The thing is there’s kind of an inherent problem between trying to make informed policy decisions and trying to represent the popular will, especially when people are uninformed. This is especially a problem when it comes to foreign policy, where’s it’s completely impossible for the average person to be sufficiently informed about every country in the world. Politicians generally aren’t that knowledgeable either, because that’s generally not what they’re selected for. Adding on to that the fact that foreign policy arrangements generally outlive the terms of politicians, and there’s strong incentives to defer decisions to “experts,” who are generally unelected and unaccountable. At that point any concept of “interpreting” the popular will or “acting as people would want if they were as informed as we are” is pretty much just a pretense. In many cases, it’s pretty much impossible to determine what the average person would think if they were informed about a situation because they simply don’t think about such things at all. However, especially in the US today, “deferring to the experts” essentially means blind trust in the people who lied us into Iraq and Afghanistan.

Tbh I don’t really know if there is a clean solution to that. But that’s one of the issues that direct democracy would encounter: how do you make informed, stable arrangements with other countries? Is every person expected to be informed about every country?

Crowned heads, wealth and privilege may well tremble should ever again the Black and Red kiss each other on the lips

Found the source

I always like to imagine a time travelling liberal standing next to a ship while slaves are being loaded on board and they’re trying to debate the slavers in the marketplace of ideas to convince them they’re acting unethically.

Yet another W for #nolivesmatter edgelords

I think I figured out Trump’s strategy.

If the US takes over Canada, Mexico, and Greenland, then it’ll only have three places that can get attacked, plus it’ll be getting five bonus armies every turn. Taking Iceland would also deny the EU their bonus armies. Then, the natural place to take is South America, starting with Venezuela.

Cancelling elections seems like the sort of thing you don’t talk about doing. As the rule goes, “Don’t talk about the coup in public, do it day one or just shut the fuck up about it until you do.”

What he’s doing is making people freak out, which 1) makes them look alarmist when the elections happen, and 2) shifts the goalposts to that instead of all the fash shit he’s actually doing. “See, you were wrong, we’re having elections so that means Trump’s not a dictator like you said.”

I can’t listen to this without hearing it in Angron’s voice.

I think Americans will respond very normally to the guy with red skin and devil magic who quotes the Bible as an example of backwards traditionalism when he becomes president and starts implementing progressive policies.

And if anybody opposes your regime, just shoot them.

In the leg! We’re not barbarians

I started getting into Warhammer and decided on dark eldar

I thought the Imperium was the US

There was fault on both sides, because the USSR had over-corrected while the PRC had not yet corrected, and there were internal political factors in both countries that influenced things. Stalin and Mao may have been necessary to secure the revolution in both countries, but it’s necessary at some point to transition to more civilian leadership. It’s a simple fact that if you fight a revolution in order to secure peace, then the generation that grows up in that peace is going to have a different perspective than the generation that experienced the war. Unfortunately, neither side saw it that way. Khrushchev wanted to completely denounce Stalin in a way that just so happened to advance his own career, while Mao did not want to acknowledge that China would need to make that transition because it would mean he would have to step aside, and he feared that his successors would treat him as Khrushchev had treated Stalin.

The Soviet policy of “peaceful coexistence” was one of the points of contention that the Soviets were right about. They deviated from this policy with Afghanistan, and look how that turned out. Mao, on the other hand, got these weird ideas about “permanent revolution” which led to decisions like supporting Pol Pot and kicking off the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. It’s pretty much impossible to defend Chinese foreign policy during that era, and Mao’s attempts to cling to power and fight the natural course of history with the Cultural Revolution were disastrous (even if there were some positive aspects like the Barefoot Doctors program).

However, the Soviets also screwed over China and acted chauvinistically. From Wikipedia:

Stalin had accepted that the USSR would carry much of the economic burden of the Korean War, but, when Khrushchev came to power, he created a repayment plan under which the PRC would reimburse the Soviet Union within an eight-year period. However, China was experiencing significant food shortages at this time, and, when grain shipments were routed to the Soviet Union instead of feeding the Chinese public, faith in the Soviets plummeted. These policy changes were interpreted as Khrushchev’s abandonment of the communist project and the nations’ shared identity as Marxist-Leninists.

This is indefensible too. The whole situation was just a mess, it pretty much just devolved into petty drama, and there’s plenty of blame to go around.

Look, going into Greenland was definitely a mistake, but now that we’re there, we have to stay and finish the job. If we leave now, we’ll be creating a power vacuum that Russia or China will exploit, plus we have to protect Greenland’s women from Greenland’s men. Don’t worry, now that the adults are in charge, we will be conducting things in a much more ethical way: 50% of the drone operators will be women.

The car that I bought less than a year ago broke down and the mechanic said it’s totally seized up and totaled, don’t really know why. That and Venezuela was the worst first week of a year I can remember, I was in a depressive funk all weekend.

You’ve just outed yourself as a lib.

The correct phase is:

“The owl see double you meat bacons at…” then you take midnight Moscow time and convert it to your local time zone.

A game store opened like 15 minutes away from where I live and I’ve started making some friends there.

Europeans when the US invades multiple countries without provocation, slaughters a million people, but they’re brown:

Europeans when the US is somewhat hesitant to provide unlimited military aid to Ukraine: