I’m done trying to argue around your strawmen. You clearly have no interest in even trying to comprehend what I’m saying. Toodles

I know all about how Gaddafi died and how the Clintons are sociopaths. Doesn’t change the fact that unilaterally kidnapping Maduro is a new level of brazen, because it removes even the weak normative barriers that were in place before, when the US at least tried to manufacture consensus for its bullshit. You will undoubtedly claim that doesn’t matter, but it does. Trump has lowered the internationally accepted barrier to foreign fuckery in a way that will have lasting ramifications.

Most of the people ICE has killed this year alone aren’t white.

I’m not white.

Again, saying Trump is worse doesn’t mean America was good before.

AKA, threatened white countries instead of the other guys. This is worse somehow.

Not instead. In addition to. Which, yes, is worse.

Remember when Obama murdered Gaddafi and turned Libya into a slave-state? America’s history of regime change has its own Wikipedia…

Yes, I know my government loves regime changing other countries. Trump has escalated the level of brazenness with which we’ll do it, which makes him worse. You seem to think that saying Trump is worse implies that our past leadership wasn’t bad.

Most “foreign aid” provided by America is used to make the global south dependant on their help and further entrenches colonialism.

Yes, USAID was primarily a vehicle for soft power, and much of our “aide” was actually just propaganda (Voice of America, etc). But cutting off food and medicine to millions of poor people is objectively worse than not doing that.

Breaking treaties is probably the most American thing in history. How do you think the country was founded?

You seem to be a victim of binary thinking. Are you incapable of recognizing that breaking ALL the treaties all at once is different from breaking some treaties some of the time, even if the latter is also bad?

Your argument is petty and unsubstantiated.

I didn’t make any of that up. Go reread your comments.

Obligatory disclaimer: I am anti Imperialist and anti Capitalist. The American Empire has been a force for oppression and destruction since its founding.

OK, now, saying that Trump is basically the same as other presidents on foreign policy is ridiculous. In just a little over a year into his second term he has continued to brutalize the same people and countries that the US has historically but has also:

• engaged in economic warfare against nearly every country on the planet
• threatened military action against the US’ closest allies
• kidnapped the democratically elected leader of a sovereign country
• cut off virtually all foreign aide
• Unilaterally pulled out of just about every treaty to which our government was a party

He is objectively worse than our status quo bad and arguing otherwise is just petty and ignorant.

Well, based on what you’ve said so far, your position is that

• Saying Trump is worse than the average American president somehow implies that The USA was never bad until Trump arrived
• All Americans are responsible for what our government has done, including shit it did before we were born
• Being upset that our current president is terrorizing us at home means we are immature

I contend that your position is asinine.

Convincing random internet dickheads that they’re being dickheads is exhausting and demoralizing.

Are you always such a prick?

ICE has killed at least 9 people just since the beginning of the year. US bombs have slaughtered thousands of Palestinians, Iranians, Yemeni, Russians, etc, since Trump took office.

Maybe you should grow up?

Lemmy.world strikes again.

General Strike this Friday and every Friday until this entire administration is impeached and DHS is abolished.

Yes, but there’s another level below that where they stop manufacturing even the flimsiest of excuses for executing people. We aren’t quite there yet.

The Feds are the terrorists. Stay strong my friend.

I suppose there are so few walkable places in my country that most of the people who live in them are there on purpose and thus won’t engage in this strange behavior.

Yes, it sucks being carless in a car-dependent place. That’s exactly my point.

However, I apologize for insulting you. I don’t know you or your experience and I jumped to a lot of conclusions in my previous comments.

What I’m trying to say is that the reason your bus/train commute sucks isn’t that it’s a bus/train. It’s that, at least in a lot of cities, the only people who ride the bus/train are those who can’t afford a car. Which means several things:

1. Transit is underfunded
2. Transit has incomplete coverage
3. Entire human settlements are built without any concern for people who don’t have a car
4. Cities are designed to allow maximum car throughput and parking, which inherently makes other forms of transportation worse

Your very lived experience is exactly a consequence of car-centric design, and a laser-like focus on self-driving cars will only perpetuate that design philosophy.

I want more competently designed cities in North America!

EDIT: Also, you’re getting downvoted for this statement? Did some Truth Social members somehow end up in this thread?

I haven’t been to Germany but based on what I know of it (and other European countries), your suburbs are a very different beast from ours. We have a level of urban sprawl in North America that most Europeans would have to see to believe. Its simply designed to move and park as many cars as possible, with human comfort as an afterthought.

It’s the implication that your marginal convenience and comfort are more important than all the damage that car-centric infrastructure causes to the poor, those who can’t drive, the environment, our cities, etc. That’s what makes you self-centered.

EDIT: And by the way, humans are social creatures by nature - we don’t all hate being in close proximity with random strangers. In fact, in the context of an urban area, I’d argue that many of the people who do feel that way are probably suffering from the psychological damage of growing up in a suburb.

Its all relative. For us Americans, Germany (and most of the rest of Europe) is a transit paradise.

Good point: lack of density is yet another negative byproduct of car-first infrastructure.