General discussion for civics

[Joij21]

Well Canada and other nations have no problem with being unitary democracy.

Canada is not a unitary state, they are a federation just like the US.

If anything they are looser in organization because under the Canadian constitution the provinces can actually legally succeed through referendum. This almost happened in the 90s with Quebec.

 

[raxo2222]

Canada is not a unitary state, they are a federation just like the US.

If anything they are looser in organization because under the Canadian constitution the provinces can actually legally succeed through referendum. This almost happened in the 90s with Quebec.

I guess I had to ensure which ones are unitary. So Canada was wrong example.

 

[Thunderbrd]

The Declaration of Independence Listed all the reasons for the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution lays out, with the Bill of Rights, How this Independence will be instituted and maintained. Especially when the Gov't is no longer for the People or by the People. We have reached that point. The current Admin is in fact a coup and they are selling America to the Chinese. Have been selling America to them since 1971 when Nixon visited them back then. Deals were made and the US Gov't has been funneling money to China for decades. Pres Trump put a choke hold on that while he was in office. The current Admin is deeply in bed with XI.

Are you American? Natural Born?

Just to say, my perspective on this is that for a very long time we have had tensions with the Chinese - not at all 'in bed' with them. They have, as a powerful nation with powerful chips on the bargaining table and every bit as strong a strategic negotiator as any nation that has ever been seen on the world stage, not bowed to this idea that we should all be friendly with one another for the sake of making the world a better place. They get what they can get, when they can get it and we have long been making concessions to them we'd never want to have to admit, just as we demand some in return from them.

They know they are a military force to be reckoned with and perhaps one of the only ones in the world with serious superpower contender status outside the US and the potential of some other forces if united. We do a lot that makes us 'seem' in bed with them because many of those concessions they demand are things we can't explain to our people as to why we're willing to deal with it and end up on the losing end of negotiations as a result of. How do you tell factory workers, well... we needed to give your jobs to the Chinese because we really don't want to see the world erupt into a massive war with the usage of Nukes being constantly 'an option' but with a foe that without them, they have such an overwhelming amount of manpower we know we'd struggle to hold against them and your kids may starve today but at least they don't die tomorrow in that war that they had no choice but to wage to expand because we're winning the economic game too well and painting them into a corner as a result.

This is not a partisan outlook but I can see how the truth can easily be 'spun' as so many deals take place in the shadows of being unable to excuse them to the general public. And the way partisanship plays into it is that both sides are either denying everything or playing propaganda wars with reality to twist things to their benefit. So... maybe be careful who you're listening to on this imo.

 

[Toffer90]

They have, as a powerful nation with powerful chips on the bargaining table and every bit as strong a strategic negotiator as any nation that has ever been seen on the world stage, not bowed to this idea that we should all be friendly with one another for the sake of making the world a better place. They get what they can get, when they can get it and we have long been making concessions to them we'd never want to have to admit, just as we demand some in return from them.

Ah yes, the yellow menace. Youtube
China is luckily not as much of a bully on the world stage yet like the US & co have been for almost a century.

 

[Joij21]

We do a lot that makes us 'seem' in bed with them because many of those concessions they demand are things we can't explain to our people as to why we're willing to deal with it and end up on the losing end of negotiations as a result of. How do you tell factory workers, well... we needed to give your jobs to the Chinese because we really don't want to see the world erupt into a massive war with the usage of Nukes being constantly 'an option' but with a foe that without them, they have such an overwhelming amount of manpower we know we'd struggle to hold against them and your kids may starve today but at least they don't die tomorrow in that war that they had no choice but to wage to expand because we're winning the economic game too well and painting them into a corner as a result.

This exactly. Nixon knew the Chinese were far too populated in number that if we ever had to fight them they could become a serious threat if they ever drifted too close to the Soviets whereby they'd be even more numerous in military strength.

We chose to move closer to China to force the Sino-Soviet split and hoped that if we allowed them to participate in global capitalism they would westernize and in turn inevitably making their Marxism incompatible with the new capitalism which we would import. Eventually the struggle between the two systems would by design become so disjointed and inefficient that the Chinese would have to both democratize and remove their socialism or else they would economically collapse. In essence force them to become an ally of the West or they would collapse and become a non threat.

 

[Joij21]

Richard Nixon believed that "freedom" a.ka. capitalism will always triumph over Marxism/Socialism and all you need to do is tempt and seduce them to the superiority of capitalistic excess and pleasure whereby if anyone tries to bring restraint via government intervention like drug addicts now hooked they'll rebel for the new capitalistic vices.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Ah yes, the yellow menace. Youtube
China is luckily not as much of a bully on the world stage yet like the US & co have been for almost a century.

Not calling them a menace or a bully, just not pushovers - they are going to play the game as it is meant to be played. As they must to ensure the strongest case for their interests. Strategic af. I don't think of them as nefarious, just looking for all competitive edges they can get, just as I'd say we do ultimately - though I think our motives skew towards "We let the genie (Nuke tech) out of the bottle and will do everything we must to ensure it never gets used again and I don't give a damn who gets hurt or what devils we have to deal with in the process of maintaining the power to ensure this future never happens because if we don't do everything we need to so as to achieve that aim, we ALL go down with this ship. Morals and doing it 'the right way' be damned." This stance explains a lot of why we have become perceivable as 'bullies'.

 

[Joij21]

"We let the genie (Nuke tech) out of the bottle and will do everything we must to ensure it never gets used again and I don't give a damn who gets hurt or what devils we have to deal with in the process of maintaining the power to ensure this future never happens because if we don't do everything we need to so as to achieve that aim, we ALL go down with this ship. Morals and doing it 'the right way' be damned."

To be fair I think the invention of nuclear weapons was inevitable. And strangely enough Russia's current logic in justifying their invasion of Ukraine seems to be based on similar nuclear paranoia (although in truth it's really just some excuse to grab some more grain and natural gas and hope no one notices).

Also if America's foreign policy was really based on nuclear containment then why was North Korea allowed to gain the bomb without conflict? Or China? Or India? Or Pakistan? IMHO our foreign policy seems to be one of shoring up our economic interests and flipping regimes to puppet ones which freely allow our corporations to abuse their workers and prevent them from unionizing/forming proper socialist governments. Hell, our corporations won't allow them to form proper capitalist ones or else their scalping would be limited.

 

[Joij21]

More specifically America views it as it's post WW2 responsibility to give Europe cheap energy so they don't resort to a renewal of colonial competition that led to the tensions leading up to the world wars in the first place. However it desires to do so without jeopardizing it's own domestic supply and standard of living so chooses to prop up certain regimes inside of the Middle East and Africa to supply this energy for Europe instead.

Over time this has moved beyond simple energy and instead it now feels it must supply cheaper raw materials as well to the Europeans to keep them happy and compliant, otherwise they may become addicted to Russian raw materials and energy instead. Should that happen Russia could unite with the EU to form a bloc with well over a billion individuals, a sort of new China like power that could really threaten the US. The war in Ukraine prevented this from happening though by now vilifying the Russians from within the EU.

 

[Thunderbrd]

why was North Korea allowed to gain the bomb without conflict?

Because within seconds of a war breaking out with NK, you have HUGE population centers absolutely decimated by all the artillery that has all of its own targets zeroed in and some of the largest cities on the planet get wiped in moments. Without the use of nukes. Nevertheless... I have to say it's probably going to be the biggest mistake we ever made to not wipe them off the map as soon as they tested. Now we're probably just awaiting a rapidly approaching day when they hold the world hostage.

China India and Pakistan all came at a time before our strategies were fully determined and still forming and were horrifying as a result and still are.

Economic interest is wrapped up in national interests because as we know, that's a huge part of how you stay the strongest nation with the capabilities we have so this is what I mean by we sell out all over the place to ensure we have as much power as we can so we can do all we can to keep things as stable as possible world-wide. If we were playing to take it all, we would've easily converted how many nations to states by now?

More specifically America views it as it's post WW2 responsibility to give Europe cheap energy so they don't resort to a renewal of colonial competition that led to the tensions leading up to the world wars in the first place. However it desires to do so without jeopardizing it's own domestic supply and standard of living so chooses to prop up certain regimes inside of the Middle East and Africa to supply this energy for Europe instead.

Over time this has moved beyond simple energy and instead it now feels it must supply cheaper raw materials as well to the Europeans to keep them happy and compliant, otherwise they may become addicted to Russian raw materials and energy instead. Should that happen Russia could unite with the EU to form a bloc with well over a billion individuals, a sort of new China like power that could really threaten the US. The war in Ukraine prevented this from happening though by now vilifying the Russians from within the EU.

I see these 'oil/fossil fuel' issues as being a fading concern as we came to believe through analysis of WWII that we'd win the whole thing here and ensure singular centralization of power (not administration but capitulation perhaps) on the UN by being the only nation left with oil. This is why we for so long were buying up so much of the rest of the world's and hoarding it as much as we could here. That's becoming an obsolete bid because we found WAY more oil than we ever thought possible during the later end of last century and found biofuels like corn are not so difficult to manufacture, and a growing awareness of the grand superiority of a supply line unreliant energy source that powers epic weapons for the next generation is so promising has made us realize we simply cannot just 'run them all out of oil'. In the process of maintaining that strategy for so long, we certainly did a lot to command and control oil sources, yes. And most of our 'fentanyl' issues I'd say were being imported for our pharma co's from poppy resources in Afghanistan. Again, the more you scratch the backs of those giving you power, the more power you get, and the more power you have you direct into military, the more you can call all the shots. Clearly, we care a lot to have all the bargaining chips - doesn't mean we want to own all control over all societies - so we're clearly trying to ensure global stability as a very primary self-concerning motive. I think the nuclear issue isn't necessarily concern for all other nations as much as it is we are like someone who has struck out and has some karmic debts to pay as a result and we assume most nukes to be pointed at us as a result.

Some interesting positions there - won't challenge them all will just consider them.

 

[raxo2222]

Didn't some American business move to China because it was much cheaper to pay for transport and Chinese wages compared to American wages?
Probably someone said that USA is in bed with China due to Rust Belt and stuff like that.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Except the government can amend amendments including the Bill of Rights. So the government could remove all it's legal obligations to not infringe upon people's rights legally if the people freely consent to give it up.

You assume that the military would take action via a coup da tat which would be impossible and incredibly likely to fail with dire consequences unless one has a five star general or admiral on board. Though preferably you would want at least half the Pentagon to agree to such a coup for it to be successful without incident. Without which all other insurrections or rebellious activity will be easy to put down as they would have no legitimacy from a faction with real militaristic power on the ground since without any five star commanders many units within the United States would be in disagreement with one another and to avoid consequences they may find it safer to rat out to the top brass and reign in the disloyal units.

Ain't no way the Pentagon is at such a point of contention with Biden and his administration whatsoever. He is their commander in chief and they are obliged to follow him per the Constitution. Plus Biden has yet to do something so outrageous where it would make political sense to oust him. Suspecting him of being a sell out to the Chinese is just that speculation, one needs scientifically proven proof that he did blatantly illegal things that would constitute treason. As far as I know such proof does not exist, hence it would be politically non prudent and illegitimate to take such extreme action.



What are you talking about? We are a federation by definition! Our states act as mini republics separate from the central government. That's why our central government, the Union, is referred to as "Federal" as in being a byproduct of the congregation of the states who assemble via their representatives in a "Congress" derived from the aforementioned word congregation.

It was the Continental "Congress" that is a congregation of the colonies questioning wether or not to succeed from Britain which signed both The Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation. The federation of the states and therefore the federal government itself predates the Constitution itself.



My, my, how racist and bigoted to assume I must be a foreigner for not believing in your definitions of things.

Yes, and yes.

Racist? Bigoted? Don't label. I did not assume. I asked for clarification. Which is neither of the labels you tried to pin on me. That is in itself very revealing.

Have good day Joij21. Jesus Loves you.

 

[Joij21]

I asked for clarification.

What made you desire such clarification?

 

[Joij21]

Didn't some American business move to China because it was much cheaper to pay for transport and Chinese wages compared to American wages?
Probably someone said that USA is in bed with China due to Rust Belt and stuff like that.

Well technically it would be impossible for said companies to move into China without Richard Nixon first opening up relations with Mao Zedong. That's where the whole "USA is in bed with the Chinese" comes from.

Plus our own government in more recent years choosing not to punish the Chinese for stealing patents and technology from these companies is seen as another "sell out" move. Perfectly displayed with all the components and technology found aboard the spy balloon, or more specifically willing cooperation with some US companies (some which are accused of having connections with Hunter Biden or the Biden/Obama/Bush/Clinton families in general).

 

[Maltazard]

More specifically America views it as it's post WW2 responsibility to give Europe cheap energy so they don't resort to a renewal of colonial competition that led to the tensions leading up to the world wars in the first place. However it desires to do so without jeopardizing it's own domestic supply and standard of living so chooses to prop up certain regimes inside of the Middle East and Africa to supply this energy for Europe instead.

Over time this has moved beyond simple energy and instead it now feels it must supply cheaper raw materials as well to the Europeans to keep them happy and compliant, otherwise they may become addicted to Russian raw materials and energy instead. Should that happen Russia could unite with the EU to form a bloc with well over a billion individuals, a sort of new China like power that could really threaten the US. The war in Ukraine prevented this from happening though by now vilifying the Russians from within the EU.

As a european I find this very funny.

Forget about China. What americans fear is an eurasian power. If Germany (and to be completely honest, the rest of europe is also quite significant and should be mentioned along Germany here, because at the end of the day development theory has proven that creating a high added value economy is not impossible but neither something that can be taken for granted) had free access to Russian resources they wouldn't need the US at all. A friendship between Europe and Russia is the only one real Defcon 1 scenario in my opinion. North Stream sabotaging has proven this.

The US puppets in europe, the ukrainian government being the first and foremost, have only one mission: drive away europe from Russia.

The US foreign policy has been nothing but hindering the european economy for the past 20 years. Destabilizing the middle east menas we get swarmed in refugees, not americans. Lybia, Egypt, Syria, the whole arab springs had the only goal of depriving europe of an orderly neighborhood that was home to trade and pacific development, it's a form of asymmetrical warfare, and it's proven by how the US left the area to Russia and Turkey after they destabilized it.

The most precious resource on earth, as Covid and this war has shown, is not oil or lithium or any single resource, it is in fact high value added, technologically complex production chains. The ability to manufacture the most advanced machinery, the most advanced biomaterials, all of that, and it's something that take decades and decades to build. It's also something that the US is desperately trying to ensure only they possess, again by placing a stranglehold on the european economies.

Eventually the european survival instinct will kick in. It always does. It might take a lot more to go, it might not even be europeans who do wake up, if it takes until after the great replacement, but at a geopolitical level a eurasian union that doesn't need the american continent at all will appear. Then it's gonna be nukes.

PS I don't like the russian government or their imperialistic policies. I do however believe that they are to be our friends, and us theirs. Willing or not. It's a matter of survival. Sadly it might be too late thanks to the US play in Ukraine.

 

[Joij21]

PS I don't like the russian government or their imperialistic policies. I do however believe that they are to be our friends, and us theirs. Willing or not. It's a matter of survival. Sadly it might be too late thanks to the US play in Ukraine.

I wouldn't say that would be a "friendly" relationship but rather an alliance of convenience.

 

[Joij21]

The most precious resource on earth, as Covid and this war has shown, is not oil or lithium or any single resource, it is in fact high value added, technologically complex production chains. The ability to manufacture the most advanced machinery, the most advanced biomaterials, all of that, and it's something that take decades and decades to build.

Maybe, but one still needs raw materials to make it possible. It's not like those things are separate from material reality.

Europe has too much social democracy whereby they are uncompetitive to form their own version of Silicon Valley. I see the Indians forming their own version before the Europeans mostly because the American tech sector is currently offshoring IT jobs over there once they found out remote work is actually possible via the pandemic. Indian IT workers have less labour protections and are in a deregulated economy so you can pay them less and many Indians tend to be well educated for such positions. The Chinese are similar but have more social protections for the higher strata of workers within their society and they've recently became a rival to the US forcing protectionist policies which make leveraging labour there more difficult.

 

[Maltazard]

Maybe, but one still needs raw materials to make it possible. It's not like those things are separate from material reality.

The energy will eventually be replaced by non fossil fuels, if nothing else because we'll have to become self sufficient and that's the only way. Meanwhile, africa and the middle east will provide oil and gas in place of the russians. All the other natural resources can be bought from different parts of the world, there isn't any single natural monopoly, even rare earths are not as much of a chinese monopoly as they were thought.
This again goes to show how dangerous a eurasian union would be in the eyes of the rest of the world and the US especially: it'd be completely self sufficient.

It's not so much a matter of social democracy as it is a matter of overall competitiveness. If a nation has enough added value and manages to accrue enough of a positive balance through trade, they can have the most social protections while still retaining competitiveness. Swiss workers cost way more than any other in the world, and yet despite the internazionalization of finance and banking, most are still headquartered over there. It's not just a matter of how little you can pay workers. Also, India will do exactly the same thing that China did, stealing patents and technology from the US and become a long term threat.

Now this is the funny part: through all of the history we know about, in what in fact some would call a "post historical" development, europe had actually become somewhat of a pacifist continent - a first ever in the history of man. Instead of strenghtening this new way of life, everyone wants to destroy us, for whatever reason. We really just want to live decent lives and not be bothered with conflict. I think this is fundamentally something that everyone else in the world can't stand on principle. I'm not naive, I know we are under the NATO umbrella, and some european countries have more than decent armies, but still, we're not forward-looking aggressors, we're past the notion of expansionism.

 

[Joij21]

It's not so much a matter of social democracy as it is a matter of overall competitiveness. If a nation has enough added value and manages to accrue enough of a positive balance through trade, they can have the most social protections while still retaining competitiveness. Swiss workers cost way more than any other in the world, and yet despite the internazionalization of finance and banking, most are still headquartered over there. It's not just a matter of how little you can pay workers. Also, India will do exactly the same thing that China did, stealing patents and technology from the US and become a long term threat.

Yes but one usually needs a "dirty phase" of economic deregulation where anything goes. A sort of "wild west" which attracts the capital in the first place to boot start the ability to start generating self sufficiently adding more value and then exporting that to then slowly roll off the dirty phase and add more social protections.

Europe already had its dirty phase during the original industrial revolution. Various social movements over time grew until the nation states were forced to roll off the dirty phase and create the social protections. Now that global economics has moved beyond the old industrial means of production to a more high tech industrial means of production, a sort of new industrial revolution, the old means of generating value and exporting it won't work for Europe anymore as it's industry is of a now outmoded kind. Europe in essence would have no choice but to become dirty again which would be very unpopular to it's now generations entrenched labour unions.

India is therefore more competitive because it's undergoing all the industrial revolution phases all at once before any proper unions can form and become entrenched whereby the Indian government would be unable to attract new capital for rapid development.

America on the other hand uses a different tactic, by making the US dollar the reserve currency and forever protecting its value America is always able to attract foreign investment into the financial sector (usually through pensioner trust funds from Europe but also Chinese entrepreneurial ones). Therefore American businesses have an easier time raising funds through IPOs and corporate bonds to always innovative and keep the United States always at the cutting edge of technology.

All the other natural resources can be bought from different parts of the world, there isn't any single natural monopoly, even rare earths are not as much of a chinese monopoly as they were thought.

Except it's kinda in the interest of every superpower to gain a monopoly over all the third world's natural resources simply to dictate and screw over any would be power that tries to contest the power of the establishment one.

Just because there's no single monopoly now doesn't mean there won't be in the future, especially with most of the third world nations being totally incapable of defense from actual world powers.

If the third world knew how to properly defend itself it would prevent the Chinese and Americans from engaging in neocolonial competition with one another. It would also allow a real laissez faire global economy with real competition between raw resource producers free to price however they want and it would prevent certain superpower blocs from consolidating all the innovation to themselves while denying it to everyone else. Humankind in turn would become more advanced in a few decades than at any other period in human history, unfortunately we can blame the old Europeans for the last colonial period which made the third world so impotent through divide and conquer tactics which they used to manage the old colonies.

 

[raxo2222]

So everyone lost game of neoliberalism except for runaway 0.1% of richest and powerful people, that is about 8 million people who would be fine living anywhere.