The latest anti-liberal rant thread (get your daily dose here)

[Cope]

Well, they have now.

Presumably to put an end to the talking point. Groups like the Oath Keepers have been known about publicly for years.

I agree. Not because of the suspects in question, but because of Guantanamo itself. Do you likewise agree that what you say above applies in equal measure to everyone who is, and has been, incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay? Because the whole point of that facility is to detain people indefinitely without due process, on suspicion alone.

It applies to anyone who has been incarcerated without charge/denied a speedy trial. Biden claimed the PATRIOT Act (which allowed for the indefinite detention of immigrants) was predicated on an anti-terror bill he drafted in 1995. He voted for the PATRIOT Act in 2001.

[Kissaki]

Presumably to put an end to the talking point. Groups like the Oath Keepers have been known about publicly for years.

The investigation isn't even over yet. The wheels of justice turn slowly, and the more serious the charge the more time is taken to gather evidence and prepare for trial. There's a reason why the small fish are the first to fry.

It applies to anyone who has been incarcerated without charge/denied a speedy trial. Biden claimed the PATRIOT Act (which allowed for the indefinite detention of immigrants) was predicated on an anti-terror bill he drafted in 2005. He voted for the PATRIOT Act in 2001.

The Patriot Act was updated and renewed at regular intervals - at different times, parts were added, removed or reworded. Including 2005. I am not aware of Biden claiming the Patriot Act itself was predicated on an anti-terror bill he drafter in 2005 - are you sure you're not misquoting him here?

[Cope]

The investigation isn't even over yet. The wheels of justice turn slowly, and the more serious the charge the more time is taken to gather evidence and prepare for trial. There's a reason why the small fish are the first to fry.

I'm not particularly concerned about a group of delusional boomers that have been known to the intel agencies for years and were clearly incapable of executing any sort of coherent plot (if one even existed).

The Patriot Act was updated and renewed at regular intervals - at different times, parts were added, removed or reworded. Including 2005. I am not aware of Biden claiming the Patriot Act itself was predicated on an anti-terror bill he drafter in 2005 - are you sure you're not misquoting him here?

I meant 1995.

[alhoon]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/florida-l...144906581.html

Oh, FFS...

I a conservative and a woke-hater. But this is eroding people's free speech.
Why do these buttholes have to go to one extreme like California or the other extreme as presented here?

Yes, the parents have the right to teach kids the truth about the only two genders. Schools shouldn't teach kids that there are 20 genders.
BUT... suing the school if a staff member talks to a student about gender identity?!

Let's assume I am a school teacher in Florida (I work in education, but not in that hellhole that is called USA). And a kid with dealing with all the issues that come from being gay or transexual comes to me for advice. Should I tell the kid, that runs a high-chance to make a suicide, to go talk to his or her parents? The parents may be the reason that kid is depressed in the first place!
And if I comfort the student, telling him/her that there's nothing wrong with being gay, the school gets sued?!

[alhoon]

In what should not be surprise to anyone, but apparently is, DC having Superman pass the mantle to his gay son, giving us a woke superman with a pink-haired boyfriend obviously led to sales tanking.

https://boundingintocomics.com/2022/...dq7zHqPO0JHNAk

Good. Let the progressive idiots that gay-wash established superheroes go hungry and eclipse.
Few would care if DC made a new superhero that was gay. But changing your flagship character's orientation to appease the 5% of too-loud progressives ends up alienating the middle-aged white dudes which are your main audience. The pink-haired gender-confused crowd cannot support your company's gay-washing agenda.

[Basilius]

There's a pretty big difference between liberals and leftists, often conflated by right wing people, made worse by Monty Pythonesque distinctions between "Social Democracy" and "Democratic Socialism." As I am a liberal I may be considered biased in my characterization of either, but here are weaknesses of both groups:

Liberals

• Technocratic: Liberals have transitioned pretty strongly from their nationalist roots, into a technocratic global elite that appears aloof and condescending to the average person. What's more, they put a huge emphasis on expertise, which has tension with the democratic principle.
• Lack of Grit: There's a perpetual hand-wringing that liberals perform over normal (albeit immoral) human behavior, such as tribalism (vs openness), dominance (vs equality), and authority (versus logic). These are perennial features of mankind that requires a perennial fight, and shouldn't be treated as something you can solve.
• Paradox of Tolerance: A fundamental weakness of liberalism is how to handle illiberal groups. Tolerate them and they corrupt the system from within. Excluding them requires illiberal tactics. It's a lose-lose that's always exploitable.

Leftists

• Economic Heterodoxy: by positing themselves as anti-capitalist, and subsequently equating modern economic orthodoxy as pro-capitalist, leftists in effect position themselves against academic consensus, often championing alternative economic "systems", such as socialism. While well meaning, it's a form of willful ignorance.
• Overly Critical of US Foreign Policy: While the United States has committed many atrocities, and is (like all countries) an amoral political entity responding to security imperatives, the international order the country founded during the Cold War to preserve its hegemony had astoundingly positive benefits for the rest of the world. Democracy promotion, anti-colonialism, Free and safe Trade, international organizations, and most importantly, resolving the security dilemmas of Europe and the Asian Pacific.
• Social Justice Zealotry: I parse "Social Justice" people into two groups: advocates and zealots. I would argue everyone should be the former, but many leftists resort to the latter.

That said, the left and right wing share many similar attributes, such as opposing the institutions of "truth" in modern liberal societies: mainstream newspapers, think tanks, and academics.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

I'm a staunch, german social democratic and for all those, who want to learn something about (german) social democracy as the US political distinction don't fit in a non US context:

German Social Democrats:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social...rty_of_Germany

Social Democracy in general

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

[Kissaki]

• Overly Critical of US Foreign Policy: While the United States has committed many atrocities, and is (like all countries) an amoral political entity responding to security imperatives, the international order the country founded during the Cold War to preserve its hegemony had astoundingly positive benefits for the rest of the world. Democracy promotion, anti-colonialism, Free and safe Trade, international organizations, and most importantly, resolving the security dilemmas of Europe and the Asian Pacific.
• Social Justice Zealotry: I parse "Social Justice" people into two groups: advocates and zealots. I would argue everyone should be the former, but many leftists resort to the latter.

The first of the above is part of both liberal and leftist thought, and the second I would class squarely as a liberal issue, not a leftist one. And I would also be remiss if I did not point out that what you say about "benefits for the rest of the world" is navel-gazingly naive. Sure, it has had tremendous benefits for the Western World, but has been a distinct detriment to Third World countries which have been exploited to a massive degree by Industrialised nations. The Middle East is also a mess which the West has only made worse, and by a significant margin, because our motives there are entirely self-serving.

[Basilius]

I'm a staunch, german social democratic

The US is talking about Germany's stance right now towards arming Ukraine. Out of curiosity, what is your stance?

but has been a distinct detriment to Third World countries which have been exploited to a massive degree by Industrialised nations.

Elaborate?

The Middle East is also a mess which the West has only made worse, and by a significant margin, because our motives there are entirely self-serving.

Too broad a brush. Just in my lifetime, the policies towards various Middle Eastern countries have been diverse, with varying outcomes and degrees of moral blame.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

No weapons for the Ukraine, it will only increase the tensions, as it will strengthen the radicals in the Ukraine, like this charming boys:

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

And i understand completely russian issues with a Nato in Ukraine: its literally at the russian doorstep. No World power would accept this.

And i, my father, literally everyone who i talked too and was an adult in 1991 remembers the verbal agreement, that the Nato will not expand east.

[Basilius]

Consistent with what many Germans are saying.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

Consistent with what many Germans are saying.

A majority (59 % of the interviewed in a opinion research by YouGov).

https://www.deutschland.de/en/news/d...r-than-weapons

And honestly even the Ukrainian President is seeing no immediately danger of an invasion:

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/27/p...all/index.html

Similar Der Spiegel:

"Abroad, there is the impression that war is raging here. That's not the case.” Zelenskyy blamed the foreign press for spreading panic about the situation in the country. He accused the White House of portraying the threat as greater than it was: "They participate in this information situation that is being created at our borders, (they) understand that there are risks, they articulate it again and again, they pose it as acute and burning as possible. In my opinion, that is a mistake."

https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/ukraine-wolodymyr-selenskyj-warnt-vor-panikmache-a-246150e8-528b-4910-806b-43e0859ea6c
(only in German at the moment, maybe translated later to english)

[Basilius]

I'm aware.

[Kissaki]

Elaborate?

I'm a little taken aback that this should be news. The industrialised countries of the world has grown fat off goods and services we could well produce ourselves, but which we get for next to nothing from the developed countries, because if we were to do it ourselves it would cost more. We could pay more for goods and services that we outsource but we don't, because capitalism. If they have sweatshops in Bangladesh slaving away for our clothes, or child labour in Ghana to feed our craving for chocolate, what is that to us? We used to have these conditions in the West as well (it still exists to some extent in the US), but we got rid of it mainly by getting others to do it for us. Norwegian fish is shipped to China for processing before being returned to Norway, because that's cheaper. There is something wrong with that picture - it means someone is getting underpaid. After all, we could well afford to process our own fish back when we weren't so filthy rich because of our oil.

And then there is the issue of medicine. Even before the Corona pandemic, Africa has been struggling with an HIV epidemic for decades. The West could license production to African countries, we could give them the recipes to make their own medicine... but where's the profit in that? Yes, Big Pharma would take a serious dent in its incredible profits, but it's worse for Africa not to get the medicine than it would be for Western drug companies to give up a chunk of their profits. But no one ever got rich thinking like that.

Too broad a brush. Just in my lifetime, the policies towards various Middle Eastern countries have been diverse, with varying outcomes and degrees of moral blame.

But without exception, the intent has been to benefit the West. The Iraq invasion in 2003 was a disaster for the West, but the intent was for Bush to get a win. The US reinstated the Iranian Shah for its own purposes. Then when the Shah was deposed in the revolution of 1979, America turned to Saddam in Iraq to wage war on Iran. Opposite alliances, but to the same end. Then when Saddam invaded Kuwait, the US put a stop to that because it didn't fit with the US agenda. But this worked out great for the US, because after the Gulf War they had an excuse to hit Iraq with a crippling embargo - which meant they could buy Iraqi oil even cheaper.

None of America's dealings in the Middle East has been for humanitarian purposes. It has all been entirely for American profits, and hang the consequences. Each war has been sold to the public as fighting the bad guys, of course - but the US simply wouldn't have bothered if the Middle East didn't have such staggering amounts of oil. Except for Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait, no Arab country has benefited from America's actions. But the US has a great relationship with these countries, especially the first two - let that sink in to anyone who thinks the US cares about human rights abroad.

[Basilius]

Kissaki I'll respond to your points seriatim, but let's get something straight first. Every country has security imperatives that are amoral, and as citizens we can assess the necessity of those imperatives and the most moral way we can achieve them. Saying that the US does X good thing because it's in its self-interest is a fatuous statement, everything every country does is out of its own interest. We're not a charity, we're a global hegemon. That said, the outcomes of the US's policies to retain it's hegemony has been incredibly beneficial to the entire human race, hence the term Pax Americana. This in no way means the US can't be morally improved, but it does make your characterization false.

Oh, by the way, do you think everyone in the government, especially those "at the top", are just Machiavellian psychopaths who try and optimize gains at whatever cost? The government is run by human beings, with various ideologies, desires, and visions of the good. Your cynicism is as unhealthy as it is incorrect.

We could pay more for goods and services that we outsource but we don't, because capitalism.

When you say "because capitalism", per my issue with leftists above, what you're really doing is hand-waving away comparative advantage, which is one of the most important developmental paths a country can take out of poverty. Trade benefits both countries. It increases wages, builds skills, and elevates people from subsistence farming, which one of the most precarious jobs on the planet. Outsourcing is a very, very good thing.

There is something wrong with that picture - it means someone is getting underpaid.

I don't know what you mean by this. Do you mean we should bring those jobs back to the US and have people pay more for goods and services? Not only does this negate the above, but lowers everyone's living standards. If you mean we should pay the outsourcing countries more for the goods and services they provide to us, that's less economically inefficient than just giving away money as foreign aid and development, which the US leads the world by far (though should still do more!).

If they have sweatshops in Bangladesh slaving away for our clothes, or child labour in Ghana to feed our craving for chocolate, what is that to us?

A separate and legitimate issue you bring is workplace standards, which the US has been too cavalier about in the past. For the record, the US has started including better standards as part of free trade agreements, including the TPP (rip).

That said, this is a very difficult problem because countries race to the bottom in order to produce the cheapest prices, and forego these working standards. There is also literature on the near-impossibility of abolishing child labor in unregulated countries, even if the US doesn't trade with them. The essential dilemma is that child labor is still preferable to starvation, and that brutal fact can't be dismissed with your indignation.

Yes, Big Pharma would take a serious dent in its incredible profits, but it's worse for Africa not to get the medicine than it would be for Western drug companies to give up a chunk of their profits.

You don't need to punish "Big Pharma", the US gov should just buy more vaccines and give it to poor countries. I completely agree with this sentiment. That said, the US has given away more vaccines than the rest of the world combined, and bankrolls the WHO (followed by the Gates foundation).

The Iraq invasion in 2003 was a disaster for the West, but the intent was for Bush to get a win.

I'm not going to to relitigate the Iraq war, but I would agree this is a point in your favor.

The US reinstated the Iranian Shah for its own purposes. Then when the Shah was deposed in the revolution of 1979, America turned to Saddam in Iraq to wage war on Iran. Opposite alliances, but to the same end.

The US was wrong to support a coup, second point in your favor. (Though the historical determinism and endless Iranian apologism that leftists attribute to this covert operation are worn thin.)

Then when Saddam invaded Kuwait, the US put a stop to that because it didn't fit with the US agenda. But this worked out great for the US, because after the Gulf War they had an excuse to hit Iraq with a crippling embargo - which meant they could buy Iraqi oil even cheaper.

This is really, really bizarre. The United States was the only thing that stood between Kuwait and imperial conquest, and you still manage to twist this into a negative. Leftists in general have a strange obsession with oil as a motivation for US action, but that takes a longer post to refute.

Except for Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait, no Arab country has benefited from America's actions.

Ignoring anti-terrorist campaigns in Sudan, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, when we look at four case studies of US action in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Libya, with varying degrees of intervention and global support, each failed at establishing a civil society. The US has a degree of blame for this, as do Europe and the Ottomans historically, but the predominant blame is on the bad actors (dictators, tribal warlords, religious extremists) who are the source of the conflict and misery to begin with. This doesn't absolve the US, but it also pales in comparison to the global good it has otherwise achieved.

let that sink in to anyone who thinks the US cares about human rights abroad.

If you're interested I could rebut this more fully in another thread, but I don't think you'd be receptive.

[Kissaki]

That said, the outcomes of the US's policies to retain it's hegemony has been incredibly beneficial to the entire human race,

This is objectively false.

hence the term Pax Americana.

This is a derogatory term, as it is a play on Pax Romana - which was peace for the Romans, and screw the rest. As far as conquered territories were concerned, peace referred to the fact that they had been successfully subjugated - ie. there were no rebellions. "Pax Romana" was meant as a positive term when the Romans coined it, but in modern day we see it as a propaganda term. Hence also Pax Americana. Just as Pax Romana glorified Roman imperialism, so does Pax Americana glorify American imperialism.

This in no way means the US can't be morally improved, but it does make your characterization false.

I am not talking about morality, I was pointing out the fact that the entire world has not benefited. Only the Western world has. For the rest, we do provide a little bit of aid, but what we take is far more than what we give.

Oh, by the way, do you think everyone in the government, especially those "at the top", are just Machiavellian psychopaths who try and optimize gains at whatever cost? The government is run by human beings, with various ideologies, desires, and visions of the good. Your cynicism is as unhealthy as it is incorrect.

I never implied they were psychopaths. On the contrary, they act the way they do precisely because they are normal human beings, looking out for number 1 first and foremost.

When you say "because capitalism", per my issue with leftists above, what you're really doing is hand-waving away comparative advantage, which is one of the most important developmental paths a country can take out of poverty. Trade benefits both countries.

Not when it is lopsided. The West clearly benefits more from trade with the 3rd World than the other way around.

It increases wages, builds skills, and elevates people from subsistence farming, which one of the most precarious jobs on the planet. Outsourcing is a very, very good thing.

And yet these benefits aren't really to be seen in 3rd World countries. Outsourcing is a very, very good thing for us, but we aren't offering competitive prices to those countries.

I don't know what you mean by this. Do you mean we should bring those jobs back to the US and have people pay more for goods and services?

The example was Norway, but ok. It would not benefit Western countries to do so, but look at my example:

Shipping from Norway to China is a pretty big physical distance, and takes time and costs money. And it's an equally long way to go back. So that is money lost right there. However, because the Chinese process the fish much more cheaply than Norwegian labour would, it more than makes up for it. But surely the Chinese would refuse the deal if they did not benefit, right? Here's the thing: everybody needs the work that they do. And people who are used to working 16 hours a day for a pittance are fine with it - because there is no alternative. We outsource to China (in this case) because they are willing to do the job for such ridiculously low prices. It isn't mutual trade, it's exploitation. Our trade deals aren't doing anything to improve their situation, we are paying the least we can possibly get away with. This improves our situation, and that's all we care about.

The Chinese companies get richer, but it gives them no incentive to improve the conditions for their workers. Of course, simply paying them more would still not improve their workers' conditions, because that kind of pressure needs to come from their government. The Chinese government doesn't have the means to be able to incentivise this pressure, as there's more than a billion people. If China wanted to elevate the quality of life for its citizens to European levels, they would have to place some serious tariffs on Western trade - but then the West would simply take their business elsewhere, because good business practice dictates that we go to whomever will give us the best price for the same service. And desperate countries will offer desperate prices - and we accept those prices. Good for us, and they'll survive at least. This is exploitation, no matter how you cut it.

Not only does this negate the above, but lowers everyone's living standards. If you mean we should pay the outsourcing countries more for the goods and services they provide to us, that's less economically inefficient than just giving away money as foreign aid and development, which the US leads the world by far (though should still do more!).

Foreign aid is a negligible amount, and what they give us is far more. And no, the US is not leading the world in terms of foreign aid. You give the largest sum, to be sure, but that's because you've got the biggest economy. However, it still amounts to only 0.16% of your GNP. Norway gives 1.02%, beaten only by Luxemburg (1.05%). And sure, it's easier for small economies to give higher percentages, but look at Germany: they give $23.81 billion, which is 2/3 of what the US gives ($34.62 billion), or 0.6% of their GNP, and yet they have less than a third of the population.

A separate and legitimate issue you bring is workplace standards, which the US has been too cavalier about in the past. For the record, the US has started including better standards as part of free trade agreements, including the TPP (rip).

That said, this is a very difficult problem because countries race to the bottom in order to produce the cheapest prices, and forego these working standards. There is also literature on the near-impossibility of abolishing child labor in unregulated countries, even if the US doesn't trade with them. The essential dilemma is that child labor is still preferable to starvation, and that brutal fact can't be dismissed with your indignation.

What do you mean, "can't be dismissed"? I'm the one who raised these issues here, as an example how they have not benefited from Western influence. Yes, child labour is preferable to starvation, but we are helping perpetuate it by paying the least we can get away with. But as I said previously, simply paying them more wouldn't be the solution, because their companies are greedy, too.

You don't need to punish "Big Pharma", the US gov should just buy more vaccines and give it to poor countries. I completely agree with this sentiment. That said, the US has given away more vaccines than the rest of the world combined, and bankrolls the WHO (followed by the Gates foundation).

Barely a token amount. Like I said, it would be far better to license production, but also like I said, where's the profit in that? Of course, governments could make up for the loss of revenue in subsidies. But the drug industry is already more bloated than it ought to be, and even we are getting screwed over by bloated prices due to licensing issues.

And still my point stands. Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you will have fed him for a lifetime. The West, so far, has been content in just donating a surplus - a modest amount, and nowhere near enough to cover the actual needs - to ailing African countries. In addition to selling to them, of course. This way, we keep them beholden to us.

This is really, really bizarre. The United States was the only thing that stood between Kuwait and imperial conquest, and you still manage to twist this into a negative. Leftists in general have a strange obsession with oil as a motivation for US action, but that takes a longer post to refute.

Why is it bizarre? Kuwait was just as much a dictatorship as any other country down there, and the US had given Saddam a carte blanche against Iran. They even provided the WMDs for the job. Saddam failed, and so he turned his attention to an easier target. The US intervened because... they didn't want anyone attacking Kuwait? Saddam could not have foreseen that the Americans would be so annoyed with this, because Kuwait had after all been decidedly pro-Soviet during the Cold War. But the US insisted that "WE decide which countries you get to invade".

I was not remotely suggesting that the invasion of Kuwait was in any way a good thing, or that coming to their aid was bad - but to suggest the US had noble motives here is preposterous. They wanted Saddam's guns pointed at Iran, that's the imperial conquest the US had approved.

Ignoring anti-terrorist campaigns in Sudan, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, when we look at four case studies of US action in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Libya, with varying degrees of intervention and global support, each failed at establishing a civil society. The US has a degree of blame for this, as do Europe and the Ottomans historically, but the predominant blame is on the bad actors (dictators, tribal warlords, religious extremists) who are the source of the conflict and misery to begin with. This doesn't absolve the US, but it also pales in comparison to the global good it has otherwise achieved.

What is this global good?

Remember also that the terrorism the US has been fighting has been focused on anti-American terrorism, which has been created mainly by the US. The 2003 invasion of Iraq created a massive power vacuum which was extremely fertile soil for terrorism. When the US is cleaning up mess, it's typically mess they helped create, in no small part.

If you're interested I could rebut this more fully in another thread, but I don't think you'd be receptive.

Why did you include that sentence? I mean, even if you believe it to be true, why did you say it?

[Basilius]

What is this global good?

It would be nice if you actually read my posts before responding to them.

Democracy promotion, anti-colonialism, Free and safe Trade, international organizations, and most importantly, resolving the security dilemmas of Europe and the Asian Pacific.

In any case, some concluding comments:

1.) The "free trade is exploitation" spiel is easily falsified by the economic and developmental literature.

2.) Minimizing good the US has done ("a token amount", jfc) is simple bad faith.

3.) Strategic and moral policy criticisms, while valid, are insignificant compared to the litany of good choices and big stuff mentioned above.

[Mithradates]

No weapons for the Ukraine, it will only increase the tensions, as it will strengthen the radicals in the Ukraine, like this charming boys:

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

And i understand completely russian issues with a Nato in Ukraine: its literally at the russian doorstep. No World power would accept this.

Well, Estonia and Latvia are both NATO countries and they both have a border with Russia, Lithuania and Poland, also NATO countries, share borders with the Kaliningrad Oblast and with Belarus, so this isnt something new.

And i, my father, literally everyone who i talked too and was an adult in 1991 remembers the verbal agreement, that the Nato will not expand east.

Myth 03: ‘Russia was promised that NATO would not enlarge’

Contrary to the betrayal narrative cultivated by Russia today, the USSR was never offered a formal guarantee on the limits of NATO expansion post-1990. Moscow merely distorts history to help preserve an anti-Western consensus at home.

On the other hand:
In the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, the United States, Russia, and Britain committed “to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine” and “to refrain from the threat or use of force” against the country, in exchange Kiev gave up its nuclear arsenal.
Yeah...

[Cyclops]

...
This is a derogatory term, as it is a play on Pax Romana - which was peace for the Romans, and screw the rest. ...

Look it may be used in that way today, and the writers around the time of the Roman principate were aware of the tensions of the word Pax, (we are all familiar with Tacitus' speech put in the mouth of Calgacus "...they make a desert and call it peace!") but generally a stable international system does benefit the people living with it more than it hurts.

The Romans appealed to the Imperial peace they had wrought ceremonially, in literature and on coins, and I think it was a desirable outcome and a source of pride. For many centuries a great many (I would guess the majority) of people in and around the Empire preferred it to the alternatives (even when they criticised and sought to improve it).

Compared to the preceding superpower (the British Empire) the US "Empire" is not so badly behaved. Had 1st or 2nd republic France had nukes, or the Second Reich had become top dog in 1918 I think we would have reason to regret the change in our timeline (the non-assumption of Hegemon status by the US in 1919 was IMV regrettable too).

.... That said, the outcomes of the US's policies to retain it's hegemony has been incredibly beneficial to the entire human race, hence the term Pax Americana. This in no way means the US can't be morally improved, but it does make your characterization false...

I think the benefits the US hegemony brings are credible (and creditable). I think you're over-egging it here, there's plenty the US could improve. Less "Wag the Dog" crises and Banana/Oil wars for example, and maybe stop letting Disney write legislation. These are moderate and achievable reforms.

[EmperorBatman999]

It appears that the Washington Post is once again twisting the definition "fascism" in their depiction of the Freedom Convoy currently in Ottawa protesting the Canadian government's vaccine mandate.

Time and time again we learn the lesson, or at least come across it, that teaches us that rage-soaked antigovernment types can’t be reasoned with. This time around, the convoy has produced an incoherent “memorandum of understanding” premised upon a misunderstanding of government and absurd demands. Of course, the memo should be ignored. It’s the product of a temper tantrum. But doing nothing is a risky, suboptimal strategy.

Bolding is mine.

WaPo cartoonist Michael de Adder then offered a satire of the convoy:


Apparently now fascism means people who are "antigovernment", rather than simply people who want to radically increase the power and reach of government to dictate to individuals what they need to do with their lives and bodies for the collective Volk society. Of course, the author of the opinion does not even offer to explain how directly the truckers are all nasty far-right types outside of pre-packaged assumptions because they disagree with what he personally believes.