We have some issues. But the EU is much more socialist compared to ours. Compared to USA, they have many more regulations.
Posted on 02/16/2024 11:45:35 AM PST by libh8er
Very serious issues you say, name one thing about our society that is functioning properly. No, the whole country has turned to shit, and our children will have nothing but slavery to look forward to unless we can change the course of this nation, and without the Lord even allowed in the public square, that is a pretty impossible task to carry out. Besides that, those desiring to destroy this nation are relentless, & they attack from every angle. Furthermore, they have been allowed to capture every institution of this nation, because people like you have always kept your rose-colored glasses on singing praises instead of raising concerns and fighting for those concerns.
You even continue to this day.
What’s is the obvious in your opinion, smart guy. You say stuff, but you do not elaborate, because you can’t. You just throw words against the wall and hope something sticks.
We are number (((59))) in life expectancy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy
We are number (((49))) in infant death mortality: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_and_under-five_mortality_rates
We are number 7 in per capita income GDP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita
We are number 9 in PPP which is cost of living adjusted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita
We are number 2 in manufacturing output: https://www.safeguardglobal.com/resources/top-10-manufacturing-countries-in-the-world-2023/
We are number 2 in patents and worse yet the leader China has a far greater share of scientific and engineering patents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Intellectual_Property_Indicators
Have you ever left the US? Have you even been to Switzerland, Japan, Kuwait, UAE/Dubai...? You live in a world long past where we lead technologically in near every domain, where the we have standard of living unparalleled, where we are the number one in manufacturing output and have the largest economy (today it's the EU, China)... This simply is no longer the case.
Places like this have mostly closed their doors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs_Holmdel_Complex
We are awesome at advertising and selling things, but our healthcare in America today is the same managed care you find in Europe. In fact, we have the worst of both worlds, where you have unbridled monopolies and corporate collusion with their price gouging (big pharma), but still have managed care through what is defined as the “standard of care,” more or less defined by the NIH/CDC, FDA, and DEA. You get conveyor belt health care in the US, just like you do in Germany or the UK, only you pay a whole lot more for it. When you go to the doctor in the US, you get a flow-charted solution where what you can afford becomes the only true input you have.
When nations slide on the world stage, they usually do so not in some cataclysmic event like Rome being sacked, but rather like the UK or Germany where things are stagnant and the rest of the world catches up and passes them. For example, after WWII Germany experienced what was called “Das Wirtschaftswunder” in the 1950s where their economy bounced back and in fact they rose to number 2 in manufacturing and GDP on the world stage, then they got passed by Japan (1970s), China, Brazil... Think of it as a race and it's not that you go backwards, but slow down and others pass you.
I am aboard this boat. The US is my home, it's where my benefits and retirement are tied to. The future of my children depend on this place. I take no pleasure in our slow decline from being the an unrivaled leader in near all aspects. But the trend is not that we are getting more important on the world stage, rather less.
And yes, folks are beginning to divest of the US dollar. It's not a theory or idea, it's a fact: https://ticdata.treasury.gov/Publish/mfh.txt https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1451
And yes, BRICS is growing both in size and importance, so is the EU, and us?
We have some issues. But the EU is much more socialist compared to ours. Compared to USA, they have many more regulations.
Our young people would have a better chance of learning a trade, or even understanding the options available if we still had good vocational programs in our schools.
Seventy years ago my high school had 4 career tracks—Science college, liberal arts college, secretarial/clerical. and industrial. Even though I was in liberal arts college track, I also took classes in cooking, sewing, and home nursing. Now, if I need some bamboo cut out of my yard, I have a Central American neighbor in for a few hours. No trade school classes for the black teens in our town, but enough immigrants to get jobs done.
Those who don’t give a rat’s butt about Russia’a aggressive behavior, or treatment of Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, etc. have short memories. They don’t remember that it was similar attitudes in 1913, and 1939 about German treatment of England and France that caused our deaths of soldiers to be as high as they became. Right now it is Ukrainians using their bodies to hold back the imperialist tide. If we let them lose, how many years will it be before we have masses of American bodies dying in those trenches?
That's a lie. Zelensky wasn't ELECTED until April 2019, and it was THIS guy who started the war in 2014:
Russia's Igor Strelkov: I Am Responsible for War in Eastern Ukraine
Russian national Igor Strelkov, a former commander of pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine, has claimed personal responsibility for unleashing the conflict in which 4,300 people have been killed since April.
"I was the one who pulled the trigger of this war," Strelkov said in an interview published Thursday with Russia's Zavtra newspaper, which espouses imperialist views.
"If our unit hadn't crossed the border, everything would have fizzled out — like in [the Ukrainian city of] Kharkiv, like in Odessa," Strelkov, who uses that nom-de-guerre meaning "Shooter" to replace his last name Girkin, was quoted as saying.
"There would have been several dozen killed, burned, detained. And that would have been the end of it. But the flywheel of the war, which is continuing to this day, was spun by our unit. We mixed up all the cards on the table," he said.
Good thing you weren’t advising Churchill during the Blitz in World War II.
Nothing could be further from the truth. It's about looking at the truth of all of the events that led up to the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It didn't need to happen in the first place, but it happened because we basically cornered Russia into an invasion being the only option left as Russia felt threatened by NATO expansion.
Ukraine & Russia were working on a peace agreement until Boris Johnson stepped in & told Ukraine not to work with Russia for a peace agreement. But this whole thing started by the CIA creating a color revolution at the behest of Victoria Nuland, because Viktor Yanukovych, who was going to sign both trade agreements with the EU & Russia. When the EU learned what he was planning to do, he was told by the EU that the EU would rescind their trade agreement if the Russian trade agreement was signed also. Viktor Yanukovych stated that he felt like the bride who arrives at the church on her wedding day and has a pre-nuptial agreement shoved in her face to sign, which was not in the best interest of Ukraine. As having trade agreements with both entities gave Ukraine more bargaining leverage. So, he decided right there to go with the Russian deal.
Viktor Yanukovych had even agreed to an early election date to have a smooth peaceful transition of power, but that wasn't good enough for Victoria Nuland so the CIA orchestrated the gathering of mobs in the streets to create chaos, and it eventually produced violence just like they did in the summer of love here in the US.
Those who fail to see the signs of a game-planned insurrection fail to see that their own country is falling into the hands of tyrants. So do not bring history into the equation, look at facts on the ground.
They had also assured Russia that NATO would not expand into eastern Europe, but then turned right around and began expansion into eastern Europe. Thus, not only was our word untrustworthy, our actions were a threat to Russia's national security, & Putin flat-out stated that both Georgia & Ukraine were red-lines when it came to NATO expansion. Putin asked if the US would consider Russia's entry into NATO. That would have solved a lot of concerns & would have created leverage against a Chinese threat. But no, that was rejected without any serious contemplation, because after all NATO was created to counter a USSR threat against Europe.
We even have evidence that The Rand Corporation had game planned the scenario that unfolded in Ukraine & a proxy war beginning in Ukraine with NATO backing Ukraine. The problem with people who look at history & say that it is repeating itself fail to look beyond the obvious.
In 2023 The Rand Corporation determined:
An Unwinnable War: Washington Needs an Endgame in Ukraine
But that information is being totally ignored, and I think the Rand Corporation gives Ukraine more credit than it deserves. Not because they are not valiant fighters, but because Russia has the assets & the will to continue until they achieve the victory they desire.
The bottom line here is that coming to a peaceful solution was in the best interest of the world, period. This is not about supporting Russia. This is common sense as to what is the best course of action to pursue, and it has always been a peaceful resolution, period. That should have been the course of action when Russia first took back the Crimea that Nikita Khrushchev gifted to the Ukraine portion of the USSR in 1954
The politicians & the 1%ers have been raking in huge amounts of money off of the endless wars of the last two decades & they are hungry for more, because the thirst of wealth & power is never satisfied.
I'm beginning to believe that most who support this conflict are also benefitting handsomely as well from wars. But some of you are useful idiots that fall into that trap that history repeats itself. Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) famously said that history doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes.
But more often than not that rhyme is orchestrated, just like a song is orchestrated to rhyme by a song writer.
BTW, nothing has really happened in Moldova, but there is a portion of Moldova that has a population of Russians (220,000) who desire to breakaway from Moldova, why are they being denied their desires? Moldova did come into existence as an entity in the 1350s. What was it before? It became a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire from 1538 until 1812 when Russia took the western half in the Russian-Turkish war. In 1918 it briefly became independent until it united with Romania. During WWII Russia occupied Romania and reclaimed Moldova. My point is that that whole region has been a cluster throughout history. The president of Georgia called in Russia to help quell a rebellion. Who instigated that & why? Had Ukraine not instigated a real insurrection, would Russia have invaded? Perhaps, if the NATO push had continued. Russia's reaction to the NATO threat has been no different that the USA's reaction to the Cuban missile crisis threat. The difference is that the USSR backed down before it escalated, however, we didn't back down to defuse escalation, so escalation took its natural course.
But should we give back the US to the Indians? Who has the rightful claim? Throughout history, lands belong to the strong. Right or wrong that is how it has played out.
The strong are threatening to take this nation, and your focus is on the struggles of other nations? Remember the thugs trying to take this nation have lots of help from within. You had better start paying a whole lot more attention to reality, because this nation's struggle will not be resolved by solving Ukraine's struggle.
You are absolutely correct.
Maybe the treaty of Versailles wasn’t the best idea. Maybe humiliating the Germans post WWI, stripping them of all their colonies, taking away ethnic German lands, making them responsible for the entire war debt (even that of their enemy), imposing military and economic restrictions... wasn’t such a good idea.
For your own good, Google “treaty of Versalles and Hitlers rise to power.”
Maybe when you push a nation into a corner, a Hitler emerges.
You are right, we should have learned from history and not ostrasized Russia post Cold War even as they were reaching out to us, tried stripping them of all their oil producing frontier nations (all for the greater moral causes of democracy, human rights and sovereignty of course: Iraq, Libya, Syria, Venezuela, Niger), maybe we should have respected our promise of no NATO East expansion, not withdrawn from the Ballistic Missile Treaty, respected Minsk and Montreux.
Post Cold War, and 9-11, Russia actually HELPED us. They worked with us! They let us use their bases in Kyrgestan in support of our Afgahistan campaign, they shared intel with us, etc. They actually provided some logictic support for us... They would feed us reports on folks coming to the US they thought are $hit heads: https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBREA2P02R/ They shared information on certain types of ordinace where they had a lead (fuel air explosives) and which were highly effective in caves etc.
Don’t try to pretend we’re the good guys here.
Don’t try to use some non-applicable Stalin or Cold War boogieman to make Russia out as a bad guy.
The sworn enemy Russia we face today, we created through our arrogance, hypocracy, and flat out lies. We think we can do whatever we want, change deals or break promises as it suits us (just provide some BS rationalization no one familiar with the situation believes but to appease the ignorant voting masses)... and this is the consequence.
When you screw with someone enough, eventually they begin to not like you. Russia isn’t like most our NATO allies that bow down to us. Ukraine is us thinking Russia is weak to the point where we can simply do whatever we want. Wrong-
We will not solve our problem by solving Ukraine's problem. We are being invaded by a much larger invasion force. Many of whom are already showing their aggression, not their thankfulness.
You speak like Churchill when it comes to Ukraine, but you speak like Neville Chamberlain when it comes to your own country.
Are you that obtuse? When we fall, so falls the world. If Ukraine falls & we prevail, then hope remains in the world.
You had better learn where the real fight is, or you will learn why you were just a useful idiot tool who was distracted from the real fight, by the diversionary fight place before you.
As to the EU: https://statisticstimes.com/economy/united-states-vs-eu-economy.php they are neck to neck.
Where did we stand in 1950? 1960, 1970, 1980?
The point being, others are catching up or even passing us.
On the world stage, we once alone were 40% of the worlds GDP in 1960, today we are 24%.
https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_gdp_as_a_percentage_of_world_gdp The trend is obvious.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/u-s-share-of-global-economy-over-time/ Quick and easy to visualize.
We don't build nuclear power plants, we squander our wealth on BS solar farms and wind turbines. We waste billions giving people with an absurd sexual fetish special economic perks and benefits just because (no sort of performance of any service for this money, i.e. no value added). We hire lesser qualified folks and put them into positions often above their abilities. We restrict environmental rules so much that certain industries leave the country. We tax the productive and subsidize sloth but exclude the super rich from paying taxes nearly all together. Our political leaders are overtly for sale. We shut down a country because of Covid and still have not fully recovered from this Democrat lunacy and political game. We bring in millions from Africa and the Middle East who are unskilled, culturally foreign, because we want to be racially and ethnically fair in our immigration policies and have quota's there too. We start a war and literally blow $>100 billion in two years that was entirely unnecessary and predictable, where one can make the argument that we lied and cheated and likely caused this.
Wealth is created, and today theories such as social justice, equity, equal opportunity, income tax credits, an inheritance and property tax, green subsidies and tax credits, CO2 offsets... are all about simply redistributing this wealth, not making more of it.
Rome fell from within.
So are we.
Our wealth and security, our rights are taken for granted. We have become fat, entitled, dumb, corrupt, perverted and lazy. Where we are a leader or among the top is in obesity, porn production, divorce, single parent homes, TVs per household, number of lawsuits filed, time spent on social media, debt per capita... This will not end well for us.
We are not unlike Rome, a big empire towards it's later existence that is riding on the exploits and success, the inertia of its once glorious past.
But maybe I'm just becoming the cynical and grumpy old man.
Straw man arguments are all that you’ve got.
You realize that in 1960, we've just won WWII. Most of the world was in ruins.
Are we the same when we invade a nation, or are our invasions different? How many nations do we have military stationed in? Why do we have military stations there? Are the citizens of those nations all grateful for our presence there?
Yeah...except for that little non-consequential invasion aspect, which can be completely disregarded, right?
Furthermore, you are saying that the US is an illegal nation, because it was born out of an invasion by England initially, and later by other European nations, which later birthed this nation.
Israel is also an illegitimate nation because that nation was created as a result of the defeat of the Axis Alliance in WWII, and nations chose poorly to side with they wrong (losing) alliance were then used to carve out Israel.
Do you begin to see the danger in your short-sighted criteria that forms your beliefs?
Gotcha. Remember what you said for future discussions.
But you see you have to actually analyze the invasion aspect to fully understand the context. But trying to correctly understand the context of an invasion requires more than just seeing the word. That is the part that escapes people like you who are familiar with one nation, but are totally devoid of knowledge of the other nation state and quickly take sides. Had you bothered to do so, you would have seen that Ukraine is no paragon of virtue & actually in many respects holds similar attributes as Russia. Neither is worth protecting with our treasures, but perhaps it is worth stopping the bloodletting before it starts in earnest for the sake of humanity. For that was the proper response had you actually applied critical think skills, instead of rushing to a judgement.
What Putin has done to Ukraine is NO DIFFERENT than what Hitler and Stalin did to Poland in 1939.
Period.
You all have the same talking points, which are utterly useless nonsense. Do you think you can at least try to be original? 🤣
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