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I find lectures about American society from Europeans, as the parent comment did, exceedingly ironic and misinformed considering the same issues plague both sid

I find lectures about American society from Europeans, as the parent comment did, exceedingly ironic and misinformed considering the same issues plague both sides. Even more so as American armed forces and weapons (and our tax dollars and political system) are what protect all of you from annihilation. The grass is always greener but I prefer it here.

guerrilla 4y ago
I lived in both, each for the same amount of time, and the US is a wasteland compared to this in many ways. Both sides are effected by the global economy and geopolitics, but things are handled much better here. > Even more so as American armed forces and weapons (and our tax dollars and political system) are what protect all of you from annihilation. This is delusional. All you've ever done is make the world more insecure for your own gain[1]. You invade and overthrow everyone who ever disagreed with you and scream "freedom" at everyone. > The grass is always greener but I prefer it here. You've never lived here, that's why. 1. https://github.com/binka/essays/blob/master/us_atrocities.md https://github.com/binka/essays/blob/master/us_atrocities.md
RalfWausE 4y ago
My grandfather did stand not far away from moscow with his platoon... give germany a few years without you yankees and i am pretty sure we would do better this time ;-)
sofixa 4y ago
> Even more so as American armed forces and weapons (and our tax dollars and political system) are what protect all of you from annihilation. That's one of the stupidest misconceptions Americans have about "Europe" (the EU). The EU has a mutual defence elements to it. The EU has a nuclear power, France. The EU doesn't need the US, your "tax dollars and (horrifically broken) political system", and should stop relying on it ASAP. Trump showed you can be an incredibly unreliable partner, why risk it?
- seibelj 4y ago
  It’s just so strange that the USA has to provide all the weapons, negotiations, saber shaking, etc. to protect Ukraine when Germany and France are so capable!
  - guerrilla 4y ago
    You're confounding capabilities with interests. Defending Ukraine (or rather bogging down Russia) has a lot more value to the US than it does European countries who hesitated as long as possible due to their intertwinement with Russia. The world is not as black and white as the propaganda leads you to believe.
  - sofixa 4y ago
    Why do you think that all is coming from the US? https://www.statista.com/chart/27278/military-aid-to-ukraine-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/chart/27278/military-aid-to-ukraine... 25% comes from the US, but if you order by GDP(second graph), US is fourth. So overall a very big contribution, but far from "all". And about "negotiations" specifically, you're simply wrong - the ones keeping an open line with Putin (for zero gain so far) are Macron and Scholz (both say it's with Zelensky's approval, and he hasn't disproven them so they're probably not lying).
    - seibelj 4y ago
      I would fully support withdrawing 100% of our aid and support and letting the EU defend itself. Very tired of giving my taxes to you guys.
      - ryantgtg 4y ago
        Aren’t we mostly giving that money to US defense contractors? Raytheon Technologies, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing are getting the bulk of that $40 billion.
        4y ago
bshepard 4y ago
The parent comment, me, was an American. Yes, the US state offers "protection" to Europeans, gangsters do that too.
- seibelj 4y ago
  Yes - and as an American I support withdrawing all aid so the Europeans can defend themselves and pay for all of its costs.
  - kazinator 4y ago
    That's a pretty coarse-grained granularity. How about: "As a Californian, I support withdrawing all aid, so the east coast can defend itself."
    - seibelj 4y ago
      The USA is a country of states. Europe is a continent of sort-of linked countries. I don’t want to pay for them anymore given how much they pretend armed defense is unnecessary. Good luck to them but I don’t think we should be paying for their defense.
VictorPath 4y ago
> American armed forces and weapons (and our tax dollars and political system) are what protect all of you from annihilation. While this sounds like something Otto said in A Fish Called Wanda, I can assure Europeans that many Americans actually believe what he is saying. Of course we can look at the history of the US in Europe. Operation Gladio ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio ) was established to start a guerrilla war in Italy or France if the parties elected were not aligned with the rulers of the US (the US barely tolerated De Gaulle). The US intervention in Italian politics in 1948 exceeded Russian meddling in Czechoslovakia that year. The CIA spied on and stole Airbus plans for US business and does this regularly for other industries. And not to forget spying on Merkel's phone calls and all of this...as the US assistant secretary of state Victoria Nuland famously said in 2014 "fuck the EU". Also, someone would have to be naive to think the US is acting in the current situation out of enormous benevolence to the Ukraine. It is, among other things, working on accomplishing what it wants to achieve for its own benefit in western Europe.
dividedbyzero 4y ago
> Even more so as American armed forces and weapons (and our tax dollars and political system) are what protect all of you from annihilation. It's a lot more complex than that and a lot less cartoonish. The US armed forces protect the way the world is structured, which is obviously dominated by the US. This state of affairs has been erected over the second half of the 20th century primarily to further US interests. It's relatively unique in that it has come about with incredibly little bloodshed, though there are some precedents (not at this scale, obviously). This state of affairs has worked really well for the US as a nation state and economy, and it has had a ton of positive collateral effects for many others as well, but of course nothing at this level is ever motivated by goodwill. Protecting the current world order is done out of self-interest. The European powers have arranged themselves with and taken advantage of this reality pretty well. Yet no one (that matters) is under the delusion that any support or protection on the part of the US happens for any other reason than to further US interests and wouldn't happen if those interests weren't aligned that way. The US are a "force for good" if and only if your interests are aligned closely with theirs; find yourself in the way of US influence or economic interests, and things can get very evil. There are numerous examples for this in relatively recent history (the most recent one is probably the Julian Assange extradition ruling). If you look closely, you'll also notice precisely how the big EU players accomodate for that reality. Obviously the US wouldn't tolerate a European rival and it's certainly much safer to keep those interests aligned, given the scale of US dominance. It would also be a lot harder, geographically, to build a powerhouse like the US on European soil, and an impossibility from a political point of view. So there's no upside to aim for overwhelming force projection capabilities on a global scale; just huge risks and downsides and crippling cost. Yet France and the UK have nuclear arms and fairly effective militaries that are way, way smaller that the US one, hence not a true rival even on European soil, but cover the important strategic bases; namely a solid capability for limited but effective projection of force abroad and a nuclear retaliation capability. Germany, due to its geographic location, cannot have either, as it must not seem threatening to its neighbours if Europe is to have any kind of stability at all. Poland couldn't possibly chain itself to a Germany poised to pounce at them whenever a hardliner government comes to power and France would have similar reservations, they're highly exposed to attack from the northeast as well. Germany's weakness is why the current state of affairs can exist, with a EU security policy that revolves around the tightly-coupled binary of France with its strong national defense stance and Germany with is baffling lack of strength. Yet it's widely acknowledged that Germany is a latent nuclear power and could build nuclear weapons and means of delivery very quickly with resources present on its soil if it decided to do so. Even its military, joke of a force that it currently is, is fundamentally built to scale into a very effective modern army relatively quickly (as in a couple of years), they have a lot of expertise, just not a lot of decent hardware or effective organisation. It's likely that they will do some scaling now, depending on how the Ukraine conflict develops further. If they do, it's going to be interesting to see whether that actually works the way it's intended to. But as long as the US are both capable of and forced to intervene in any major assault in or on Europe, or suffer a huge loss of influence and severe long-term consequences to their economy, being strategically cheap in that department is a pretty solid gamble that brings a bunch of benefits the US cannot enjoy, like being able to treat with Russia and China with a lot less reservations and being perceived as a lot less of a threat (especially in case of Germany). Whether getting cozy with China is a good thing in itself is of course very much open to debate, but the EU powers simply don't have the kinds of interests in the South China Sea that the US have there, that does open up options. > the same issues plague both sides Some of the issues are common; most are not, or only superficially so, with what will probably be very different trajectories (by what might well be a large margin). Europe is a very complex place, too, a very old, very cramped constant battlefield (literally; up until recently, there was literally always someone at war there), it is geographically linked to half the world, deeply divided, has few natural resources (left), is perpetually struggling to not lapse right back into constant warfare (that's what the EU is for), has no common language, no common set of ideas or values, no strong common identity and it's chock full of ancient grievances and conflicts papered over very thinly. That gives rise to tensions the US don't share (and vice versa – the unique situation in the US poses challenges that Europe doesn't have).

guerrilla 4y ago

I lived in both, each for the same amount of time, and the US is a wasteland compared to this in many ways. Both sides are effected by the global economy and geopolitics, but things are handled much better here. > Even more so as American armed forces and weapons (and our tax dollars and political system) are what protect all of you from annihilation. This is delusional. All you've ever done is make the world more insecure for your own gain[1]. You invade and overthrow everyone who ever disagreed with you and scream "freedom" at everyone. > The grass is always greener but I prefer it here. You've never lived here, that's why. 1. https://github.com/binka/essays/blob/master/us_atrocities.md https://github.com/binka/essays/blob/master/us_atrocities.md

RalfWausE 4y ago

My grandfather did stand not far away from moscow with his platoon... give germany a few years without you yankees and i am pretty sure we would do better this time ;-)

sofixa 4y ago

> Even more so as American armed forces and weapons (and our tax dollars and political system) are what protect all of you from annihilation. That's one of the stupidest misconceptions Americans have about "Europe" (the EU). The EU has a mutual defence elements to it. The EU has a nuclear power, France. The EU doesn't need the US, your "tax dollars and (horrifically broken) political system", and should stop relying on it ASAP. Trump showed you can be an incredibly unreliable partner, why risk it?

seibelj 4y ago
It’s just so strange that the USA has to provide all the weapons, negotiations, saber shaking, etc. to protect Ukraine when Germany and France are so capable!
- guerrilla 4y ago
  You're confounding capabilities with interests. Defending Ukraine (or rather bogging down Russia) has a lot more value to the US than it does European countries who hesitated as long as possible due to their intertwinement with Russia. The world is not as black and white as the propaganda leads you to believe.
- sofixa 4y ago
  Why do you think that all is coming from the US? https://www.statista.com/chart/27278/military-aid-to-ukraine-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/chart/27278/military-aid-to-ukraine... 25% comes from the US, but if you order by GDP(second graph), US is fourth. So overall a very big contribution, but far from "all". And about "negotiations" specifically, you're simply wrong - the ones keeping an open line with Putin (for zero gain so far) are Macron and Scholz (both say it's with Zelensky's approval, and he hasn't disproven them so they're probably not lying).
  - seibelj 4y ago
    I would fully support withdrawing 100% of our aid and support and letting the EU defend itself. Very tired of giving my taxes to you guys.
    - ryantgtg 4y ago
      Aren’t we mostly giving that money to US defense contractors? Raytheon Technologies, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing are getting the bulk of that $40 billion.
      - 4y ago

bshepard 4y ago

The parent comment, me, was an American. Yes, the US state offers "protection" to Europeans, gangsters do that too.

seibelj 4y ago
Yes - and as an American I support withdrawing all aid so the Europeans can defend themselves and pay for all of its costs.
- kazinator 4y ago
  That's a pretty coarse-grained granularity. How about: "As a Californian, I support withdrawing all aid, so the east coast can defend itself."
  - seibelj 4y ago
    The USA is a country of states. Europe is a continent of sort-of linked countries. I don’t want to pay for them anymore given how much they pretend armed defense is unnecessary. Good luck to them but I don’t think we should be paying for their defense.

VictorPath 4y ago

> American armed forces and weapons (and our tax dollars and political system) are what protect all of you from annihilation. While this sounds like something Otto said in A Fish Called Wanda, I can assure Europeans that many Americans actually believe what he is saying. Of course we can look at the history of the US in Europe. Operation Gladio ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio ) was established to start a guerrilla war in Italy or France if the parties elected were not aligned with the rulers of the US (the US barely tolerated De Gaulle). The US intervention in Italian politics in 1948 exceeded Russian meddling in Czechoslovakia that year. The CIA spied on and stole Airbus plans for US business and does this regularly for other industries. And not to forget spying on Merkel's phone calls and all of this...as the US assistant secretary of state Victoria Nuland famously said in 2014 "fuck the EU". Also, someone would have to be naive to think the US is acting in the current situation out of enormous benevolence to the Ukraine. It is, among other things, working on accomplishing what it wants to achieve for its own benefit in western Europe.

dividedbyzero 4y ago

> Even more so as American armed forces and weapons (and our tax dollars and political system) are what protect all of you from annihilation. It's a lot more complex than that and a lot less cartoonish. The US armed forces protect the way the world is structured, which is obviously dominated by the US. This state of affairs has been erected over the second half of the 20th century primarily to further US interests. It's relatively unique in that it has come about with incredibly little bloodshed, though there are some precedents (not at this scale, obviously). This state of affairs has worked really well for the US as a nation state and economy, and it has had a ton of positive collateral effects for many others as well, but of course nothing at this level is ever motivated by goodwill. Protecting the current world order is done out of self-interest. The European powers have arranged themselves with and taken advantage of this reality pretty well. Yet no one (that matters) is under the delusion that any support or protection on the part of the US happens for any other reason than to further US interests and wouldn't happen if those interests weren't aligned that way. The US are a "force for good" if and only if your interests are aligned closely with theirs; find yourself in the way of US influence or economic interests, and things can get very evil. There are numerous examples for this in relatively recent history (the most recent one is probably the Julian Assange extradition ruling). If you look closely, you'll also notice precisely how the big EU players accomodate for that reality. Obviously the US wouldn't tolerate a European rival and it's certainly much safer to keep those interests aligned, given the scale of US dominance. It would also be a lot harder, geographically, to build a powerhouse like the US on European soil, and an impossibility from a political point of view. So there's no upside to aim for overwhelming force projection capabilities on a global scale; just huge risks and downsides and crippling cost. Yet France and the UK have nuclear arms and fairly effective militaries that are way, way smaller that the US one, hence not a true rival even on European soil, but cover the important strategic bases; namely a solid capability for limited but effective projection of force abroad and a nuclear retaliation capability. Germany, due to its geographic location, cannot have either, as it must not seem threatening to its neighbours if Europe is to have any kind of stability at all. Poland couldn't possibly chain itself to a Germany poised to pounce at them whenever a hardliner government comes to power and France would have similar reservations, they're highly exposed to attack from the northeast as well. Germany's weakness is why the current state of affairs can exist, with a EU security policy that revolves around the tightly-coupled binary of France with its strong national defense stance and Germany with is baffling lack of strength. Yet it's widely acknowledged that Germany is a latent nuclear power and could build nuclear weapons and means of delivery very quickly with resources present on its soil if it decided to do so. Even its military, joke of a force that it currently is, is fundamentally built to scale into a very effective modern army relatively quickly (as in a couple of years), they have a lot of expertise, just not a lot of decent hardware or effective organisation. It's likely that they will do some scaling now, depending on how the Ukraine conflict develops further. If they do, it's going to be interesting to see whether that actually works the way it's intended to. But as long as the US are both capable of and forced to intervene in any major assault in or on Europe, or suffer a huge loss of influence and severe long-term consequences to their economy, being strategically cheap in that department is a pretty solid gamble that brings a bunch of benefits the US cannot enjoy, like being able to treat with Russia and China with a lot less reservations and being perceived as a lot less of a threat (especially in case of Germany). Whether getting cozy with China is a good thing in itself is of course very much open to debate, but the EU powers simply don't have the kinds of interests in the South China Sea that the US have there, that does open up options. > the same issues plague both sides Some of the issues are common; most are not, or only superficially so, with what will probably be very different trajectories (by what might well be a large margin). Europe is a very complex place, too, a very old, very cramped constant battlefield (literally; up until recently, there was literally always someone at war there), it is geographically linked to half the world, deeply divided, has few natural resources (left), is perpetually struggling to not lapse right back into constant warfare (that's what the EU is for), has no common language, no common set of ideas or values, no strong common identity and it's chock full of ancient grievances and conflicts papered over very thinly. That gives rise to tensions the US don't share (and vice versa – the unique situation in the US poses challenges that Europe doesn't have).