So on the one hand you want to be 'protected by a powerful military', and on the other, you seem concerned about nuclear weapons killing people.

"The future president of the United States." I need to help you out on American politics. The United States is not a democracy, it is an oligarchy as Princeton has proved a while back. If by "future president" you mean Donald Trump, we'll hold on just a second, I'd wait until November before getting too paranoid. Currently I'd bet good money that Hillary Clinton will be the next president. Donald Trump is not as popular as the sensationalist media would have anyone believe, there are members of the Republican Party that hate him and won't vote, which is a half vote for Hillary basically. Hillarys campaign even got endorsement from the very popular Bernie Sanders. She is currently poised to be the next president, which may calm people down over Trump hysteria, though that's the point, she looks milder by comparison and people think they voted for the lesser of two evils. It's all a scam, if you think you're being bullied believe me, the American people are being bullied too.

1. We're in the same boat already.
2. I don't have any nuclear weapons, nor do my "leaders" (although - against the wishes of the majority of the population - we did get them stashed here secretly.)


You are, as I read it, arguing for more bullying (back) by "Europe" (although it is unclear to me what you mean by "Europe". This is known as an "arms race". We have only recently got rid of a tiny bit of that and already the warmongers are working overtime to start a new one.

Perhaps your intentions are not so bad, but you are in effect playing into the hands of the bullies.

People of the world need not stronger leaders wielding more dangerous armaments. They need more democracy, transparency and accountability.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVaLxi21KjU

I'm not arguing for bullying back. But we all know bullies. Bullies seek out the weak. That's what they're bullies for. Bullies don't bully anyone who could actually retaliate. They're bullies, not masochists. So if you don't want to be bullied, you have reasons to want to be at least strong enough to deter your bullies.

Now, the reason for me starting this thread is the fact that i realy don't understand why people would want to go against their own best interests. And i mean that i realy do not understand this and i am puzzled.

In this case it's europeans. The strange thing is: especially the rightwingers do tend to believe that we europeans are under threat from evil powers that are surrounding us. And looking at russia's leaders, international jihad, and the rise of a more and more imperialist china, i think that this is not entirely nonsense.

But then, while they believe that we are under great threat of all kind of evil powers, they say:"we should definately NOT stand together to form a powerfull Alliance so that we can resist these evil powers that want to destroy us".

You see how that's puzzling? It's like poor white people who rally against obamacare...they're going against their own best interest with great zeal and conviction. I just don't get it. I realy don't.

As much as I'd like to tackle more of what you've said, I'll stick with this one point.

You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, and I'll explain. First off to appeal to some ethos, I work in healthcare in the US and have been for over 5 years as a registered nurse, I deal with billing and insurance more than the phsycians (they're focused on patients). "Obamacare" is a cute name for the Affordable Healthcare Act, and it mandates that people have to have insurance or pay a fine (that's extortion). It's also collapsing the healthcare industry, doctors are currently denying services, basic services because insurance is cutting them out and making record profits. How insurance works is that many people pool their money and when someone gets sick money is taken out of that pool and used to benefit the sick person. The problem is that the money in that pool is of diminished value. This is because insurance money also pays for the insurance employees their advertising costs, their overhead and their CEOs. So while they profiteer, patients get charged for services that insurances don't cover and when insurance only pays for 30% of services hospitals and clinics can't afford to pay their staff and they desperately try to get money in other ways, which is collapsing healthcare. We have doctors who also don't take government insurance because government insurance doesn't fully pay for services. It's all a cash grab and sick people are caught in the crossfire. The affordable health care act was set up by the insurance lobby, who kind of has an interest in profiteering. Politicians even passed the bill without actually reading it. Clinics are closing and I know many of my colleagues who are dropping out of medicine because budget cuts are strangling their department as they aren't getting paid by insurance whether that's through the government or private insurance.

So poor white people who can't afford insurance get heavily fined for not having insurance that they can't afford, that's in their best interest? Again you have no clue how this is actually playing out.

The US is a corporate oligarchy, lobby groups for pharm and insurance control healthcare and the impact is devastating. If you need further details I'll explain more, hopefully you get the gist.

Maybe you are over reacting a bit. As far as i have seen Trump didn't say that he would bomb Europe. He was pushed into a corner by an interviewer over using nukes and said "that he wouldn't take any cards off of the table". Both David Cameron and Theresa May have said that they would use nukes if the circumstances required. I would imagine that leaders of nuclear capable countries are obligated to say that they would use them (even if secretly they have no intention of using them in a real situation) otherwise they lose their value as a deterrent.

This thread is annoying.

Here's what Trump said.



Trump can be rest-assured that Europeans won't team up with the Russians and Chinese to assassinate him, but I don't see somebody taking the cards off the table as well. Why am I so annoyed by this thread? I think the Nexus should have a no-Trump policy. He shall not be named!

Also a reminder: Philosophy (from Greek φιλοσοφία, philosophia, literally "love of wisdom"[1][2][3][4]) is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language.[5][6]

Trump is a freaking troll. That's my analysis.

PS: I'm actually sorry I was amused when Trump thrashed Jeb Bush. I want Bush back, he seemed way more reasonable.

PPS: The assassination is figurative speech. Someone should set up a crowd funding/crowd analysis project to investigate Trump businesses. I really have the impression that if you dig deep with concentrated forces, this guy should be bankrupt or in jail by November. Maybe all it takes is a whistleblower and a lot of crowdfund money - if Snowden can damage the NSA, Trump is a piece of cake.

^

Yeah a no Trump policy....But you still couldn't resist writing a PPS about him eh UFO? I think that he and the brexit are unsavoury reactions to the times that we live in and people cannot help but bring them up.

Wow...i didn't know that, but thanks for clearing this up.

You know, as sad as this story of yours sounds, but you actually just restored my faith in humanity a bit with this explanation.

If there's one thing that freaks me out, it's irrational behaviour. If it turns out that there is some rationality behind seemingly irrational behaviour, that's very comforting.

As long as people are rational, it's possible to work things out. Even when there's a big disagreement or conflict of interests. The moment when you can no longer understand what drives your opponents it's realy time to panic.

Yeah it's a very messed up situation, but I think it's going to collapse on itself. The whole practice is unsustainable, I think it'll get a bit worse before it gets better though. It's a hot button issue for me, there is too much misinformation out there, I've worked the field for years. We have pediatrics offices losing funding and insurance CEOs making bank. Children are denied basic services because insurances drop coverage and the clinics don't get paid and families get bills they can't pay. Insurance ever quarter tends to rearrange there coverage policy hoping that most of the changes fall through the cracks and thus they can deny services they previously paid for. Government insurance does it too. There are much better solutions to pay for healthcare, but this (insurance) isn't it.

I have pointed out before in this thread that you keep using the terms "Europe" and "Europeans" without properly qualifying them. I consider this irrational behaviour on your side.


When the terms of the discussion are based on mirages, the discussion can lead nowhere but into hysterical projections of disowned emotions of the participants in the discussion.

I don't think there is anybody here on the DMT-nexus, who doesn't know what i'm refering to when i use the word 'europe'. Especially when the word is being used in a political context.

It is not irrational at all to assume that people who can read and type, will know what is generally being refered to when people speak of 'europe'.
Therefore it is not irrational to use the term without any further specification.

You yourself for instance have, in this very thread used the words 'democracy', 'accountability' and 'transparency' without qualifying these terms.
Though they are at least as ambiguous, if not more, than the term 'europe'.

If you assume that people will understand, given the context of your words, what you meant when using those terms, then it's hard to believe that you realy think people won't understand what i mean with 'europe'.

I'm not sure to understand what you mean by "europe".

Am i stupid ?

Look, i'm being attacked here as if what i'm asking is realy such a strange question.
And OK, i may have used some dramatic terms and exagerations, but that is only because some people are acting as if what i'm asking is realy weird and out of place.

The question is completely legitimate: Why would people want to act against their own best interest? Why have britons, to be more specific, acted against their own best interest by voting 'leave'?

If europe is facing a lot of threats, then why would people who live there want to undermine the capacity of their country, to deal with these threats?

That is a relevant question. It's not hysterical, irrational, or politically extreme at all, to ask this question. Especially given all the current threats europe is facing, and especially when america is, with or without the big turd who shall not be named but who is a well known real-estate develloper with a small penis, less and less willing (and this is only reasonable), and also less and less able, to protect europe.

You may be underestimating yourselfa bit here. If you had to guess, what do you think i mean?

EEC ?

Your opening gambit assumes that people want power. Many of us don't. I have no desire to wield power over anyone or anything except myself. This is why many people are somewhat perplexed by your thread. You also take a reductionist attitude of something so incredibly complex as the UK leaving the EU and make exceptionally simplistic arguments out of it.

It is like there is no nuance in your thinking, things are either good or bad, not difficult and complex.

Dragonrider, I'm not attacking you. I simply disagree with some of your statements and apparent assumptions. In my opinion, it should be possible to disagree without fighting.


That's a pretty bold statement about "anybody here on the DMT-nexus". I was until now not aware that you know all members (and anonymous readers too?) so well.

Look, I can make a good guess at what you mean with what you write. But that is just a guess, not certainty. Moreover, what if my guess is that you don't really know what you mean when you write that?

Don't feel offended, it's just my guess and perhaps I'm overgeneralizing my own previous experiences of, in hindsight, discovering how easy it is to entertain nonsensical thoughts, even - or perhaps typically - when accompanied with a sense of urging conviction.


Well maybe it is. In any case, it is quite irrational to demand that people "know" exactly the same as you think you do. It is certainly irrational to refuse to give further specifications when explicitly asked for.


If you think that my use of 'democracy', 'accountability' and 'transparency', in the way I use them in the current topic, makes no sense due to lacking clarification, you should simply point that out and ask for clarification. That is what I tried to do with regard to your use of the word "Europe".