As a U.S. citizen, I’m beginning to ask myself how to take more meaningful measures to help bring an end to this behavior. I’m not a political activist and generally try to mind my own business, but that mindset only worked when I felt I could trust the system to self-correct. It seems our judicial system can barely keep up, and Congress is doing next to nothing.
They didn't say "think differently", they said "promoting fascism".
If you look at J6 attempted self-coup where people were chanting death threats agaisnt the vice president and had a hangman's noose ready and pipe bombs were found and say "that was a peaceful protest", while also looking at the woman who was shot dead through the side window of her car while departing from a group of ICE officers and call that "self defence againsy attempted vehicular manslaughter", you may have a problem.
If your reaction to "Punish them socially" is to claim "That’s the most facist thing I’ve ever heard." of the person who essentially just said "stop talking to these people, stop inviting them to parties and stuff", when your fellow citizens are dying at the hands of federal officers who are being given defacto immunity, you may have a problem.
The current administration already punishes people for thinking differently with a lot worse than not inviting them to dinner; is the kind of regime that creates refugees and asylum seekers out of its own citizens, who flee from it.
The problem is that after years of people crying "facism" for mean tweets, lowering coprorate taxes and eforcing a national border, the term has lost any meaning. Maybe we need a new term?
That strategy may be cathartic, but it will have the opposite of the desired effect. If there's any hope of changing someone's mind, it has to start by respecting their opinion no matter how wrong you think it is. If you start a fight you'll get a fight.
One thing that could help would be for Democrats who live in congressional districts where there is no way a Democrat will ever get elected because there are too many people there who just vote for the candidate with the 'R' by their name on the ballot without actually looking into either candidate's positions to switch their registration to Republican.
That way they could vote in Republican primaries. Many if not most of those districts actually have Republican candidates in the primaries who are center right but they lose because primary turnout is very low, largely consisting of just the most extreme voters.
For example consider Marjorie Taylor Green (MTG). In the primary the first time she ran against a perfectly normal Republican. I don't remember all the details, but I believe he was a decorated military officer who after the military was a successful businessman and who had server in state offices.
MTG was a full on QAnon and other conspiracy theorist believer. But it is mostly the fringe that votes in primaries so she won. And it is a heavily Republican district with many people who don't really follow politics so she got their vote in the general election because they always vote R.
Register as a Republican if you are in such a district and vote in the primaries and then maybe we can get back to having sane Republicans winning those districts.
For safe Republican districts where they do elect sane Republicans, it is still worth switching registration. Let the current representative from that district know that you are doing this, and promise that if Trump gets upset at their vote on something and bankrolls a primary challenge, you will vote for them in the primary.
Getting involved at the local level is a good place to start. Local governing bodies, city councils and other civic organizations represent meaningful opportunities for change.
Congress is too beholden and scared of Trump on the GOP side to do anything meaningful. The democrats are generally spineless.
The federalist society and GOP have created a severe ideological imbalance on the supreme court that will have serious ramifications for years to come unless there's a serious effort to pack or reform the institution.
I think we have to acknowledge the grievances of people who got us into this position in the first place and don't stop making those grievances and the tangible steps being taken to solve them known on every public platform available.
The Euros doesn't need tariffs, because their extremely high VAT taxes and non-tariff trade barriers always hurt the US worse, and the EU rebates VAT on its own exports (a border adjustment), U.S. goods entering the EU face this added cost without a similar U.S. mechanism, which some argue creates an imbalance
The EU applies a 10% tariff on U.S. cars, while the U.S. applies 2.5% on most EU cars
The EU underpaid NATO while passing the buck and funding extensive social programs
The EU enabled the Dutch Sandwich and Irish offshoring trade scams which has become a tax haven
What happened to Harley is the commonly shared example
U.S. MSRP: ~$28,000 (base model, pre-shipping).
After EU Tariff (at 50% peak proposal): Adds ~$14,000, bringing landed cost to ~$42,000.
Plus 25% VAT: Applied to post-tariff value, adding ~$10,500 → ~$52,500.
Plus 150% Luxury Tax (on value above threshold, but effectively inflating the whole): Adds ~$71,500 (based on full calculations accounting for the threshold and compounding).
Total Retail Price in Denmark: Up to $124,000 (more than 4x the U.S. price).
EU is protecting American business and especially big tech with it’s anti-circumvention laws that US lobbied for. Abolishing those would be more affecting than tarrifs and would allow a de-enchittification movement to start chipping off profits from US companies.
If the US feels practices are unfair they can go to the Dispute Settlement Body of the World Trade Organisation, or they could do whatever this madness is
> because their extremely high VAT taxes and non-tariff trade barriers always hurt the US worse, and the EU rebates VAT on its own exports
Your post is yet another example of how USians don't understand how VAT works.
There is no VAT rebate on exports, there is a 100% reimbursement of VAT on any export. There is also a 100% reimbursement of VAT on any B2B sale. That way VAT is a tax only on goods that are sold to consumers in the EU, no matter where they came from and no matter where they were manufactured/processed/...
How this works as an example: You mine iron ore, sell a ton for 1000€. Buyer pays 20% VAT. But since it's B2B, buyer can get those 20% back immediately in his monthly VAT declaration. Buyer makes 500kg steel from that iron ore, sells it for 2000€. Buyer of the steel can get those 20% back, since it's B2B. Let's say the buyer makes paperclips from that steel and sells those. Now the buyer of those paperclips is the interesting thing here, because the buyer pays 20% VAT on those paperclips. He might be their end-user (either business or customer) in which case he won't get 20% VAT back. He might be a reseller, in which case he will get the VAT back. End-users don't get their 20% VAT, resellers and processing industry do. It's always only the last step in the chain who really pay VAT, everyone else doesn't.
And any border-crossing is treated as a sale, so the you get the VAT rate (different EU contries have different rates) from the country that the goods are leaving paid out, and you have to pay the VAT rate of the country you are entering on those goods. If you are exporting to non-EU, and there is no VAT in the destination country, you don't pay any, you just get the VAT back from the country you are exporting from. So it is totally symmetrical, totally fair, and totally neutral, independent from whether it is US, EU, Chinese or whatever the origin might be.
And if you think it's complicated, you might be right. But then again, look at the complete and utter mess that US sales taxes are. Every other town might have a different tax rate, system, catalogue of goods every other week. USians shouldn't complain about trade barriers as long as that mess is still in place.
> The EU enabled the Dutch Sandwich and Irish offshoring trade scams which has become a tax haven
That's a fault of Ireland and the Netherlands, the EU is just powerless to stop those practices. Same as the US is powerless to get rid of their own tax haven states like Delaware, Nevada or Wyoming. Just to cite Wikipedia, "Andrew Penney from Rothschild & Co described the US as "effectively the biggest tax haven in the world" and Trident Trust Co., one of the world's biggest providers of offshore trusts, moved dozens of accounts out of Switzerland and Grand Cayman, and into Sioux Falls" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_as_a_tax_haven
How would a standard invasion work? The news about DoD preparing invasion plans for Greenland have an invasion done by Special Operations, not the infantry, armor and air. Special operations probably wouldn't work for the population of Canada.
After a short time, and some casualties, I think the US military would have real problems internally, not counting that popular support would disappear.
In the theoretical case of US actually invading Greenland (whatever that would mean, considering the largest city Nuuk is the size of a middle-sized town), the question isnt about potential casualties on Greenland.
The question is what would happen to the US staff land-locked on NATO bases within the EU. They will automatically become under siege, vastly outnumbered by European counterparts.
Since any attack on Greenland is an attack on the EU country the Kingdom of Denmark, and any attack on any EU countries automatically trigger EU Article 42.7, which mandates the full support from all members, to which all EU countries have committed, it would imply full-scale war.
What are the US ground capabilities in extreme weather? Because from where I stand, I'm under the impression a Greenland invasion is off limit 8 months out of 12, and realistically the window is quite short, no?
Also if any french military asset is present when the US attack, we will see how determined the french military is following it's own doctrine (which dictates a 'warning shot' 24 hours before sending the tactical nukes).
The US wouldn’t attack in an invasion. It would simply start building bases - it doesn’t need the south of Greenland. Just southern enough for a port that can stay open.
If we build a Rammstein-
sized base the US would already outnumber the native population.
Would the Danes or French open fire on us while the US is setting up shop? Highly unlikely.
Trump is pushing a total takeover but I suspect he would rather leave a small pocket of southern Greenland to the Danes to continue supporting the indigenous people, and then taking the bulk of the rest for mineral rights, arctic sea lanes, and defense.
> The US wouldn’t attack in an invasion. It would simply start building bases
Greenland is an island full of a vast nothingness, there is enough space for those kinds of bases. Greenland and Denmark have repeatedly said as much, and allowed the US to build any number of bases of any size. Building bases is totally possible, and always was possible, because Greenland and Denmark have always allowed it and would have continued to allow that.
I mean, they even turned a blind eye towards the US loosing a nuclear reactor and contaminating quite a bit of ice while trying to build tunnels for their ICBMs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Century
I don't particularly care for your explanation, but if you do want to post these kind of comments at least explain yourself a bit so potentially a curious conversation can follow. Not doing so is arguably against this site's guidelines.
Can you please leave this comment on all the posts that state “we need to protest” or “look at the mad king” I don’t see any explanation or opportunity for curious conversation.
Why did you single mine out? Oh yeah, the default instinct to censor different ideas.
I support the US assuming control of Greenland because it would be incredibly economically beneficial to the US, militarily beneficial to the US, we’d be on the hook for defending it in case of a war as the EU hardly has any expeditionary force left, and we’ve propped up Europe for 70 years.
It could greatly delay the collapse of the American empire that I love and enjoy living in.
We haven’t been a humble republic since the close of WW2, maybe even WW1.
Because I thought some kind of curious conversation would be possible with the reply you made. The two other examples you posted are devoid of anything interesting; hopeless cases.
I should have consulted your posting history however, which consists mainly of short, combative and indignant responses like the one you just directed at me.
> it would be incredibly economically beneficial to the US
I fail to see how this is the case. The US and US companies have always been welcome to bid on mining concessions (at least, until recently), but the reality is that it's hardly profitable to do so, as there are ample cheaper opportunities available elsewhere.
Also, "assuming control" seems to be a euphemism for "invading" as the US buying Greenland is squarely out of the question. Invading is hardly humble, indeed, and you seem to be all too confident that such invading will allow for a republic and not lead to autocracy.
I am .... optimistic that something can be arranged. I believe that Greenland is extremely important to arctic security, and America is the best country to defend that zone. At the same time I do not support the aggressive tactics by this administration.
Since this was first proposed I still hold the position that it is up to the people of Greenland - not Denmark - to decide their path. I hope they will hold a referendum.
The US has less arctic capability than just the Nordics, not including the Baltic States, Germany, France, Italy and the UK who also all have arctic specialists. How is the US the best country to defend that zone? Less usable equipment, less personnel, less spec ops? Clearly not the planes, f35 can't operate 8 out of 12 months in arctic conditions, unlike the grippen (at least they won overheat). The only part where you need the US is the Navy, because it allows you to project your power, but how does it help against an invasion, where the logistics are on your side anyway?
If you look at J6 attempted self-coup where people were chanting death threats agaisnt the vice president and had a hangman's noose ready and pipe bombs were found and say "that was a peaceful protest", while also looking at the woman who was shot dead through the side window of her car while departing from a group of ICE officers and call that "self defence againsy attempted vehicular manslaughter", you may have a problem.
If your reaction to "Punish them socially" is to claim "That’s the most facist thing I’ve ever heard." of the person who essentially just said "stop talking to these people, stop inviting them to parties and stuff", when your fellow citizens are dying at the hands of federal officers who are being given defacto immunity, you may have a problem.
The current administration already punishes people for thinking differently with a lot worse than not inviting them to dinner; is the kind of regime that creates refugees and asylum seekers out of its own citizens, who flee from it.
That way they could vote in Republican primaries. Many if not most of those districts actually have Republican candidates in the primaries who are center right but they lose because primary turnout is very low, largely consisting of just the most extreme voters.
For example consider Marjorie Taylor Green (MTG). In the primary the first time she ran against a perfectly normal Republican. I don't remember all the details, but I believe he was a decorated military officer who after the military was a successful businessman and who had server in state offices.
MTG was a full on QAnon and other conspiracy theorist believer. But it is mostly the fringe that votes in primaries so she won. And it is a heavily Republican district with many people who don't really follow politics so she got their vote in the general election because they always vote R.
Register as a Republican if you are in such a district and vote in the primaries and then maybe we can get back to having sane Republicans winning those districts.
For safe Republican districts where they do elect sane Republicans, it is still worth switching registration. Let the current representative from that district know that you are doing this, and promise that if Trump gets upset at their vote on something and bankrolls a primary challenge, you will vote for them in the primary.
Congress is too beholden and scared of Trump on the GOP side to do anything meaningful. The democrats are generally spineless.
The federalist society and GOP have created a severe ideological imbalance on the supreme court that will have serious ramifications for years to come unless there's a serious effort to pack or reform the institution.
The EU applies a 10% tariff on U.S. cars, while the U.S. applies 2.5% on most EU cars
The EU underpaid NATO while passing the buck and funding extensive social programs
The EU enabled the Dutch Sandwich and Irish offshoring trade scams which has become a tax haven
What happened to Harley is the commonly shared example
U.S. MSRP: ~$28,000 (base model, pre-shipping).
After EU Tariff (at 50% peak proposal): Adds ~$14,000, bringing landed cost to ~$42,000.
Plus 25% VAT: Applied to post-tariff value, adding ~$10,500 → ~$52,500.
Plus 150% Luxury Tax (on value above threshold, but effectively inflating the whole): Adds ~$71,500 (based on full calculations accounting for the threshold and compounding).
Total Retail Price in Denmark: Up to $124,000 (more than 4x the U.S. price).
It's not EU's fault US manufacturers can't keep manufacturing costs down.
Neither is it EU's fault Trump believes slapping tariffs hurting US consumers will improve US standing in the world.
Your post is yet another example of how USians don't understand how VAT works.
There is no VAT rebate on exports, there is a 100% reimbursement of VAT on any export. There is also a 100% reimbursement of VAT on any B2B sale. That way VAT is a tax only on goods that are sold to consumers in the EU, no matter where they came from and no matter where they were manufactured/processed/...
How this works as an example: You mine iron ore, sell a ton for 1000€. Buyer pays 20% VAT. But since it's B2B, buyer can get those 20% back immediately in his monthly VAT declaration. Buyer makes 500kg steel from that iron ore, sells it for 2000€. Buyer of the steel can get those 20% back, since it's B2B. Let's say the buyer makes paperclips from that steel and sells those. Now the buyer of those paperclips is the interesting thing here, because the buyer pays 20% VAT on those paperclips. He might be their end-user (either business or customer) in which case he won't get 20% VAT back. He might be a reseller, in which case he will get the VAT back. End-users don't get their 20% VAT, resellers and processing industry do. It's always only the last step in the chain who really pay VAT, everyone else doesn't.
And any border-crossing is treated as a sale, so the you get the VAT rate (different EU contries have different rates) from the country that the goods are leaving paid out, and you have to pay the VAT rate of the country you are entering on those goods. If you are exporting to non-EU, and there is no VAT in the destination country, you don't pay any, you just get the VAT back from the country you are exporting from. So it is totally symmetrical, totally fair, and totally neutral, independent from whether it is US, EU, Chinese or whatever the origin might be.
And if you think it's complicated, you might be right. But then again, look at the complete and utter mess that US sales taxes are. Every other town might have a different tax rate, system, catalogue of goods every other week. USians shouldn't complain about trade barriers as long as that mess is still in place.
> The EU enabled the Dutch Sandwich and Irish offshoring trade scams which has become a tax haven
That's a fault of Ireland and the Netherlands, the EU is just powerless to stop those practices. Same as the US is powerless to get rid of their own tax haven states like Delaware, Nevada or Wyoming. Just to cite Wikipedia, "Andrew Penney from Rothschild & Co described the US as "effectively the biggest tax haven in the world" and Trident Trust Co., one of the world's biggest providers of offshore trusts, moved dozens of accounts out of Switzerland and Grand Cayman, and into Sioux Falls" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_as_a_tax_haven
A subtle signal that war with United States is a possibility.
Trump will use this as a pretext to not only take Greenland but to invade Canada as well.
He has gone utterly mad. Congress needs to act. Yesterday.
After a short time, and some casualties, I think the US military would have real problems internally, not counting that popular support would disappear.
The question is what would happen to the US staff land-locked on NATO bases within the EU. They will automatically become under siege, vastly outnumbered by European counterparts.
Since any attack on Greenland is an attack on the EU country the Kingdom of Denmark, and any attack on any EU countries automatically trigger EU Article 42.7, which mandates the full support from all members, to which all EU countries have committed, it would imply full-scale war.
Also if any french military asset is present when the US attack, we will see how determined the french military is following it's own doctrine (which dictates a 'warning shot' 24 hours before sending the tactical nukes).
If we build a Rammstein- sized base the US would already outnumber the native population.
Would the Danes or French open fire on us while the US is setting up shop? Highly unlikely.
Trump is pushing a total takeover but I suspect he would rather leave a small pocket of southern Greenland to the Danes to continue supporting the indigenous people, and then taking the bulk of the rest for mineral rights, arctic sea lanes, and defense.
Greenland is an island full of a vast nothingness, there is enough space for those kinds of bases. Greenland and Denmark have repeatedly said as much, and allowed the US to build any number of bases of any size. Building bases is totally possible, and always was possible, because Greenland and Denmark have always allowed it and would have continued to allow that.
I mean, they even turned a blind eye towards the US loosing a nuclear reactor and contaminating quite a bit of ice while trying to build tunnels for their ICBMs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Century
Why did you single mine out? Oh yeah, the default instinct to censor different ideas.
I support the US assuming control of Greenland because it would be incredibly economically beneficial to the US, militarily beneficial to the US, we’d be on the hook for defending it in case of a war as the EU hardly has any expeditionary force left, and we’ve propped up Europe for 70 years.
It could greatly delay the collapse of the American empire that I love and enjoy living in.
We haven’t been a humble republic since the close of WW2, maybe even WW1.
Because I thought some kind of curious conversation would be possible with the reply you made. The two other examples you posted are devoid of anything interesting; hopeless cases.
I should have consulted your posting history however, which consists mainly of short, combative and indignant responses like the one you just directed at me.
> it would be incredibly economically beneficial to the US
I fail to see how this is the case. The US and US companies have always been welcome to bid on mining concessions (at least, until recently), but the reality is that it's hardly profitable to do so, as there are ample cheaper opportunities available elsewhere.
Also, "assuming control" seems to be a euphemism for "invading" as the US buying Greenland is squarely out of the question. Invading is hardly humble, indeed, and you seem to be all too confident that such invading will allow for a republic and not lead to autocracy.
Since this was first proposed I still hold the position that it is up to the people of Greenland - not Denmark - to decide their path. I hope they will hold a referendum.
https://www.reuters.com/world/poll-shows-85-greenlanders-do-...
That's pure cope.