I think you’re right, @RickJay, about the potential and threat of invasion. I will, however, say that we’ve got a better relationship with NATO and the UN than Iraq did, and a better record of transparency. If Britain, France, or Germany want to inspect our military installations, I can’t see we’d have much problem with that.
Really?
Stranger
I live in the US and I don’t know a soul who thinks that invading or pissing off Canada is in the US’s best interest. Peaceful merging? I’ve heard that time to time. Just as I’ve heard stuff such as a United States of Europe.
That said, I think it’s dumb that Trump says stuff like annexation of Canada and calling Trudeau governor. It’s very disrespectful.
The whole point of “Madman Theory” is that you’re getting the other side to do things in your interest, because you might do stupid things that harm everyone.
Trump Theory seems to be about just forging ahead with stupid actions that harm everyone including America, until someone does something to get him to stop. The whole thing is a net negative to America, but slightly less than other countries, so we won because we lost less.
It’s just so fucking dumb.
There is nothing they can do short of (in the case of the UK and France) starting a nuclear war, which they will not do, to prevent an American invasion, and they will not pre-base troops here. You can forget the world coming to our defense. They won’t. Not in time to stop a takeover, anyway.
You may be right - if they were going to do anything, they’d be talking about it by now. What a joy it will be to be betrayed by the allies we bailed out in WWI and WWII.
But please consider - we have been members of NATO since the beginning, and we have been members of the UN since the beginning.
Ukraine, though an ally of the West, was not yet a member of NATO when Putin invaded. Tibet was not recognized as a separate nation when China invaded. Taiwan is not recognized as a separate nation, and so, is under constant threat of invasion by China.
The US risks becoming a rogue state, and if NATO, the EU, and the UN have any sense, they’ll nip this ‘annexation’ bullshit in the bud before it has any more of a chance to develop.
It wouldn’t help any more than it helped Iraq; the invasion was set off when Iraq agreed to inspections, so the invasion was immediately begun in order to pre-empt them.
Cooperating with the predators doesn’t help the prey.
Well spoken. The Honourable Charlie is saying out loud what about half of American voters want to say. Fight the power Canada.
(And I apologize on behalf of this shit show)
I wonder if there’s been an upsurge in the number of Canadians buying illegal firearms.
I know there’s an upsurge in interest in legal ones. And of course it’s easy enough to then hand it to someone who didn’t have a PAL.
The holdup is getting into the required safe handling courses if you’re new to a firearm license (the PAL) which are, apparently, sold out months in advance.
For our US Dopers: PAL is the acronym for « Possession and Acquisition Licence », the licence under the federal Firearms Act which is legally required to buy and possess a firearm and ammunition.
(Added only for context; if you want to talk about Canada’s firearms laws, please start a separate thread.)
Never fucking thought I’d live to see the day when Canada’s relationship with the US, NATO, the EU, and the UN would be compared to that of Iraq.
Just in case you were wondering why Canadians have no sense of humour at the moment, and many of us are fully prepared to tell our so-called allies to go fuck themselves.
Some would be cheering, I fear
Just to get this paranoid(?) little bauble off my back…
With all that iditoic-as-fuck cyber culture starting to take over the US, Trump, Elon, and Co. will be eyeing us hard for water, and when we tell them to go jump in lake, they’ll eventually, I am sure, “have no choice!” but bring in gigantic military convoys to help convey cyber-farm material across our border. Things could come to a head then, with myself, some lone doofus from Victoria, immediately hopping in the car and join whatever human barricades that there most likely will be, set up in front of whatever development site is being proposed.
Shit, yes.
I would like to say that they’ll go bankrupt before that happens but people keep buying up those tulip bulbs under the fervent belief that they are the most valuable things ever.
Stranger
My thought as well. Roughly half of Americans elected him. They want a tough guy bully in charge.
Why wouldn’t they support him?
Tulipomania notwithstanding - so, the US military will be too hobbled for this, then?
I think that may be highly regional. I just googled and could get into a PAL non-restricted (rifles and shotguns) course next week in Saskatchewan.
Because a significant number of them had literally no idea what he was actually going to do as president. They believed the lies, and actively rejected the truth. Just look at some of the polling numbers on some of these issues. On things that are core features of Trump’s plans, even a lot of Republican voters disagree with the Trumpist position.
The problem is, they just didn’t see that before. But when he rolls troops into Timmins, even they (probably? Hopefully?) won’t be that blind.
Definitely regional. I looked into it a few years back, and around Ottawa, the waitlists are at least months long.