"Also by floating proposals that the Danish *state* and British *monarch* cede their stewardship of Greenland and Canada to the USA."
Yes, one still can be tedius and argue that the Throne's veto over Canadian legislation doesn't qualify as 'stewardship' (since it is supposed to be symbolic)
The point of my comment (which I maintain) is that Britain has strong ties with Canada, and so Trump butting in, pushing for Canada to abandon the Commonwealth to become a state, comes across as hostile.
Canadians may find the threat more alarming than Britons, but it's welcomed by neither people.
I'm not sure you see the irony of your stance. You're complaining about the American president butting into Canadian affairs because it infringes on some supposed colonialist rights of an absentee king.
If Trump encroaches on the sovereignty of Canada it is an affront to the Canadian people. What the British think is of distinctly secondary importance.
You're complaining about the American president butting into Canadian affairs because it infringes on some supposed colonialist rights of an absentee king.
Of course, that is not the case. There are still strong historical, legal, traditional, cultural, and familial ties.
This is why PM Carney invited Canada's king to Parliament last month. It was a reminder to Trump that his overtures were not simply an affront to Canada, but also to Britain.
2. "The world is messy" does not excuse countless war crimes. Imagine a lawyer in the Nuremberg trials saying "well sure the defendant sent children to the gas chamber, but your honor, have you considered that the world is a messy place?"
These are all war crimes, and they are war crimes because they knowingly and actively target civilians. And honestly, at the end of the day it doesn't matter much to me whether you kill a kid by shoving them into a gas chamber or by shooting them, or by dropping bombs or napalm on preschools, because either way you've murdered a child.
The actual people who live in those countries don't blame Americans for their troubles to the extent that Americans blame Americans.
I will leave our audience to consider the 20th Century and decide for themselves how America compared to Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Apartheid South Africa, the USSR, Maoist China, Spain under Franco, Imperial Japan... etc.
Crazy how well this Hannah Arendt quote applies to both you and mid 20th century Germans.
In our conversation, we are essentially choosing between two parties: - The nazis, or the communists, or whatever. Let's call them the baddies. - America. The good guys!
I personally believe (and you do not have to agree with this, I realize that this is subjective) that murdering children and committing genocide is evil. The nazis committed a genocide, and so they are evil. Let's say the holodomor was a genocide, so the communists are evil too. Conclusion: the baddies are evil. It is also a fact that in the past 75 years or so, America has gone around the globe murdering children, and committing genocides. This is not up for debate. This is a fact. I have listed the examples countless times in this thread, I will not do so again. Conclusion: the good guys are also evil (if you believe murdering children is bad, which again, totally up to you).
In saying "but the nazis were worse!" in response to American murdering a million Koreans, you are effectively choosing the lesser evil (the nazis killed 6 million jews, 30 million Russians, in a fairly short timespan, whereas the US has killed about 12 million over the decades, the nazis are worse). And in saying that we did pretty well in the American century, you are dismissing the genocides, the murders, the torture that the US is responsible for. You're forgetting that the US is also evil. When you say we did alright under American hegemony, you are completely dismissing the suffering, overexploitation, destabilization, and violence that the US has meted out on the global South.
Note that I made a point of defending America in the 20th Century, not the 21st.
Because, at the moment, America has an authoritarian leader.
And I wonder if people who obsess on America's bad side, even know the difference!
Considering the last HN thread I commented on was full of comments in support of the anti-American yet horrifying Iranian regime, I don't have much hope.
And regarding the support for Iran, it's possible to be supportive of a party you're otherwise critical of. Sure, the Iranian regime executes gay people, but do you think Israel's bombs and famine somehow make an exception for gay people? One side is worse, and it's the one that's been committing an ethnic cleansing for 77 years.
This debate could continue forever since there's no single measure by which one can quantify how evil a nation is.
So many things feel real to me that might not if I were younger.
I grew up... surrounded by adults who lived through WWII, ...hoping for tens of millions suffering under Apartheid to be free, ...hoping for the Wall to come down and free hundreds of millions from Soviet oppression (not for ideological reasons, but because it was at North Korean levels), ...rooting for the Chinese protest movement to win. And so much more.
Thankfully, for the first half of my life, the world kept inching toward progress (and what I would give for young people to live through the 1990s!).
Then we had 9/11, and America embraced its worst side. That America is the only America young people know. That's a shame, because many of them now, politically, are sprinting straight towards the propeller-blades.
Joining forces with fascists in Operation Gladio.
Here's some good reading if you're truly interested.
Ensuring peace by violently crushing social democratic organizing and unions is like ensuring a fun time by beating anyone who complains.
It’s not an anti-US bias to hold the US accountable for their actions. Funding a for-profit spyware company that’ll sell to anyone, including italian fascists, is bad. The US should be held accountable for that.
I think their are reasons for that anti-US bias.
And if the US ensured freedom it was because it benefited them. If war would habe been the better option they would habe ensured that.
Name the contributions after 1945.
Political and economic dependency is a fallout that is still a problematic issue today, almost forty years after the fall of the USSR. The ongoing war in eastern Europe was pushed for by the US, more or less as a prolongation of the same strategy of US dominance in Europe.
The US has interfered with elections in Europe, supporting far-right movements that are more prone to violence.
There are more things but those are most relevant for my area.