> All of those are true, yet the US's (PPP-adjusted) per capita GDP was over 37% higher than the EU's in 2024 [0], and GDP growth has significantly outpaced the EU for years.
And? So what? What has that gotten the US?
Lower life expectancy, higher infant/maternal mortality, higher (violent) crime, and generally much less happiness with life:
> No piece of dirt or earth is worth dying for, ever.
If no one ever defends the dirt, the pieces of earth where you can enjoy a drink in peace and freedom will shrink over time as the aggressors will continue to gobble up land because of the lack of defending.
They keep moving forward, you keep moving back, until you have no where to retreat to.
Come back to this comment in a few years and think about whether something significant has changed for those people who did not sacrifice their lives for a meaningless battle.
People are more important than the state. If they are not ready to defend him, why should they be forced? You can offer money or other valuables in return, such as fame, a pension, or a position, but if a person doesn't want to, why should they do it?
> Come back to this comment in a few years and think about whether something significant has changed for those people who did not sacrifice their lives for a meaningless battle.
My family is from Eastern Europe: if people had not fought "meaningless" battles then the land would have been ruled by genocidal maniacs. As it stand my grandmother almost ended up in an oven.
My very existence is the result of the battles having meaning, that people fighting matters.
> Generator 5kw - you want something with a higher duty cycle than you need so it can run for extended periods
Note that fossil fuel can age out, even with stabilizer.
There are dual- and tri-fuel generators out there that can use natural/methane gas and/or propane. Consider propane as you can get pretty big bottles and it does not expire so can sit around for long periods of time.
yeah used to manage data centers, diesel breaks down after a while, petrol even faster.
you can put in additives to extend the life, and specialized storage can squeak even more out, but ultimately you can't plan on it being good past 12 months, maybe as low as 5-6 if conditions aren't great.
we ran / tested the generators weekly, both just to exercise them and confirm they're good, but also just to burn off old fuel.
> We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false, that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically, and we knew that international law applied with varied rigor, depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.
> This fiction was useful, and American hegemony in particular helped provide public goods, open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security, and support for frameworks for resolving disputes.
An interesting observation I came across today:
> The genius of American foreign policy since 1941 was that it found a way to be both the single strongest state and the leader of the strongest coalition of states: power and legitimacy, together. That's the achievement Trump has jeopardized - and possibly permanently wrecked.
If Trump decides to go pull the plug on invading Greenland an uses the 11th Airborne, McBride would, I would assume, at a minimum, be relieved of his duties with the 11th Airborne and sent back to Canada, with either a subordinate ops staff officer or the Deputy Commanding General (Support) or some combination filling in for the duties of the Deputy Commanding General (Operations).
Depending on the details of timing of the operation and the US-Canada diplomatic situation as a result, what happens after he is relieved might not be as simple as a return to Canada, he might conceivably even end up as a POW.
> Representatives already either agree it's bad (and can't do much about it)
Representatives can draft articles of impeached for the President.
Senators can start impeaching various Secretaries like Defence ("War") and Homeland Security. Or all of the Secretaries really, since they're not upholding the Constitution themselves by not invoking the 25A to get rid of a mentally unstable President.
Where are all these much-vaunted "checks and balances" that I've been hearing about for so long?
> Where are all these much-vaunted "checks and balances" that I've been hearing about for so long?
That's the problem, turns out there are none.
Or to be more precise, they do exist but they rely solely on each arm of the government acting in good faith and respecting the boundaries of their power and deferring on powers that belong to a different arm of the government.
But turns out there was a 0-day bug in the constitution: if the president simply completely ignores all other branches of government, nothing can be done about it.
The much vaunted checks and balances rely on Congress and the supreme Court checking the executives power. Since the presidents party controls both, this doesn't happen. The Imperial Presidency has been absorbing power from the other branches since the 90s, and we are pretty close to the end of that process right now.
> Representatives can draft articles of impeached for the President.
Trump has been impeached twice. Even if you could get enough Republicans in the House on board to do so a third time (the GOP holds a majority in both houses of Congress), the threshold of 2/3 of the Senate to convict and remove is far out of reach; there aren't enough Republicans that aren't die-hard Trump loyalists (there are rumors that an actual armed invasion of Greenland might change that, but those kind of rumors of opposition often turn out to be overblown when situations materialize, with a decisive number Republicans offering some criticism and then finding an excuse to oppose actual action.)
> Senators can start impeaching various Secretaries
No, Senators cannot start impeachment, which regardless of which officers subject to it are targeted must start in the House. And the same problems which face impeachment of the President apply here.
> Where are all these much-vaunted "checks and balances" that I've been hearing about for so long?
They rely on the same malign faction not controlling both political branches as well as dominating the Supreme Court at the same time. Unfortunately...
When the Republican Party has been largely purged of opposition to Trump (except for senators Rand Paul, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski and a tiny handful of people in the House), and when six out of nine Supreme Court justices are generally loyal to the GOP, then there are effectively no checks and balances.
Trump learned during his first term that he can bypass checks and balances by making sure the GOP is thoroughly MAGA. People who stood up to Trump have been sidelined, such as Justin Amash, Mitt Romney, and, most famously, Mike Pence, who stood up to Trump on January 6 and paid a heavy political price for it. That’s why Vance, not Pence, is the current VP.
> I legitimately do not understand these takes connecting everything to slavery. It's been more than a hundred years at this point. The trope is getting old.
"These takes" are from the articles of secessions that the various states published on why they wanted to leave. Georgia:
> The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property […]
Mississippi:
> In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.
> Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. […]
South Carolina:
> The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
Texas:
> […] Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. […]
Virginia:
> The people of Virginia, in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in Convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, having declared that the powers granted under the said Constitution were derived from the people of the United States, and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression; and the Federal Government, having perverted said powers, not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern Slaveholding States.
The surface level reading of history is that everyone always agreed centralization of power is bad and operated in a gentlemanly way to further this principle, until Trump came along. But that's not the case at all. In the two parts of American history where I read more or less deeply (early republic and civil war), the factions bitterly vied for absolute power but were prevented from getting it through intangible American magic.
That America works and keeps working for reasons nobody understands. We seem to make a ton of mistakes, and often act in the same way as far less successful countries do, but somehow keep coming out on top. It often feels like our success is despite our actions, not because of them. That's what I mean by "intangible American magic".
I didn’t say that. There’s been a few. Wilson, FDR, Jackson come to mind.
Trump is unique in that the previous folks predated the massive standing army and propaganda capabilities that exist today. The intangible magic is brave individuals and institutions. It’s harder for those individuals with the secret police and army running around.
And? So what? What has that gotten the US?
Lower life expectancy, higher infant/maternal mortality, higher (violent) crime, and generally much less happiness with life:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report
Getting more GDP/money is not the goal in itself: money is a tool to get other things (health, happiness, etc).
reply