• solargeek@slrpnk.net
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    1 year ago

    NATO members in general are too comfortable relying too much much on the U.S. defense umbrella. It is something the U.S. has been warning NATO members about for a long time. It’s meant to be a collective defense. What’s happening in Ukraine should be a loud wakeup call.

    • fomo_erotic@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      NATO members in general are too comfortable relying too much much on the U.S. defense umbrella. It is something the U.S. has been warning NATO members about for a long time. It’s meant to be a collective defense. What’s happening in Ukraine should be a loud wakeup call.

      I’m fine with NATO members relying on the US defense budget as long as they spend their money on socialist programs at home. The US could provide the best socialist safety net on the planet, and still outspend the rest of the world 40:1 on defense if it would just tax the rich. Tax capitol gains like income as well, and 80% tax on everything over 20 million a year, 95% tax on everything over 200 million a year, and 99% tax on everything over 1 billion a year.

      Boom now we can do the best socialized medicine on the plan and have enough left over to build a couple hundred new NATO bases where ever member states want them.

      • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Welfare programs in capitalist countries are not socialism. “Socialism program” would be collectivisiation of the means of production.

            • Rumblestiltskin@lemmy.ca
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              1 year ago

              You seem to have a pretty narrow definition of socialism. I think most people would not use the term as narrow as you do no matter what quoted text you are about to post in response.

                • Rumblestiltskin@lemmy.ca
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                  1 year ago

                  From simple Wikipedia: “Socialism is a political ideology that aims to make people equal. It generally focuses on equality of wealth (eg. similar wages, housing, education, healthcare), although since the 1960s, it has often focused on equality of power. It is normally considered left-wing, because it seeks to change society.”

                  • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
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                    1 year ago

                    ??? You seem to have not only weird definition of socialism, because it’s totally not it, but even different wikipedia. Here’s what it says, in the very beginning (your definition is nowhere there):

                    Social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. Which is basically as broad definition as possible, everything left of succdems fit right in.

                    For the lulz, i searched for your definition, and it had only a single result, here. Specifically, a comment down below:

                    Concluding, i guess it must be true, since the well known socialist theoretician BAD BOY BUBBY said so /s

            • emerty@slrpnk.net
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              1 year ago

              Must of missed the whole market socialism thing in the Nordics and under Blair in the UK?

              • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                Market socialism examples are Yugoslavia and Poland in the 70’s. Nordics have capitalism with (currently being cut) social safety nets, one of prime characteristics of socialdemocracy, ideology that do not promote socialism but capitalism with “human face”, as Nomad said, based on Keynes work. Blair and his followers in many countries went much off even that into the neoliberalism.

    • ghost_laptop@lemmy.mlOP
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      1 year ago

      It’s something the US has basically enforced, it’s their excuse to things like military bases in Okinawa, which goes against Japan’s ideas of not having an army (even though the JSDF has broken this promise of sorts). More military spending it’s not going to bring any good to anyone, specially coming from Europe and its record, specially the Brits.

      • emerty@slrpnk.net
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        1 year ago

        More military spending it’s not going to bring any good to anyone, specially coming from Europe and its record, specially the Brits.

        Ask the Ukrainians how they feel about the Brits rn

        • ghost_laptop@lemmy.mlOP
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          1 year ago

          Ask any of this countries, also include a couple more, Argentina specially, and since we’re are it include all of Latin America since nobody wants them here, how they feel about the Brits. Ah, yeah, I forgot, one European country counts as x100 in contrast with a shitty third world country like ours in your book.

      • solargeek@slrpnk.net
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        1 year ago

        We’ve had multiple presidents get on their soapbox about defense budgets in Europe. One fat orange man in particular. He’s a corrupt idiot but he wasn’t wrong about that. The NATO % GDP benchmark is not onerous. Only military capability will deter some actors as clearly evidenced most recently in Ukraine.

        • redditors_re_racist@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Only military capability will deter some actors as clearly evidenced most recently in Ukraine.

          the ukraine was invaded therefore more military spending would deter russians from invading the ukraine?

          • emerty@slrpnk.net
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            1 year ago

            Has Russia invaded a NATO country? No

            Should Europe have done more in 2014? Yes

            Would Ukraine have been destroyed if they hadn’t received training from NATO members since 2014? Maybe