Comment by CrossVR
1 month ago
I find it deeply cynical that representatives of a federalized union call upon another union to disband in favor of national identity. It is a transparent ploy to sow division within another competing union for geopolitical gain.
Small correction: for another adversary's clear geopolitical gain. While dissolving the EU has been Russia's wet dream for decades, there's not much to be gained from it by the US and very much to lose. In fact, the speed with which the US is giving up its influence over Europe of its own accord is bewildering.
Imagine the response to the EU calling for Texas leaving the US via that weird defunct line in their constitution.
Maybe breaking up the US would be a good idea. The blue states are funding the American government which is led by the people mostly popular in the red states. But you won't see EU politicians set up a well-funded plan to actually do it.
America has turned into a ridiculous cartoon of itself in such a short time frame.
You are really on to something. Imagine if the EU ran ads in the US encouraging US states to join the EU. Advertise the benefits of membership: NATO protection, socialized medicine, less gun violence, worker protections, a higher average standard of living...
Reminds me of this comic: https://www.viruscomix.com/page528.html
See the fourth row.
I guarantee you half of America would support this, and the other half would also support this.
Red/blue is a cynical and false division. One can live in a blue state and vote red, and vice versa. In fact, some localities are nearly 50/50 or 45/55 when you dig into the data. Breaking up the union over statistical ignorance and false divisions is not a good idea.
Agreed it’s incredibly unrealistic, but something has to give. We’re quickly approaching a country where there are two overarching groups with near zero overlap on their vision for society. That cannot end well.
My guess is as the American empire [slowly] declines that city states will become centers of power, perhaps with rural, conservative areas finding power via wealthy “lords” assuming the parts where the state decays. The groundwork for this new fuedalism is already being put in place.
It was only this mechanism that caused the VW diesel scandal to be discovered.
Competition is necessary to keep these people remotely honest.
Edit: This comment has been flagged.
The EU did not call upon the US to disband because of fines levied against Volkswagen. Nor did the EU say that the Clean Air act was only enacted to attack the European car industry.
Instead the EU levied their own fines against VW and BMW including a €875 million fine in 2021. When can we expect the US to slap X with a multi-million dollar fine?
You are deliberately missing the point. The EU would have continued to conveniently ignore VW diesel emissions had the US, a competing power, not pointed them out.
> Instead the EU levied their own fines against VW including a €875 million fine in 2021.
Only because the US found them out. The EU was quite happy with VW until then, and liked to act all smugly superior about emissions.
> When can we expect the US to slap X with a multi-million dollar fine?
For what exactly? What US laws have X, under Musk, broken?
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competing of what?
the entire EU couldn't even defect Russia that has a GDP smaller than a single state of the US.
The Rusia that can't even conquer Ukraine? Yes, really scary...
Lol what? This site gets off so hard on reminding everyone that the north won and we're no longer a federal union or anything other than a unitary state controlled by the northeast
The world hegemon caught doing cynical thing, news at 11.
The world hegemon is currently throwing away its hegemonial power in a series of unforced errors, that's the real news here.
Is the idea here to normalize what the Trump administration is doing as “what any hegemon would do”? As far as I’m aware, the US largely avoided using its power to directly prosecute one man’s personal vendettas?
The idea here is that all hegemonic power will eventually be abused, unless there's a system of checks on it. The same thing prevents "benevolent dictatorships" from existing.
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Yeah, but geopolitics is a chaotic system and the US foreign policy has failed at pretty much everything for decades now - these are the people who managed to cement Taliban control of Afghanistan and appear to be losing the economic race of the 21st century to a literal communist party.
If they're saying this to undermine Europe, their track record suggests that it might strengthen Europe. If it is coming from the US State Department they are so bad at international politics that there is a pretty good chance that the path to thwarting them is following their plan. The most powerful era of Europe was literally when they had lots of small but technically and socially advanced countries competing with each other. It was literally a world-conquering combination that put them centuries ahead of everyone else. In some sense the reason the EU exists is to try and hold the Germans back; talking about breaking it up is one of those careful-what-you-wish-for requests.
> If they're saying this to undermine Europe, their track record suggests that it might strengthen Europe.
The main problem with US international politics is that they are looking on the problem through American lenses, i.e. why would Afghans refuse liberal values and either choose or tolerate theocracy? Does not make any sense from view of an average American.
Same like it makes no sense for average American why states in EU are banding together and slowly shedding its nationalistic values? What if same would be done by Latin America? Wow scary, need to throw a spanner into the things!
> appear to be losing the economic race of the 21st century to a literal communist party.
Not surprising at all considering that socialism and centrally planned economies are inherently more efficient than liberal free markets - by removing the constant pressure for quarterly profit and removing or severely limiting the bourgeoise who only exist to take the value generated by companies for themselves, you have a system that does a much better job of allocating labour and resources. For example, imagine how much better Windows 11 would be if Satya Nadella wasn't taking home a $100m salary and that money was spent hiring or paying developers.
Frankly, American capitalists got so high on their own supply after the dissolution of the Soviet Union that they thought they didn't need to keep the boot on the necks of the communists any longer. As soon as the pressure came off the superiority of the Chinese communist system became evident and is virtually impossible to stop now.