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Republicans have long said that the federal government is structurally incompetent and unable to effectively administer a large country. They made a convincing

Republicans have long said that the federal government is structurally incompetent and unable to effectively administer a large country. They made a convincing argument with their performance in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I doubt Russia would have been much different.

Apocryphon 4y ago
That was a very different situation, those were states that were militarily invaded and then occupied by American forces, who were involved in reconstructing countries devastated by war.
- codyb 4y ago
  Yea, and most young democracies are very vulnerable. You can look at the Arab Spring for examples of failed democracies, and the early United States (it took us 20 years to get off the Articles of Confederation and work on the Constitution we use today). Myanmar's another one. India's been restricting its people's rights lately. Democracy takes a while to establish as a stable system and often fails. Alexander the Great was granting (non-representative) democracies to cities in Asia Minor 2400 years ago, I wonder what he'd think of Erdogan.
  - AmpsterMan 4y ago
    The Thirteen Colonies had a long history of democratic self governance. The revolution was mostly an independence movement. The revolutionary part was the Republican federation. This long history of democratic rule was not present in many modern attempts to establish democracies.
- AdamJacobMuller 4y ago
  I'm not sure the average Russian would have seen the situation much differently. Look at the people today who decry chinese investment in the US economy? I'm not even saying those people are wrong. All it takes is for one person or group in the country to poke us enough to the point where we feel the need to strengthen our security posture there (read: add more troops) and then some terrible situation like Abu Ghraib completely destroys any credibility we have with the local population and it just spirals into disaster. I simply have no faith left in our government's ability to execute even a completely peaceful operation like the marshall plan (and similarly what we did in Japan).
  - avmich 4y ago
    What's your proposition then? How it's best to go forward from where we are, if you don't trust the current organization abilities?
    - hotpotamus 4y ago
      I used to find that drinking a lot helped but then my insides started to hurt. I'm thinking about maybe growing psilocybin mushrooms now.
seanw444 4y ago
Republicans? Man, some people just can't get past the "my party vs your party" mindset.
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  Federalism is one of the core principles of the Republican party. I don't believe that's a controversial statement of fact, but I also didn't think vaccines or the shape of the Earth were controversial subjects, so I never know these days.
  - nxm 4y ago
    Pushing vaccines and forcing them onto people is (or they lose their jobs). Similarly, Democratic government forced many businesses to permanently close as they were deemed non-essential.
    - hotpotamus 4y ago
      As a child I was compelled to take vaccinations in order to attend school. My buddy in the military tells me he was "voluntold" to give blood for his fellow soldiers, nevermind all the vaccines they were required to take. Back then, vaccine denial was a loony left fringe thing, and now it seems to be a mainstream conservative position. Times change I suppose, but I do remember the old days.
      - avmich 4y ago
        Reading about successes fighting polio with vaccines, or just remembering a standard practice in American health system to routinely vaccinate people - with rather few exceptions - shows a big difference with COVID-related vaccine controversy. What's that different?..
        MichaelCollins 4y ago
        The biggest difference is Polio crippled kids and they were vaccinating kids, whereas COVID mostly kills grandparents and leaves most kids unscathed. Also, now we have facebook.
ceejayoz 4y ago
> Republicans have long said that the federal government is structurally incompetent and unable to effectively administer a large country. To be fair, things probably work better when you don’t put people with that ideology in charge of said government. It’s like picking a flat-Earther as an astronaut.
Maursault 4y ago
Republicans have long said any government is bad. They want Big Business to be unrestrained, unregulated, pure democracy, at the expense of individual civil rights. I can't tell the difference between Republicans and anarchists, other than the sad fact that nearly all Republicans vote adversely to their personal economic interests to stifle economic opportunity, in order to keep the very richest the very richest, for that one future day when they are the richest of the richest. It makes no sense, because that day will never come because they are voting to stifle their own personal economic advancement for the sake of issues skew to economics, such as abortion and 2nd Amendment issues. Really... if you earn less than $325K/year, as nearly all Republicans do, it is insane to keep voting that way. If everyone always ignored all other issues, and voted solely in their personal economic interests, we'd never see another Republican elected until nearly everyone was rich.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  > Republicans have long said any government is bad. Most republicans are not anarcho-libertarians. Asserting that any government is bad is fringe even among libertarians, and most republicans aren't even libertarians.
  - hotpotamus 4y ago
    > “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.'" -Ronald Reagan Perhaps you know that Reagan didn't really mean it, but it seems like many people believed him anyway.
    - MichaelCollins 4y ago
      > Perhaps you know that Reagan didn't really mean it I think you surely know it too, Reagan was all too eager to use government power and his supporters were happy to see him do it.
      - hotpotamus 4y ago

Apocryphon 4y ago

That was a very different situation, those were states that were militarily invaded and then occupied by American forces, who were involved in reconstructing countries devastated by war.

codyb 4y ago
Yea, and most young democracies are very vulnerable. You can look at the Arab Spring for examples of failed democracies, and the early United States (it took us 20 years to get off the Articles of Confederation and work on the Constitution we use today). Myanmar's another one. India's been restricting its people's rights lately. Democracy takes a while to establish as a stable system and often fails. Alexander the Great was granting (non-representative) democracies to cities in Asia Minor 2400 years ago, I wonder what he'd think of Erdogan.
- AmpsterMan 4y ago
  The Thirteen Colonies had a long history of democratic self governance. The revolution was mostly an independence movement. The revolutionary part was the Republican federation. This long history of democratic rule was not present in many modern attempts to establish democracies.
AdamJacobMuller 4y ago
I'm not sure the average Russian would have seen the situation much differently. Look at the people today who decry chinese investment in the US economy? I'm not even saying those people are wrong. All it takes is for one person or group in the country to poke us enough to the point where we feel the need to strengthen our security posture there (read: add more troops) and then some terrible situation like Abu Ghraib completely destroys any credibility we have with the local population and it just spirals into disaster. I simply have no faith left in our government's ability to execute even a completely peaceful operation like the marshall plan (and similarly what we did in Japan).
- avmich 4y ago
  What's your proposition then? How it's best to go forward from where we are, if you don't trust the current organization abilities?
  - hotpotamus 4y ago
    I used to find that drinking a lot helped but then my insides started to hurt. I'm thinking about maybe growing psilocybin mushrooms now.

seanw444 4y ago

Republicans? Man, some people just can't get past the "my party vs your party" mindset.

hotpotamus 4y ago
Federalism is one of the core principles of the Republican party. I don't believe that's a controversial statement of fact, but I also didn't think vaccines or the shape of the Earth were controversial subjects, so I never know these days.
- nxm 4y ago
  Pushing vaccines and forcing them onto people is (or they lose their jobs). Similarly, Democratic government forced many businesses to permanently close as they were deemed non-essential.
  - hotpotamus 4y ago
    As a child I was compelled to take vaccinations in order to attend school. My buddy in the military tells me he was "voluntold" to give blood for his fellow soldiers, nevermind all the vaccines they were required to take. Back then, vaccine denial was a loony left fringe thing, and now it seems to be a mainstream conservative position. Times change I suppose, but I do remember the old days.
    - avmich 4y ago
      Reading about successes fighting polio with vaccines, or just remembering a standard practice in American health system to routinely vaccinate people - with rather few exceptions - shows a big difference with COVID-related vaccine controversy. What's that different?..
      - MichaelCollins 4y ago
        The biggest difference is Polio crippled kids and they were vaccinating kids, whereas COVID mostly kills grandparents and leaves most kids unscathed. Also, now we have facebook.

ceejayoz 4y ago

> Republicans have long said that the federal government is structurally incompetent and unable to effectively administer a large country. To be fair, things probably work better when you don’t put people with that ideology in charge of said government. It’s like picking a flat-Earther as an astronaut.

Maursault 4y ago

Republicans have long said any government is bad. They want Big Business to be unrestrained, unregulated, pure democracy, at the expense of individual civil rights. I can't tell the difference between Republicans and anarchists, other than the sad fact that nearly all Republicans vote adversely to their personal economic interests to stifle economic opportunity, in order to keep the very richest the very richest, for that one future day when they are the richest of the richest. It makes no sense, because that day will never come because they are voting to stifle their own personal economic advancement for the sake of issues skew to economics, such as abortion and 2nd Amendment issues. Really... if you earn less than $325K/year, as nearly all Republicans do, it is insane to keep voting that way. If everyone always ignored all other issues, and voted solely in their personal economic interests, we'd never see another Republican elected until nearly everyone was rich.

MichaelCollins 4y ago
> Republicans have long said any government is bad. Most republicans are not anarcho-libertarians. Asserting that any government is bad is fringe even among libertarians, and most republicans aren't even libertarians.
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  > “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.'" -Ronald Reagan Perhaps you know that Reagan didn't really mean it, but it seems like many people believed him anyway.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    > Perhaps you know that Reagan didn't really mean it I think you surely know it too, Reagan was all too eager to use government power and his supporters were happy to see him do it.
    - hotpotamus 4y ago