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Goodguy  6d ago (text post)   Edited 6d ago   10965 thread views

Midterms Megathread

Cause otherwise midterms discussion will be scattered around a bunch of separate Culture War thread posts. And it's nice to have more off-the-cuff rapid reactions in a dedicated megathread.

The first thing I've noticed so far: if the exit polls are correct, Americans are very pessimistic about AI.

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Now, ideally, the US would just pay reparations to Iran and Iran would allow innocent passage again, but realistically that is not going to happen.

The US would if they could. They even tried. But Iran is obsessed with maximalist demands and likely won't allow free passage as long as the regime remains in power.

Nor have any other countries been very enthusiastic about defending the freedom of navigation with their navies.

Saddest part of all of this in my imo. Every single other country in the world has been begging trump to surrender so that they can pay tolls. Really shows that "freedom of navigation" is just some made up word that actually just means the US running the seas.

Saddest part of all of this in my imo. Every single other country in the world has been begging trump to surrender so that they can pay tolls. Really shows that "freedom of navigation" is just some made up word that actually just means the US running the seas.

I mean, can you possibly justify joining up with Trump after seeing how he's treated the gulf countries in this war? It's extremely obvious that joining a naval coalition with Trump at the lead signs you up for whatever Trump wants to get you into, with no notice or consultation. Countries aren't going to give up sovereignty in that way short of an existential threat.

Other countries could have put assets in the region to "monitor the situation" and done some saber rattling without directly getting involved. They could have even hinted slightly that they're not okay with Iran's maximalist demands.

Instead they haven't moved an inch and have only begged trump to unconditionally surrender.

Why do you think Iran would have bought the saber rattling and monitoring the situation?

This is the problem with "sudden surprise attack" as a strategy. When you get no buy in or even consultation with allies, those allies are ill-disposed to help you out fixing the mess, because they don't feel that you will treat them well.

The point is for countries not allied with Trump to make their own case against tolls. Foreign messaging could have sent the message:

  1. Unconditional US surrender doesn't mean that other countries will accept tolls

  2. Other countries will put the pressure that they can on Trump for him not to accept any deal with tolls.

  3. The countries believe in the idea of freedom of navigation and will make efforts to preserve it.

Instead the messaging that 190 countries in the world sent is that they would LOVE to guzzle Iranian cock while paying for whatever tolls they ask. And they are BEGGING Trump to just unleash the Iranian tolls.

Countries are sending the message to America that they won't clean up the mess just because America shits the bed. Boomer American ego is a bigger problem right now than Iranian tolls, though that may change.

Ok if other countries want to sleep in shit then they get to sleep in shit.

If someone shit in my bed I would be pissed but I would still clean it up.

So take responsibility and clean it up. At least the midterms have sent the vague message that random wars are bad for Presidents, though I doubt the lesson will stick.

Sorry, 190/190 countries are BEGGING to sleep in shit, so I don't think it's getting cleaned up anytime soon.

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