US do not want a US civil war. It's happened before and if it happened again would happen along the same geopolitical lines as before. It would be devastating not just to the US but to the rest of the world.

Treating everyone in the US as the same, without recognizing the very real divisions involved, or the structural stresses involved, doesn't help anything.

Everything happening in the US could happen everywhere. If you have enough politicians distorting and destroying traditional democratic mechanisms in favor of a criminal fascist and party domination, people have fewer and fewer options left outside of things that no one wants.

"The complete disinterest in international allies" is a dishonest statement, and I can only assume reflects total ignorance of what is happening in the US, and/or a self-serving defense mechanism to avoid really confronting the difficulty of what those in the US are faced with.

dlev_pika 23 minutes ago | parent [-]

I don’t think the billionaire technofascists will just stop by their own volition, no matter how nice we ask.

drstewart 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

So true. Now, what level of blame can we put on the EU for not supporting Ukraine more over the past few years, with all the vetoes from Hungary?

pjc50 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I think the blame for Hungary falls on Hungary?

vrganj 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I'm not sure what you're referring to: https://www.kielinstitut.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukrai...

drstewart 2 hours ago | parent [-]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq6jrvgqeejo

Ukraine can never trust the EU again after this. There can always be another Orban.

Trust is broken forever.

derbOac 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

What's ironic to me in these discussions is how similar Ukraine was at one time to the current US administration (probably not by coincidence). Things change quickly.

FpUser 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>"Ukraine can never trust the EU again after this. There can always be another Orban."

Well, EU and the rest of the world owes nothing to Ukraine, yet they have provided much help. Blind trust is stupid anyways. Especially between countries.

>"Trust is broken forever."

This sounds like a drama queen. Look at your own politicians first.

vrganj 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Look at the numbers.

chasd00 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> You guys have to work a lot harder to fix your issues.

As an American, that's pretty funny seeing how allies of the USA are constantly hostile toward Americans at every turn (unless we're buying a tshirt or something) and have been for many presidential administrations. Why would Americans be interested at all in what allies have to say when it's always negative anyway? When someone tells you you're their enemy long enough you begin to believe them.

As for the discussion of moving tech stacks to Europe, if that's where your company is why did that not make obvious sense day 0? Why would you place your critical infrastructure in another country not beholden to your laws? If you're based in Europe then you should host in Europe, and even further, host in your country.

GJim 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> that's pretty funny seeing how allies of the USA are constantly hostile toward Americans at every turn

457 British solders dead in Afghanistan supporting US operations beg to differ.

Mate, seriously, step away from the propaganda and pay attention to what is happening to your democracy. Then you might understand why your allies are losing trust.

TRiG_Ireland an hour ago | parent [-]

It should be a matter of shame, not pride, to the British that they followed a jingoistic US into a needless war in Afghanistan which achieved nothing but much senseless death.

GJim an hour ago | parent | next [-]

It was.

The 2003 protests against the war in Afghanistan were the biggest in UK history. Approximately 1 Million people (1 in 60 of the UK population) made their way to London to protest, and hundreds of thousands protested in other cities on the day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_February_2003_Iraq_War_prot...

drnick1 22 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

What makes you say that wars are unnecessary? You don't get to see what would have happened in the absence of a war. Keeping some countries like Iran in check by restricting their arsenal, or weakening their economies and military capabilities seems absolutely necessary for world peace for example.

p_j_w an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Deciding not to join our little adventure in Iraq was not a hostile act.