Like I said, I may be jumpy and overworried about this. But it still bothers me.
It’s like Trump would state that he can’t really say bad things about North Korea. He met Kim and he was a great dude. Shame that South Korea bullies North so much.
It’s like Trump would state that he can’t really say bad things about North Korea. He met Kim and he was a great dude. Shame that South Korea bullies North so much.
He did do something similar in his first term, except for the last statement, and it actually improved relations between North and South Korea. It was fumbled when he sent John Bolton, someone who hated North Korea, to continue his work there.
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We agreed we wouldn’t encroach on their borders, as did the UK and Russia. Only Russia broke that agreement. We did not agree to defend Ukraine from invasion, nor admit them into NATO. From wokepedia, here are the terms of that agreement.
- Respect the signatory’s independence and sovereignty in the existing borders (in accordance with the principles of the CSCE Final Act).[9]
- Refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of the signatories to the memorandum, and undertake that none of their weapons will ever be used against these countries, except in cases of self-defense or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.
- Refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by Ukraine, the Republic of Belarus and Kazakhstan of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind.
- Seek immediate Security Council action to provide assistance to the signatory if they “should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used”.
- Not to use nuclear weapons against any non–nuclear-weapon state party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, except in the case of an attack on themselves, their territories or dependent territories, their armed forces, or their allies, by such a state in association or alliance with a nuclear weapon state.[5]: 169–171 [10][11]
- Consult with one another if questions arise regarding those commitments.
The US agreement with Taiwan is fundamentally different. It isn’t the exact same kind of guarantee we give to NATO members, either. It is a commitment to sell them weapons, which we do, and a “maybe we will, maybe we won’t” open possibility of using the US military to aid in the defense of Taiwan.
In substance, we’re a lot more committed to Taiwan than we ever were to Ukraine.
I think you are. I doubt we will withdrawal from NATO. What Europeans and frankly the entire world should realize is that it has been a very, very long time since we’ve had an America first foreign policy. It has been America last in many cases, and we’ve been part of the internationalist Socialist movement, or whatever you want to call the plan to flood western countries with migrants, sign them up for every benefit possible and empower them to vote however you can.
Another thing worth noting is how well we tend to treat people after we grind them into military, economic and political dust. Japan and Germany are great examples of this, as are the Confederate states here in the USA.
My father volunteered for the US Army in 1964, spending his remaining teenage years being one of the first to die if the Soviets pushed west through the Fulda gap. That’s only 20 years after WWII ended. He loved it so much he would’ve stayed in the Army if he could have been guaranteed to stay in West Germany. He chose not to reenlist as he had no desire to go to Vietnam, which was really heating up by 1967.
Typical civil service. Great at retaining low and mediocre employees, and little more than a resume for capable and driven employees.
An honest civil service employee would admit the government has them in golden handcuffs. They get paid too much, have too many benefits, and aren’t required to work too much; not to mention it is almost impossible to get fired. They have no initiative to go get “a real job.”
Of course, by design. If they paid a competitive salary to get and keep the best employees, management might find itself less necessary. Employees who need less managing means fewer managers. Also, inefficiency leaves more opportunities for corruption.
Civil service makes that difficult. They have job specifications. People get paid according to the job specifications they are working. Civil Service was the model of equity long before the word ever became popular.
I only worked 41 years in Civil Service. One of the best methods of getting paid what you were worth if you were an exceptional employee was to excel at an important process or task and to resign and offer yourself as a consultant for at least double the pay. I had two friends that did that.
The problem is that they could not pay for talent. They paid for a job classification. I recall a conversation I had with the CEO when I was on the Corporate Strategy Team. I told him, “If we were the Indianapolis Colts we would promote Peyton Mannings to quarterback coach in order to pay him his worth to the team.
I know someone in a supervisory position and she complains that the only way to keep the best people is by changing their job classification to one that pays more, but the higher ups won’t do it.
Sounds consistent with Civil Service that I worked.
It got so bad that if we sent someone to a vendor school like Westinghouse Combustion Turbine School, that the company made the employee sign that the company would be reimbursed the cost of the school if they left before two years. We had two employees get offered jobs from Westinghouse when they completed the course. Both left us. One was sent to assist us during a combustion turbine overhaul. (Of course, what they signed had no real teeth.)
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One basic concept I think gets overlooked way, way too often is the simple idea found in Thomas Sowell’s Basic Economics.
People respond to incentives.
It explains much of the world around us.
Too many people respond to the golden handcuffs incentive. Civil Service offers some of the best golden handcuffs ever made.
Exactly. If you offer them more money if they work harder, it’s not an incentive. They prefer working less and making less. If they were hard workers, they would already be working hard. It’s more about offering more to those who have already demonstrated their worth in order to keep them. But they don’t do that.
It’s like telling people on welfare they could make more money if they got a job. It doesn’t make them look for a job. Security, including job security, is a stronger incentive than more money for some people.
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Please don’t discount the Civil Service pension. Most all of them are “Defined Benefit.” That adds fur lining to those golden handcuffs. The longer you stay there the more difficult it is to get out of those golden handcuffs.
For a rather curious local effect of the federal budget cuts, a person who I recently met is a self-described Marxist historian from the United Kingdom, living in Lewiston while working for some kind of polling research non-profit. She’s actually a nice gal and I somewhat red-pilled her when I explained how non-citizens and non-residents are empowered to illegally vote in Maine’s elections. I promised not to out her as Trump-curious.
Turns out, we were paying for this non-profit to do seemingly partisan research about elections for an end that’s not known to me, as I don’t know the actual organization.
I’ve been faced with sudden and unexpected loss of income during layoffs. It happens. Onward and upward.
Highly likely.
It’s the first “war” in the last 80 years that we actually should be involved in.
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I strongly agree. South America is in chaos, and it directly affects the United States. It is the ultimate cause of the illegal immigration crisis, and without eliminating these powerful gangs, we cannot presume that any of our current actions will be effective in stopping it in the long term. That’s my opinion on the issue.
How likely do you think it is to happen this year? I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump sent a large-scale force into Mexico shortly after mediating peace between Russia and Ukraine, if he is indeed successful at that.
Hard to quantify. I hope he does so sooner than later, though.
Cartels have already openly declared they are up-armoring and preparing to escalate.
A link above said that a special forces group is already in the area, but I think we’ll need more than that.
The cartels have a better air force than the Mexican National Air Force.
I have read somewhere that the president of mexico is also heavily tied in with the cartels? I don’t have a source so this could be hearsay.
I think Mexico needs to be properly invaded. We have demonstrated that we are highly effective in utterly destroying organized fighting forces, which the cartels seem to be. Guerilla warfare is a different story.
https://x.com/realStockes/status/1894087228579602557
https://x.com/DrSBaskerville/status/1894160427145175143
Not good.
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maybe im misunderstanding as context is needed.
It sounds like she wants to take the teeth out of red flag gun laws, while still leaving them legally enforcable.
It used to be 6+ months waiting to get your guns back. It sounds like this is making it be 72 hours max.
It also doesn’t sound like trump is on board with this, rather that he is listening to what she is proposing.
If either of them want my guns, though, they’re welcome to come and try to take them.
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