Refried Boogaloo: Trump Just... Sucks

I do have to LOL at the idea of the conservative majority SCOTUS riding in to save the day. Some people do seem to experience reality on a completely different universe.

 

We're at the very, very beginning of the world's most immense social science experiment where we test what happens when every single human creates their own objective truth. If you think your country is immune, just wait.

 

That just about sums up the EU and its response to ANY sort of conflict, unless the other side are already inclined to negotiate a settlement.

• The European Parliament may block ratification of the EU-US trade deal due to the escalating tensions.

So they MAY block ratification of a deal that the other side has already unilaterally ripped up by threatening tariffs.

Oh, the humanity!

 

Maybe they think it's meant to be spelled 'Bored of peace'?

 

Dude, I live in a country that has had the daily hate-mail for over 120 years. I am well aware of what happens when you have media outlets that promulgate their own version of political reality. America has only had it for the past 30-40 years.

Also, my whole point was to say that we're NOT immune but that our parliamentary system makes it more difficult for it damage us politically because our political system is more 'diffuse', for want of a better word.

Each member of parliament has exactly the same number of votes as every other member of parliament, including the prime minister - ONE.

There's a reason why the number of prime ministers that have been kicked out by their OWN party since the end of WWII is almost in double figures and it's not because we're better, cleverer or more politically aware than you fellas. It's simply because our MP's want to keep their jobs and are closer to their constituents so feel more precarious.

You have 100 senators and 435 congress critters for a population of around 340 million people. We have 650 MP's for a population of around 68 million. Of those, around 20-25% have a majority of LESS than 5%, i.e. about 2000 votes. The number of seats wonby more than 50% of the votes cast was 5... out of 650!

There are no additional 'layers' in between us and our political leadership. It's just the MP's.

There's no 'electoral college'. We don't vote for a 'president' for X number of years.

I'm not saying it's a perfect system because it most definitely is NOT.

But as the late Tony Benn said many years back, the effectiveness of any democratic system is in it's destructive power. It's ability to 'kick the bums out'. That can either be pressure within a party by getting rid of their members, (even their own 'leader'), or from outside by MP's being slung out by recall petititions which, again, has happened multiple times since the law was introduced back in 2015. Before that people were usually forced to resign by their colleagues for wrongdoing but it was felt the voters should have a say as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recall_of_MPs_Act_2015

So we are MORE than capable of electing some numbskull like Farage but his ability to feck things up will be more limited and short term. We probably won't have to put up with the clown for several years before we can get rid of him. His ability to screw up the voting system and legal system to exclude the voters he doesn't like will also be strictly limited because we don't have troublesome 'democracy' nonsense inserting itself into things it has no part in... like the law and voting

 

Er... because they're morons?

 

The Nordic countries are looking at building a joint nuclear deterrent.
Realistically speaking, I think others should do this too. Quite obviously Germany (it has the science and engineering capacity as well as the infrastructure to do this in a relatively short term).
But also the Benelux (strong engineering and science base and the Netherlands have very substantial enrichment capabilities). It's a shame we wasted billions on a now clearly useless F-35 fleet.

 

When this discussion was had earlier this year, I remember some experts agreed that if the political will was there, Germany had the capability of probably doing this in under a year.

 

To be clear, I'm not saying it's the democratic process that is the sole issue. I'm just saying that some political systems are such that the problems you've identified, (of people 'choosing' their own reality), are more likely to be adversely impacted by it.

The US SC sums up the problem well in that it includes input from politicians who may have little to no interest in the law and maybe even be deliberately obtuse and inclined to push the interests of their 'team'.

The idea of politicians selecting the judge strikes me as a bloody silly idea.

That just makes matters worse IMO.

 

Should clarify that was essentially the timeline to a so-called "gravity bomb".
If we are talking a more sophisticated delivery system, then even Germany is years away. Probably 2-3 years within the most optimistic time frames. And we aren't even talking ICBMs in that time frame.
I think if they wanted anything like that, they would need to expand their JEWEL cooperation with France to incorporate something like the M51.

Of course it's probably premature to discuss the practical hurdles when it isn't even clear Germany and Europe as a whole has reached the political threshold to make these investments
The most obvious issue is that we are talking nations that were all signatories to the non-proliferation treaty. I would argue that in a context of a sabre-rattling U.S. which is openly threatening its EU 'allies', that treaty is dead letter, but it would still take substantial political courage to act on that new reality.

 

There's no better than your parliamentary system. On our side on the Channel, Presidents have all the constitutional tools at their disposal to act as wannabe dictators.

 

I think that, practically, Europe will have to rely on the British and French deterrent for the immediate future.

Which implies, don't piss us. Basically, give us all the mayo we can eat

 

I think we can only rely on the French since it isn't clear the integrated Trident system can work autonomously from the U.S.?

 

All of this nuclear discussion is just one element of a broader problem, which is that the EU/Europe completely wasted the Biden years in not preparing for this exact moment.

 

This implies adapting the fighter jets (Typhoons and Gripens), as I'm not sure they were designed to carry nuclear missiles. Only the Rafales are. I suppose we couldn't rely on the F-35s either...