We (the western world) really needs to deal with Orban eventually. At least when other countries kept re-electing someone (like Merkel), you had the confidence that the system still allowed someone else to be elected and democracy was still working.
Turkey might be a lost cause.
Term limits should really be a default position if one is to defend their democracy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_state_leaders_by_date_of_assumption_of_office – the two NATO members causing issues? Two longest serving heads of state within NATO (excluding ceremonial monarchs).
I blame the fact they built all these institutions with no clause to expel members, or which require total unanimity to do so. They really bought in to the whole “end of history” thing, I guess.
Yeah, this is an interesting element. Historically, allowing all members a veto, while also having no way to expel a member, means that any such institution is liable to outside meddling. The classic example is the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberum_veto – in the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth, any noble could veto anything. So all it took was buying a few nobles and it shattered.
Apparently, based on that Wikipedia article, they ended up making a new version with less strict veto rules, called the confederated sejm, which is also where I expect all these Western institutions to go eventually. TIL.
Removed by mod
That is an L take. Having a term limit helps increase the difficulty of making political dynasties. It doesn’t make it impossible, but it sure is gonna make it harder for a certain person or group to solidify their power base.
Not really, the difference between two people of the same ideology to fulfill your democratic needs whom one can find in a population of a few million can be very small.
Removed by mod
Doesn’t change the fact that banning people from running for election is inherently undemocratic.
Something being democratic is not the only criterion, because you wouldn’t want your neighbors to vote in favor of collectively owning you as a slave, even if your vote against gets counted.
It’s just one safety measure - if a politician still would win an election after 8 years (life changes entirely in only 1 year), for example, that’s likely for wrong reasons. Like using administrative resource, pro-government mass media, crooked elites etc.
Rad
Russia uses RadAway
It fails.
It hurt itself in it’s confusion
Thanks
ObamaPutin!Reignited the West’s arms industry as well! We had gotten complacent until Putin started the largest war in Europe since WWII.
Guys will see this and say “hell yea”
hell yea
startrek website continuing to be the highest quality instance
Everyone’s doing a big ehhhhh on that.
You don’t have to agree with the post to see that they hold themselves to a higher standard than most of the federation.
People are leaving the starTrek website communities and instance because of uh certain issues. See you at ten forward.
Oh that sounds like fun with a capital FU. EDIT: Cursory look didn’t bring up anything all that interesting. EDIT2: Evidence has been provided to me via DM, and i’m not impressed by it. Maybe Startrek is as good as it is because they get rid of people like that? Just a thought.
I don’t like the expansion of NATO, but due to Russia’s recent imperialism, Sweden’s and Finland’s reactions are completely reasonable. A much healthier alternative would have been actually advancing towards an integrated European defense system involving EU members, with a door open to certain neighbours such as Norway, but it’s pretty hard to do that when the political groups that could actually promote that alternative are schizophrenically tolerating positions such as “I’m a pacifist, so I’m advocating for my own country’s disarmament despite my neighbours starting wars very recently” and “if Ukraine didn’t want to get invaded, they shouldn’t have sought guarantees against Russian aggression from third countries”.
I think Europeans in general psychologically still feel themselves weak without NATO, unable to fill the needs of their own defense.
I’ve been reading about 1st Indochina war yesterday, so - emotionally biased.
EU’s population: 448 million
EU GDP: 19 trillion dollars
Russia’s population: 143 million
Russia’s GDP: 1,78 trillion dollars
Simplifying a bit here (I’m obviously taking Morocco and Belarus for granted, assuming that Turkey wouldn’t attack Greece, and so on), but it’s pretty much a “gotta get our shit together” situation, because there’s no reason why we should depend on the US for defense, or anything else.
I assume you meant trillion and not million for those gdp figures? Even then, they’re low.
Fixed, good catch
That’s about architecture more than resources. “Gotta get our shit together” doesn’t negate the fact that shit isn’t together yet.
It’s good to have resources, but such a situation is still weakness. Only I think NATO in some sense is a contributing factor, and EU frankly too, both not in the least because of all those veto and consensus rules.
but due to Russia’s recent imperialism, Sweden’s and Finland’s reactions are completely reasonable.
that is, it was not NATO that staged two coups in Ukraine, put its puppet government there and began to push the country into NATO, build bases and create threats to Russia’s security, but this Russia, for no reason, attacked poor Ukraine, which did not exist at all not so long ago, and it was part of Russia
Lol
Fuck the tankies in here and praise UN and Sweden.
Huzzah! Welcome to the team, Sweden. We can all be self defense buddies together! =D
NATO loves to do Libya’s, theyre not a self defense organization they’re an imperialist alliance.
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Remember, no Russian.
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Russia locked out of the Balkan Sea now?
They have Kaliningrad.
Kaliningrad’s fairly strategically useless to them now that every surrounding country’s NATO though. The Suwałki Gap between Kaliningrad and Belarus used to be pivotal in potentially re-taking control of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. It would have been very difficult for NATO defend them if Russia took the gap. But now those countries are protected by NATO countries all around so Kaliningrad’s a lot less useful strategically. Not to mention that there’s a strong Kaliningrad independence movement so they’re struggling to control it internally as well.
More here.
Close enough man, close enough
depositing its instrument of accession
Sounds like a sov.cit.
What a lousy website they have…
It’s the primary source, but I do agree…
Took long enough. Glad to have them finally.
Irasshaimase~ er, welcome! This isn’t really that big of news imo, they were pretty much already a member kinda.
I hate China
deleted by creator
