As an American, growing up I used to think so highly of Europe and their better socialist policies (I even wanted to move there), but honestly their spinelessness when dealing with dictatorships has really disillusioned me. Say what you will about the US military-industrial complex, or even how capricious our current aid situation is with Ukraine, but even when our international policy is clearly wrong or misguided, I do think we move forward with real conviction unlike Europe…
Call me delusional, but despite electing an agent of Russia the previous election cycle, I think the US still managed to give more aid to Ukraine when they needed it. Don’t tell me that the EU pledged more aid than the US has after the fact. If the US didn’t put its foot forward in the first place I have a real hard time believing the EU would have done anything. And yeah, maybe we shouldn’t be giving Isreal weapons to bomb the living shit out of Palestinian civilians. And Europe is entirely right when they call us out on it. But since when is Europe willing to accept refugees from Palestine? Their words don’t mean much to me. It’s always posturing and NIMBY and hoping someone else does it while acting superior.
For the record, the fact that Trump didn’t overthrow the government means that it’s not a dictatorship - need I remind you that Trump was 3 years ago? And anyways, despite how horrible of a person and leader Trump is, he somehow still had better foreign policy regarding China than Europe did.
If China invades Taiwan, what will Europe do? I have a hard time they’ll do anything but thank the heavens they had TSMC build a fab in Europe while conveniently waiting to see what happens: if Japan and the US are able to help Taiwan hold, they’ll open the floodgates, but otherwise they’ll turn the other way.
Yeah, moving forward might be the wrong way to put it. But I’m not impressed at all with bystanders that point fingers at people going the wrong way when they’re at least trying. And if the world wants to literally put their money where their mouth is, maybe they should be adopting the Euro instead of the US Dollar as their world reserve currency (why, if other countries hate our capitalism so much, are they so willing to eat our shit when we print money on their dime?)
The number of “but” in that whole thing should clue you in as to some of your cognitive dissonance. A lot of things you talked about as such aren’t mutually exclusive.
I’ll let you dream, ain’t no way I’m wasting my time with what will be a failed conversation here.
See but that’s the problem. Instead of pointing out specifics and being clear you’ve said a whole lot of nothing and just gone back to your echo chamber. Shame on you, not for disgreeing with me, but acting holier-than-thou, walking away in arrogance with your nose held high.
The EU has neoliberalism written into its constitution. It’s not socialist, at most a few member nations have some social democracy. Though even that has been shrinking and replaced by privitization and austerity.
Forgive my previous imprecise language, but isn’t this merely a matter of semantics? I was under the impression that the major countries in Europe are socialist (or if you prefer, social democracies, hence what I meant but European “socialism”), and they drive policy in the EU. But as the top comment said, they have agency to do things on their own behalfs.
All the EU member states are capitalists, no exception. Socialism is an entirely different economic system. The major countries are actually the more conservative, France and Germany. The most social democratic (which is still capitalism) are the Scandinavian countries, though their welfare systems are a shell of what they were 30 years ago.
Hence my apology for the imprecise language. I meant what you said by social democracy, not a social economic system. Anyways, if we’re being pedants, there are no true socialists or capitalists in today’s markets. They’re all mixed-market economies.
When I say socialist (and what is more accurately social democracy), I first think of healthcare, then I think of transit, then of education, and then of utilities. These are things that the US certainly could do better.
It’s more important to move forward with conviction, even if the direction is clearly wrong? Well, that’s why living in the US would be my worst nightmare. Is this funny mindest widespread?
Also as an American: that’s not a thing to brag about. Sticking to your guns when it becomes evident that your strategy is not going to work is called “sunk cost fallacy”. It’s not good.
Edit:
To clarify, I wholeheartedly and enthusiastically support assisting Ukraine, and I wish our government shared that sentiment. I’m simply pointing out that the War on Terror was a HUGE demonstration of the sunk cost fallacy over the course of over 20 years. Similarly, unflinchingly supporting the Israeli government’s extremely hawkish handling of pretty much every aspect of how they interact with Palestinians is also an example of the sunk cost fallacy, and I’m starting to get really fucking concerned that it’s going to cost Biden the election in 2024, which would be bad for everyone all over the world in a myriad of fascinating and terrible ways… and also, very obviously extremely bad for Ukraine - I would actually not be surprised, if Trump manages to win, that he actually starts to throw in with Putin. Trump fucking hates Zelenskyy, because Zelenskyy refused to submit to Trump’s blackmail and didn’t help Trump’s continued attempts to fuck with our own electoral process.
Additionally, apologies for dragging in so many loosely related issues, but the truth of the matter is that American politics muddles all this crap up into a giant cesspool, and that’s what we have to deal with as citizens.
I think the reason is important. If you stick to something because you think it is the right thing to do, that is conviction. If you stick to something because you think you must continue as you have already invested effort into, that is sunk cost. The point that I’m trying to make, that perhaps I have not worded well, is that you must act with conviction, because if you do not do what you think is right, you either not do anything, or do what you think is wrong. Sure, you may be wrong at the time, and you should be open to reflection, and not be prey to sunk cost.
But coming up with convenient excuses to avoid doing what you think is inconvenient but right is not how leaders behave.
And in this context (if that is what you mean), it is definitely not evident that supporting Ukraine is a strategy that won’t work.
100% agree on the Ukraine front. Apologies - I’ve just been infuriated by the complete morass of congressional politics lately and it’s driving me to distraction at times
Just an excuse for the EU member state leaders who could send help individually by country and are failing to do so.
As an American, growing up I used to think so highly of Europe and their better socialist policies (I even wanted to move there), but honestly their spinelessness when dealing with dictatorships has really disillusioned me. Say what you will about the US military-industrial complex, or even how capricious our current aid situation is with Ukraine, but even when our international policy is clearly wrong or misguided, I do think we move forward with real conviction unlike Europe…
Oh yeah, with Trump and all for the past few years, that was a real show of “moving forward” and it was nothing like a “dictatorship” even.
The amount of irony in your comment is off the chart, you need a self check.
Call me delusional, but despite electing an agent of Russia the previous election cycle, I think the US still managed to give more aid to Ukraine when they needed it. Don’t tell me that the EU pledged more aid than the US has after the fact. If the US didn’t put its foot forward in the first place I have a real hard time believing the EU would have done anything. And yeah, maybe we shouldn’t be giving Isreal weapons to bomb the living shit out of Palestinian civilians. And Europe is entirely right when they call us out on it. But since when is Europe willing to accept refugees from Palestine? Their words don’t mean much to me. It’s always posturing and NIMBY and hoping someone else does it while acting superior.
For the record, the fact that Trump didn’t overthrow the government means that it’s not a dictatorship - need I remind you that Trump was 3 years ago? And anyways, despite how horrible of a person and leader Trump is, he somehow still had better foreign policy regarding China than Europe did.
If China invades Taiwan, what will Europe do? I have a hard time they’ll do anything but thank the heavens they had TSMC build a fab in Europe while conveniently waiting to see what happens: if Japan and the US are able to help Taiwan hold, they’ll open the floodgates, but otherwise they’ll turn the other way.
Yeah, moving forward might be the wrong way to put it. But I’m not impressed at all with bystanders that point fingers at people going the wrong way when they’re at least trying. And if the world wants to literally put their money where their mouth is, maybe they should be adopting the Euro instead of the US Dollar as their world reserve currency (why, if other countries hate our capitalism so much, are they so willing to eat our shit when we print money on their dime?)
The number of “but” in that whole thing should clue you in as to some of your cognitive dissonance. A lot of things you talked about as such aren’t mutually exclusive.
I’ll let you dream, ain’t no way I’m wasting my time with what will be a failed conversation here.
Have a nice day.
See but that’s the problem. Instead of pointing out specifics and being clear you’ve said a whole lot of nothing and just gone back to your echo chamber. Shame on you, not for disgreeing with me, but acting holier-than-thou, walking away in arrogance with your nose held high.
The EU has neoliberalism written into its constitution. It’s not socialist, at most a few member nations have some social democracy. Though even that has been shrinking and replaced by privitization and austerity.
Forgive my previous imprecise language, but isn’t this merely a matter of semantics? I was under the impression that the major countries in Europe are socialist (or if you prefer, social democracies, hence what I meant but European “socialism”), and they drive policy in the EU. But as the top comment said, they have agency to do things on their own behalfs.
All the EU member states are capitalists, no exception. Socialism is an entirely different economic system. The major countries are actually the more conservative, France and Germany. The most social democratic (which is still capitalism) are the Scandinavian countries, though their welfare systems are a shell of what they were 30 years ago.
Hence my apology for the imprecise language. I meant what you said by social democracy, not a social economic system. Anyways, if we’re being pedants, there are no true socialists or capitalists in today’s markets. They’re all mixed-market economies.
When I say socialist (and what is more accurately social democracy), I first think of healthcare, then I think of transit, then of education, and then of utilities. These are things that the US certainly could do better.
It’s more important to move forward with conviction, even if the direction is clearly wrong? Well, that’s why living in the US would be my worst nightmare. Is this funny mindest widespread?
If you move without conviction, then does it matter if you are right or wrong? You will never learn from your mistakes.
Also as an American: that’s not a thing to brag about. Sticking to your guns when it becomes evident that your strategy is not going to work is called “sunk cost fallacy”. It’s not good.
Edit:
To clarify, I wholeheartedly and enthusiastically support assisting Ukraine, and I wish our government shared that sentiment. I’m simply pointing out that the War on Terror was a HUGE demonstration of the sunk cost fallacy over the course of over 20 years. Similarly, unflinchingly supporting the Israeli government’s extremely hawkish handling of pretty much every aspect of how they interact with Palestinians is also an example of the sunk cost fallacy, and I’m starting to get really fucking concerned that it’s going to cost Biden the election in 2024, which would be bad for everyone all over the world in a myriad of fascinating and terrible ways… and also, very obviously extremely bad for Ukraine - I would actually not be surprised, if Trump manages to win, that he actually starts to throw in with Putin. Trump fucking hates Zelenskyy, because Zelenskyy refused to submit to Trump’s blackmail and didn’t help Trump’s continued attempts to fuck with our own electoral process.
Additionally, apologies for dragging in so many loosely related issues, but the truth of the matter is that American politics muddles all this crap up into a giant cesspool, and that’s what we have to deal with as citizens.
I think the reason is important. If you stick to something because you think it is the right thing to do, that is conviction. If you stick to something because you think you must continue as you have already invested effort into, that is sunk cost. The point that I’m trying to make, that perhaps I have not worded well, is that you must act with conviction, because if you do not do what you think is right, you either not do anything, or do what you think is wrong. Sure, you may be wrong at the time, and you should be open to reflection, and not be prey to sunk cost.
But coming up with convenient excuses to avoid doing what you think is inconvenient but right is not how leaders behave.
And in this context (if that is what you mean), it is definitely not evident that supporting Ukraine is a strategy that won’t work.
100% agree on the Ukraine front. Apologies - I’ve just been infuriated by the complete morass of congressional politics lately and it’s driving me to distraction at times