Uh, no, wolfpup was criticizing insufficient freedom of the press. As in, suppression, distortion and misrepresentation of the free speech of opponents of powerful interests.
The ability to successfully spread lies without being effectively called out on it or rebutted does not rank as a triumph of free speech or a free press, and complaining about it does not equate to “criticizing freedom of press”.
I’m not claiming they are, but what you’re saying now is different from what you said before:
Yes, we do have the same sort of “system” where the government “can ban shit” based on shifts in public opinion. But guns are in many ways excluded from that system, for constitutional reasons.
If all you meant to say is that Americans aren’t fundamentally interested in banning guns, fine. But that’s not the same as having a different “system” which prevents the government from “banning shit” in general. Our government can and does “ban shit” in response to public alarm.
happy July 4 to y’all! As one of the Presidential nominees said,
and she’s right. Yea, it would be nice if there were a world without the need for superpowers but that’s not the case, and never will be the case. We can’t go back to the 1910s, as another poster here suggested, when “The Great Powers” shared. Not gonna happen, ever. Europe is a divided and weak joke, as a political entity.
“Much better *we *be making the decisions about *their *lives and jobs and safety to our benefit !”. At least she’s honest, none of that false altruism bullshit.
Of course—whenever something does not match the narrative of American excellence, it’s just ‘politically motivated’ and can be discounted. The thing is, the RSF index is not about what’s in the books, but rather, how things shake out in the world—and calculated from questionnaires sent to experts around the world. Are they just all politically opposed to the US? Or could it be that there may be actual deficits in how the First Amendment rights are implemented in practice?
…Nah, of course not. USA! USA! After all, what do objective, independent metrics matter if you know the truth in your heart of hearts?
Good grief, melodrama much? That grandfatherly ‘lunatic’ is a firearms instructor. And he’s hardly ‘towering’ over her, he’s stooped down behind her so his arms can reach far enough to guide her hands as he guides her through the safe and proper way to load (and presumably fire) a handgun. You tell by her attentive smile that she’s terrified of his looming maniacal presence…oh, wait, no she’s not. She’s aware even at her tender age that adults are taller than seven-year-old children and that there’s nothing intrinsically frightening about this fact.
Sweden almost certainly would not be a quiet neutral backwater without the U.S. protecting it. Neutrality is a luxury that certain countries enjoy only by dint of the fact that a larger and more powerful country somewhere is keeping the bad guys at bay. Had it not been for U.S. protectionism, Sweden would have been subsumed by Germany or the Soviet Union long ago.
Criticizing freedom of the press like the leftist critique of Citizens United is criticism of free press. There is no honest way of denying it. The issue is one of hypocrisy. Many only want freedom of speech and the press for their points of view or their special interests. I don’t hear or read any left wing critiques of union political spending.
And where in the world did the idea come that freedom of the press means equal effectiveness of each individual’s or group’s message? If your point of view fails to resonate that’s on you. No one owes you a platform. Is it a failure of freedom of religion if Wiccans are smaller and less effective as a group than let’s say Jewish, Christians, or Buddhists? Is it a failure of assembly if your bridge club is smaller than an Elk Lodge. Freedom to act is not synonymous with equivalency in results.
Ultimately it looks like liberty and equality of outcome are not strongly correlated.
Well, I think that might be stretching the case a bit. I don’t recall the US ever doing much (or needing to do much) to protect Sweden from Germany. I’ll grant you, the formation of NATO may have helped to protect Sweden from the Soviet Union, though even that is a bit speculative. (Did the Soviet Union harbour ambitions to annexe Sweden?)
But even if we accept it as true, what of it? The point is that Sweden, once a great power, at a later stage in history is eclipsed by other powers and may even become dependent on them for protection. History tells us that this is always what happens to great powers. The list of countries other than the US which can plausibly claim at one time to have been the “greatest power” on the international scene is long, and includes at a minimum the UK, Germany and France. Very few retain “greatest power” status for more than a century; most for rather less.
Currently the greatest power is undoubtedly the US, but both common sense and the lessons of history tell us that the time is coming when this will no longer be so. We can hazard a guess that the next “greatest power” will probably be China; the only issue is when it will become clear that China has eclipsed the US.
My point was that the U.S. could only afford to be neutral if some other, larger and more powerful country was protecting it and allowing it to be so.
I don’t believe anyone in this thread is trying to claim that the U.S. will be the world’s big dog forever. At least I haven’t seen it if they have. But I’m perfectly happy for it to remain so for as long as possible. No one should be looking forward to the day when either China or Russia become the world’s predominant economic and military power. I have zero reason to suspect that they’ll be anywhere near as magnanimous as the U.S. in their dealings with the rest of the world.
Total nonsense.
The Soviet Union had no designs of occupying Sweden, nor any other country except those serving as bufferstates to it’s own border.
The U.S. protecting sweden from Germany is even more ridiculous.
You are projecting your own agressiveness and power hunger.
Ok, lets just say global warming heats up. The north pole becomes ice free year around making it an imprtant shipping route and resources of the area like oil become easier to get to. So much so that Russia decides to move in.
Just how well could Canada protect its borders? Is the Canadian navy up to it? Or would they be calling upon the US for help? Looking at the above wiki the biggest Canadian ship is a single destroyer and you have just 4 submarines all of whom are at least 26 years old.
As for China, look how nervous all the southeast Asian countries are with China’s move into the Pacific taking over many small islands or creating new ones. Those countries barely have a coast guard let alone a real navy. Can any country besides the US stand up to China in the south Pacific?
And go back to the war in Afghanistan. Right after 9/11 the US put troops into it and soon brought down the Taliban government. Could Sweden, Denmark, Canada, or any European countries have done this? (Granted many of those countries do have troops serving there now.)
In WW2 the Soviets could have taken Helsinki and Finland would have become just another Lituania like Soviet provience if they had wanted to but the thing was that the bSoviets had their hands full just fighting the Germans and once they pushed them back they went head on against the Finns and the Finns were could not hold them so much that they were forced into a peace treaty which they had to give up some of the best territory. Luckily it could have gone much worse but the Soviets wanted to concentrate on Germany.
When has Sweden been protected by the United States?
Holy Christ, man.
First of all, that’s not what “protectionism” means.
Secondly, Sweden was neutral during World War II and was not in any way protected by the United States, and was not “subsumed” by Germany. Claiming that Sweden was protected by the USA from the Nazis is about as historically literate as saying that Belgium was protected by the Roman Empire from the Martians. Then during the Cold War Sweden remained neutral, was not protected by the United States, and was - surprise! - not “subsumed” by the Soviet Union. I mean, read up on this stuff next time.
The evidence of American “protectionism” of Sweden is rather lacking.
So yet again I have to reiterate that I was talking about a scenario in which the U.S. either didn’t exist or made clear that it wouldn’t take any steps to interfere in whatever was going on in Europe. It’s specious to make claims based upon things as they actually happened in the war and its aftermath because without U.S. participation everything about the war and its subsequent events would have turned out entirely differently.
Re protectionism, what is it everyone says these days, where proper English and grammar increasingly appear ‘classist’ and anachronistic? Oh yeah, “it’s a living language.” The fact you knew what I meant means the word got across the message I intended, and I doubt anyone not trying to score points in a completely different argument would care in the slightest.
And it’s been my experience that Holy Christ rarely makes an appearance around here, so I suppose thanks are in order for at least bringing him to mind.
