The music is a little too loud

We don’t need to spend more on defense in Europe if we combine our militaries and place them under a single command structure. That way our defensive and offensive capabilities will be greatly increased, even with the same amount of spending we do currently. If we want to ramp up European industrial production of military equipment, to be more independent of the US, I think I would support that, but a massive increase to 5% of GDP is ludicrous. We have infrastructure, healthcare, education, social welfare and the energy transition. We can only spend our tax money once. Also, what if Europe is suddenly run by authoritarian post truth populists, then I don’t want them to have huge military power.

Неплохо тут русаков заслали Бучу перекрывать

👌👏👏👏👏

It sounds like your assessment of Ukraine policy is based on an axiom that Ukraine has to be preserved as a political entity. Why? Most, if not all, Ukrainian political speakers opposed to its current ethno-nationalist "Armovir" ideology, are by now pretty explicit in calling Ukraine an irredeemable failure. Well, Arestovich still hopes to be elected the next president and maybe fix everything, but, for instance, Romanenko et al., when they discuss any positive future prospects for Ukraine, only do so in terms of a "Third republic" (i.e. a new Ukrainian state that'll have to be instituted on current Ukraine's smoking ruins). Realistically, do you have any rational arguments to support the idea that the Biden-Harris team were willing or even able to offer Ukraine anything beyond what we've already seen in terms of security or military aid? All they ever promised is along the lines of "we'll be with Ukraine until the end!", - and at this point, if you know at least a bit of what's actually going on in Ukraine, you know full well there's no "end" to this that can look pretty. Regardless how it has come to this, currently Ukraine IS hell on Earth, and a good majority of those unlucky enough to be caught inside of it seem to prefer a terrifying end to the prospect of unending terror that was exactly Biden's plan. Unfortunately, the state is captured by an authoritarian, oppressive, cleptocratic clique that, after losing most of the international and domestic support, can't afford to let go of power: after stealing double digit percentages of the tens of billions of macrofinancial aid provided by the West, they have no real prospects of personal security anywhere on Earth. All these people can now do is continue holding onto power, killing thousands of ukrainians every single day. Can or will Trump put an end to this? I highly doubt it - especially considering his performance during the first presidential term. But the election of Trump at least affords me the luxury of hope. Harris would just do what Biden did - drag this meatgrinder for as long as it would drag, and then some more. They'd perhaps end up with a highly unstable Russia in a full-scale humanitarian crisis, which may've been their goal, idk, but Ukraine would be completely SPENT to achieve that - demographically, territorially, and of course politically. Please tell me what is the missing piece of the puzzle that lets you see an endgame to Biden's Ukraine policy where Ukraine would still at least exist. Because I just can't.

"The Joy of Doing Evil" (perhaps rendered as freudeambösen?) hits me like a revelation because it validates something I don't think I wanted to admit to myself. American has always taken up for the underdog outlaw like Billy the Kid, or the false Robin Hoodism of Al Capone. But in recent years our "heroes" are more like Tony Soprano or Walter White. They are admirable because they do evil for selfish reasons while claiming a moral high ground that not one believes. It's not heroic, its "badass". And the courage is not the courage of facing up to the power but rather the guile to be offensive and the willingness to kick DOWN. For Americans this is a particularly toxic combination because we have always lionized the rich while holding the poor in contempt. It's that old Calvinist ethos at work. If you are successful, you GOOD, even if you do evil. The old "he must be doing something right" bit of sophistry that excuses all manner of bad behavior. Bernie Madoff wasn't a bad guy, he was a loser because he got caught. Wedded to post-truth, this joy of doing evil may very well be the anti-philosophy that brings down civil society.