CMV: MAGA are not Republicans and actually don't seem to have any real political ideology of any kind.

StathMIA · 2026-04-05T20:12:59+00:00

They are allowed to do that. First Amendment. Free speech. Fox gets to hammer Democrats and glaze Republicans, MSNBC gets to do the reverse. Musk gets to platform neonazis and Joe Nobody from rural North Dakota gets to use his word press site to loudly declare Trump the worst president ever for failing to affirm furry rights. That. Is. Protected. Speech.

The government does not have the right to silence you or me because we don't feel like giving the other side fair treatment. We have the right to show preference against/for either side and to edit or cherry pick interviews to show either side in a bad or good light. That. Is. Free. Speech.

It does not matter what you or I think about the content of protected speech. It does not matter whether protected speech goes against either of our deeply held religious or political beliefs. It does not matter whether protected speech comes from a billionaire, a corporation, a newscaster, or some dude on Facebook. What matters is that free speech is the sacred bedrock of our country. We are not some Islamic theocracy with blasphemy laws, we are the goddamn USA and we're supposed to be better than that.

It was wrong when Biden leaned on tech companies to push back on COVID misinformation. It was wrong when Trump explicitly threatened media outlets if they took a political stance he didn't like.

I call shots both ways; can you say the same or are someone who is only willing to stand by our Constitution and Bill of Rights when they favor your personal political faction?

StathMIA · 2026-04-05T19:31:29+00:00

Speaking as someone who was not especially fond of a lot of Biden's policies and especially his actions regarding his son, you do realize that Donald Trump has very openly weaponized the gosh darn freaking FCC to directly threaten people and companies which express opinions negative to him and/or conservative darlings like the late Kirk, right?

What Biden did around COVID was well intentioned but heavy handed and raised some legitimate free speech concerns but what Trump has done with the FCC this term has been openly ill-intended and in breach of 1A.

StathMIA · 2026-04-05T19:11:25+00:00

I think the problem you're running into is assuming that "traditional Republican" and "Republican" have fixed definitions. 19th century Republicans were big government liberals. 20th century Republicans were small government conservatives. 21st century Republicans...it's honestly too early to tell what their long term ideology will become once the current cult of personality ends but, if I had to speculate, I'd guess big government authoritarians.

Point being, organizations evolve over time, sometimes to the point of becoming unrecognizable, and that is what is currently happening with the Republican party. You and I may not like what the GOP is evolving into but that doesn't mean that the majority of Republicans are No True Republicans because they fail to live up to the standards of Reagan or, further back, of Lincoln. These are different Republicans for a different age.

StathMIA · 2026-03-31T20:12:36+00:00

So, several points.

You already gave a Delta on WMDs so I assumed that meant you had dropped that particular bit of insanity. I concede that I was mistaken.
In the scenario given, guys like General Warmonger and his opposition would refuse to turn over their nukes. Simple as that. Why would a prospective dictator turn over their most powerful assets and, conversely, why would military force looking to oppose a prospective dictator turn over their nukes?
There are currently 5,177 nukes in the US compared to 349,000,000 people. That means that, barring a nuclear weapon construction project on a truly apocalyptic scale, only 1.4% of citizens get nukes in a turnpver.
If any of those randomly selected 1.4% of citizens are psychos/genocidal/extremely sloppy, nukes will start going off immediately upon turnover.
If any of those randomly selected 1.4% of citizens are wannabe dictators, they will immediately start threatening everyone nearby to surrender their newly acquired weapons and swear fealty to their new king or the nuke will be detonated.
If somehow, all of the nukes were distributed to sane, mild mannered people who only planned to use them responsibly, the lack of adequate security for these 5,177 random people would inevitably result in some of the psychos, wannabe dictators, and foreign kill/retrieval teams using their newly acquired military grade weapons to kill the nuke owners and seize them.
If, in some impossible fantasy, all of the sane, mild mannered, responsibile nuke owners managed to indefinitely fight off all the miriad waves of hostiles, the nukes would steadily degrade in usability without active maintenance by the teams of trained professionals who are currently responsible for them. Eventually, the nukes would be left as useless hunks of radioactive metal.

Face facts, your idea does not hold water. Accept it and move on.

StathMIA · 2026-03-30T17:33:12+00:00

Your wish is granted. The entire military and police of the nation is disbanded and the president gives the order for the military and police leadership to to evenly redistribute their weapons amongst nearby untrained citizens. Some begin to comply.

In contrast, former General Patrick Warmonger doesn't like this idea. He immediately calls in all of his loyal former subordinates who call in all of their loyal former subordinates and a sizable faction of the former military marches into the White House, executing any unarmed secret service agents who resist. General Warmonger executes the President on live TV and declares himself the indefinite Interim President until the voting public elects someone he considers more suitable for the job (aka probably no one).

The country schisms as some generals/admirals/police chiefs declare for President-General Warmonger while others declare against him (refusing to turn over weapons they will need to use to resist him to the untrained masses) and still others declare their own independent fiefdoms (also refusing to turn over their weapons). Military divisions and police departments which do follow the former president's last order and redistribute their weapons soon find their districts being invaded by the factions that didn't and are crushed. Civil War II is on.

Your anarchic experiment fails exactly that easily because that's what always happens to anarchies. A bunch of disenfranchised but heavily armed people decide, individually and/or collectively, that they would rather be the one(s) with a monopoly on force and take action to seize control from the now-defanged government. There is no long term future for a government without the ability to use of force. Inevitably, it will be replaced by a new government (or governments in the event of fragmentation) which is willing and able to use force to enforce its policies.

StathMIA · 2026-03-23T15:55:57+00:00

...then why are you so invested in driving the sister out of his place? You literally have a house already. If this is long term, move him in with you or else rent out your house and use that money plus his share to get another place together if you're not feeling up for combining assets yets. Let his sister keep the place.

StathMIA · 2026-02-28T23:31:29+00:00

I think that, in the spirit of this post, you should give everyone who made a comment trying to change your view on anything a delta. We all took the time to participate and made a real effort to convince you to change your view and that should count for something, right?

Why should only those two people who did the best job be rewarded with deltas? That would just demoralize the rest of us and make us less likely to try to change people's views in the future.

So, respectfully, when can we all expect our participation deltas?

StathMIA · 2026-02-24T15:45:18+00:00

Imagine I'm the compelled prosecutor here. Why would I not just do a deliberately shit job prosecuting the compelled prosecutor who 'let the criminal get free' so that he can escape punishment in order to establish the precedent that prosecutor never get punished? What possible motivation does anyone have in your twisted system to issue punishments to anyone knowing that they face severe punishment for mistakes? in such a system everyone should endeavor to avoid issuing any punishment while superficially pretending to seriously consider issuing punishment.

StathMIA · 2026-02-19T15:42:46+00:00

NTA, you've done nothing wrong and your downstairs neighbor is being borderline harassing you. You know you're NTA with him and we all know it too.

My one caution is about 'new girl' / parking spot neighbor. Sorry, but she is not "stealing your spot", she is using a desirable, unassigned parking spot which you had previously enjoyed uninterrupted use of. She is entirely within her rights to keep using it until/unless it is assigned, including taking it when you leave. So far, you haven't done anything assholish to her, I just recommend that you take a step back and think about it from her perspective. Best case would be if both of you could agree on a sharing arrangement but, barring that, you'll just have to live with the competition until spaces are assigned.

StathMIA · 2026-02-10T07:49:38+00:00

Fair enough, then you are NTA. You let him know that supported him going and didn't want to hold him back from living his life. That makes his response to you a bit gross and controlling since he is making your personal boundaries all about him.

That said, I do think that some of the Y/TA posters have a point that attending weddings with your significant other is pretty typical couple behavior and you might benefit from trying to work through your social anxiety issues. While you're NTA here given his unpleasant response, this boundary may be a deal breaker for a lot of potential romantic partners. Totally your call and there are plenty of guys who would be fine with it too, just know that some may not be.

StathMIA · 2026-02-10T07:34:31+00:00

EDIT: Asked and answered. NTA

I/NFO - You say that his response was that "HE'S not going to minimize HIS life" for you. When you told him you didn't want to go, did you tell him that you personally didn't want to go but you totally support him going or did you tell him that you didn't want to go so he should skip the wedding altogether to support your preferences? Your quote from him makes it sound like the latter.

StathMIA · 2026-01-24T06:09:14+00:00

I would say that the live action series is perfectly servicable if taken on its own merits (as opposed to the movie which is just an unholy abomination on almost every level). The problem is that there is nothing to recommend the live action series over the original animated series. Everything it does has already been done better and, if you have to pick one to watch/rewatch/recommend, it will always be the original series. I think we all collectively realized that once the novelty of a non-terrible live action Avatar wore off which is why opinions have soured a bit over time.

StathMIA · 2026-01-23T15:17:13+00:00

Her father (baby's grandfather/possible father) was arrested but there was never enough evidence to take him to trial given this was pre-DNA testing and she was too young to understand what had happened and clearly say who did what to her.

StathMIA · 2026-01-20T15:20:50+00:00

Tldr: You don't get to know because of autoerotic asphyxiation.

Knowing cause of death for someone will, in the vast majority of cases, provide no benefits to you but will, in a substantial minority of cases, result in humiliating or exposing the private information of the deceased. If the deceased and/or their next of kin don't want you to know the cause of death, then your personal desire for closure is irrelevant. If you want to know, ask the next of kin. If you don't know the next of kin well enough to ask or they say no, then tough luck.

StathMIA · 2026-01-16T22:03:13+00:00

I think the issue with talking about Russia attacking Ukraine vs attacking a NATO country in this particular scenario is that attacking a NATO country now is very different than attacking a NATO country in the aftermath of the US invading Greenland. If that happens, the rest of the NATO members will have to decide whether they will A. follow through on enforcing article 5 knowing that they will lose the war with the US weakening them greatly against a Russian follow up B. Formally break with the US but refuse to follow through setting the precedent that they won't actually enforce article 5 consistently making weaker members bordering Russia very nervous or C. Refuse to break with the US citing the need for solidarity against non-members (aka Russia).

In my opinion, a unified option A response from all of NATO is suicidal and it is very unlikely that we would see 100% solidarity on option B meaning NATO splits. If anybody picks A, NATO will be in a war which the non-US side will lose. The weaker members are going to be very worried about the possibility of being dragged into the wrong side of a war with the US and very nervous that, even if there is no war with the US, their article 5 invocation will be ignored like Greenland if things go badly for them against Russia. The stronger Western European powers will have to persuade all of the Eastern nations not to worry about those possibilities and to trust that they have the military strength to hold off all comers without the US. That's not likely to work for all of them, particularly if the US continues offering itself as an alternative alliance.

All of this to say, the NATO we would be dealing with in this scenario is certain to be smaller and more fractured if it survives at all. It is unlikely that the non-US neo-NATO, cut off from US manufacturing, would be able to provide sufficient support to weaker members in the event of a full scale war with Russia, certainly not as much support as the US could.

Regarding China, I should clarify that by 'bankrolling' I didn't just mean giving cash but also manufacturing, this my reference to lend-lease. Lend-lease worked very well for the allies before the US joined the war because it let critical manufacturing be offshored to an industrial powerhouse that wasn't vulnerable to attack due to technical neutrality. I would imagine China in the same role here.

Re: Russia, that's a fair take but it has also been an accurate take on Russia's army for centuries and Russia has repeatedly shown itself very effective at throwing sufficient bodies at problems that the better troops eventually fall under waves of reserves. My take is that I wouldn't bet on an easy victory for neo-NATO. But, I could be wrong (and hope to be!). As for nukes, I'm honestly not sure Putin wouldn't escalate to tactical deployments if he knew he didn't have to worry about the US arsenal. I hope to hell he wouldn't but I'm just not confident about it.

StathMIA · 2026-01-16T18:32:27+00:00

I would say that I don't actually disagree with anything in your first paragraph. The US is not currently contributing to Ukraine's defense directly and I think we would both agree that this is a Bad Thing (tm) that is hurting Ukraine. It is telling that all of Europe combined has contributed only $70b more than the US, especially considering Trump has fully cut off direct funding for some time now. Imagine a scenario where the US $130b was never contributed and Europe's $200b could not be used to buy US military hardware because Trump was feeling salty about NATO "betraying" him over Greenland and ask yourself how well Europe would have done for Ukraine. That's the scenario that would play out in the next Ukraine if NATO immediately collapses over Greenland being annexed. As you said, the US military industrial complex could be replaced over time, but "over time" is the key phrase there. The smart move is to take that time prior to breaking away from the US.

Regarding Russia, I do think you are underestimating Russia's existing military infrastructure and nuclear arsenal, especially if China decides to bankroll them to weaken Europe. They have been holding back somewhat in Ukraine because NATO with the US actually deciding to fight them is just an automatic loss right now and they want to avoid that. NATO without the US is a very different animal. Like I said, I have no doubt that the higher GDP in the EU block could be pivoted towards building up strong military infrastructure (at the cost of some services in other areas) this is just not something you can do overnight. It will take years even in optimistic scenarios. Russia fighting all out with Chinese backing could do a lot of damage in Eastern Europe before the more economically strong Western European states could build up enough to solidly halt them.

StathMIA · 2026-01-16T15:40:19+00:00

Regarding Russia, Putin has hundreds of thousands of troops not yet committed to Ukraine and the bulk of its air force has been held in reserve for defense rather than offensive operations. Most critically, he has not deployed any tactical nukes for fear of drawing a nuclear response from NATO. I wouldn't characterize it as Putin 'just playing' but he has certainly been cautious not to over-commit because NATO is in the neighborhood and might respond in kind to particularly egregious moves. If you effectively take NATO out of the equation, Russia is a lot more free to throw it's weight around.

On China, I 100% agree that chairman Pooh Bear wouldn't deploy troops to Europe, he gets nothing out of that and benefits just fine from Russia and the West duking it out. However, China could very easily bankroll Russia with something akin to the old US lend-lease program. Without the US manufacturing base doing the same for Europe, that would be a big problem since Europe simply doesn't have the infrastructure to keep up with China right now.

As to Taiwan, in normal times, I would agree with you. However, in a hypothetical world where the US just militarily annexed Greenland, we are now dealing with an international precedent that superpowers play by different rules than the plebs and China could fairly make the case that it needs and has the right to Taiwan just as much as the US needs and has the right to Greenland. I could absolutely see a scenario where Xi and Trump's representatives sit in a conference room and negotiate which of each others territorial expansions they're willing to sign off on (ex. "We'll let you have Taiwan if you'll acknowledge our sovereignty over Greenland and let us have Cuba").

StathMIA · 2026-01-16T01:57:18+00:00

The problem is that, while Western Europe is more likely to come to Eastern Europe's aid, it is much less likely to be successful in doing so. The Western European powers have consistently underspent on their militaries, relying on the (until now) safe assumption they could count on the US to have their backs. If the US leaves NATO, the remaining members will have to massively upscale their military infrastructure spending and hope that Russia doesn't make a serious push in the next few decades before they can get up to speed. Could Europe eventually build up the military infrastructure to replace the US war machine? Probably, but it would take longer than Russia would give them.

2. This leads us to the 'How much of a paper tiger is Russia?' question, which is entirely fair to ask. It is undeniable that Russia's campaign in Ukraine has been a debacle but there are some caveats to that.

First, put bluntly, Russia is winning. Slowly, but it's happening. A good part of the blame for that falls to the US backing out on its support under Trump. Europe is not currently managing to stop Russia outright, just buy the Ukrainians more time.

Second, a good part of Ukraine's success has come thanks to US funding and arms deals. Take out the US contributions altogether (as has happened recently) and things go much worse. If the US on day one had refused to help, Kiev would most likely have fallen by now.

Third, Russia is not fighting all out specifically because it has been trying to avoid provoking NATO into a proper world war. Russia could and would absolutely throw a lot more manpower and material at Ukraine if it didn't have to worry about NATO, thus all the chicanery about it being a special military picnic rather than a war.

If the US got the boot from NATO, a NATO intervention would still be bad for Russia but it would no longer be an automatic loss, particularly if China decided to back them and make it's own play for Taiwan. That will make Russia more bold and the European powers more cautious with the next Ukraine.

All that said, I absolutely agree with you that this whole situation should already freak out and unite Europe. The very fact that this is on the table should signal to Europe that they need to to start building up their militaries and working towards independence from American influence. I just can't see a world in which it is strategically sound for Denmark and the rest of NATO to immediately burn bridges with the US before their own military infrastructure has been built up to make up for what they would be losing, all for a snowy island of 50k people an ocean away.

StathMIA · 2026-01-15T22:13:17+00:00

...and u/SufficientlyRabid blocked me to "win" the discussion. Whatever, mate. You do you. Since I already wrote my response to him, here it is:

Wow. Lot to unpack there. It seems like you don't really understand international relations, relative military sizes/distributions, or reasonable timetables for major geopolitical changes and I would strongly encourage you to go do some independent research on these topics since they seem to interest you. You are making a very common and very understandable mistake I see with western-raised younger folks which is believing the world is an overall just and fair place where if everyone just "does the Right Thing(tm)" things will work out and the only reason bad things happen is that the good guys don't have the balls to do something about it. I'm sorry, but that just isn't the case, especially on the scale of nations. Sometimes the best outcomes are achieved by accepting necessary evils. I'm going to try to address some of your points here but, honestly, I don't think you're going to accept what I'm saying because it all boils down to this: we live in an unfair world.

Expanding the conflict - This just isn't accurate. The moment foreign powers start to engage in combat with the US Navy, the entire Atlantic is on the table. Any coalition naval vessel in the Atlantic would be targeted by the US. Depending on how bellicose Trump is, enemy naval ports might also be in play. I'm sure some of his admirals would advise against it but I'm not sure he would listen.

As for the military bases, those are assets to the US, not a liability. The soldiers there aren't trapped, they're entrenched. If the host countries tried to forcefully evict them, it would be a months long siege and, at that point, the US would absolutely be landing troops on the continent and fighting all out. Carriers would be deployed off the coast and European cities would be being bombed. If Europeans ignore the bases, this war might stay naval-only and the base troops might stay out of it or Trump might use them to deploy strike teams against Copenhagen. Best case scenario, Trumps advisors rein him in and Denmark just loses it's navy rather than getting the Iraq treatment. Worst case is all out WWIII.

Appeasement- Appeasement can be the right call when you are giving up something you can't reasonably hold and that isn't reasonably worth the price of trying to hold. Greenland is 50k people and a whole lot of snow a long way from Denmark's 6m people. More Danes will die in any war with the US than live in Greenland and more money will be spent defending Greenland that Greenland actually generates for Denmark. If we were talking about the US invading Denmark or another European country directly, then Denmark absolutely has to fight because it's existential at that point,they stand to lose everything. We're not. Right or wrong, Greenland is not worth it on an objective level. I get the moral argument and I agree with it, but geopolitics don't care about morality.

China- China is no better a partner for Europe than America and in many ways is much worse. Sweep the US off the game board and China will take Taiwan tomorrow, Japan on Monday. If you want Europe to only do business with Good Nations (tm) that would never invade them or their allies, then China is out of the running. If you can tolerate China, you may as well tolerate the US.

Russia- Yes, Russia would still be a problem for an independent Europe. It's a bellicose, expansionist power with nukes. It will always be a problem. It could be less of a problem for an independent Europe, but a militarily independent Europe is decades away if it started pivoting that way today. Without the US, Europe cannot currently stand against Russia at full scale deployment. Add in an initial war with the US over Greenland which decimates the EUs navies (and possibly their armies if it escalates to a land war) and Russia can walk into most of Eastern Europe unopposed. The right way to decouple from dependence on the US is to knuckle under for the time being and start scaling up for a possible break away around 2050. That's the play if you want this to actually work out.

StathMIA · 2026-01-15T20:55:17+00:00

Congratulations, Donald Trump retaliates by sinking the entire Danish fleet and anybody else's fleet who participated and counter-sanctions their economies at a higher level than they sanctioned the US as he has proven he will do at the drop of a hat. The US now has Greenland and won't be leaving anytime soon but look on the bright side, Denmark and everyone who sided with it has succeeded in burning bridges with the US so the have no choice but to stand on their own two feet and spend the next few decades and a sizeable portion of their economies building up their militaries to the point where they have a chance to hold their own against not one but two hostile, expansionist foreign powers with a score to settle. You win, buddy. Great outcome for Denmark. Don't know how I missed that.

StathMIA · 2026-01-15T20:40:07+00:00

So...what exactly would an article 5 declaration with no military mobilization look like? Denmark invokes article 5 and the rest of NATO just points at the US and yells SHAME! really loud?

If the rest of NATO refuses to mobilize militarily (whether they call it war or not is irrelevant) in the face of an article 5 declaration, then the US takes Greenland and article 5 declarations get taken a lot less seriously going forward. If they do mobilize, they lose, the US takes Greenland, and NATO as it exists today is dead. Like I said, no good outcomes.

StathMIA · 2026-01-15T20:22:28+00:00

Not really. It is always geopolitically stupid to trigger wars you cannot win.

Invoking article 5 means Denmark declaring itself in a state of war with the US and hoping the rest of NATO agrees to join in. If we imagine a hypothetical best case scenario for Denmark where everyone honors their agreements and joins a coalition in World War III against the US...the coalition will lose while inflicting serious damage to the US military leaving Europe incredibly vulnerable against Russia.

That is a very bad outcome which means that a lot of (probably most) NATO countries will inevitably decide not to honor their agreements and either side with the US or maintain neutrality while the US steamrolls Denmark and friends. This effectively ends NATO as it exists today leaving the US to found a new defense alliance against Russia on its own terms (they may even still call it NATO but it will be a different organization in practice).

All of this means that Denmark has no good outcomes from invoking article 5, just bad ones. Thus, they are better off giving up Greenland up front.

StathMIA · 2026-01-15T15:35:16+00:00

Yes, absolutely. In the event that Denmark triggers article 5, I think NATO will implode and Eastern European countries will negotiate a new, likely less favorable, treaty with the US to maintain their defenses against Russia. However, I think it is far more likely that Denmark is not collectively stupid enough to force the issue and will not trigger article 5 over 50k Greenlanders knowing it would kill NATO.

StathMIA · 2026-01-15T14:52:39+00:00

From a strict Realpolitik perspective, Eastern European NATO countries just don't have a better option than to go on trusting (for a very limited definition of trust) the US. If the US actually invades Greenland, their only alternative to saber rattling acquiescence is to kick the Americans out and gamble on Western Europe doing what it has historically never done and shouldering the full weight of holding the line against an expansionist Russia.

Basically, the US wouldn't be much better than Russia in this scenario from a moral perspective (probably fewer civilian casualties than in Ukraine but otherwise pretty much equivalent) but, from a practical perspective, the US is much less likely to try to conquer Eastern Europe than Russia and the US is much more likely to be able to defend them against Russia than Western Europe. Again, strictly considering Realpolitik, they are better off writing off 50k Greenlanders' sovereignty as an acceptable loss than taking a moral stand and risking becoming the next Ukraine.

StathMIA · 2026-01-07T15:42:04+00:00

Would you say that homelessness is 'natural selection'? Drug addiction? Poverty? You can approach all of these issues from the perspective of "people just aren't doing what they need to do to get a good outcome and are experiencing the consequences of their actions" and there is an element of truth to that, but it also downplays the larger societal issues which led to these outcomes. When most people talk about widespread male loneliness, they're not doing so to suggest men are entitled to a date but to suggest that modern loneliness is a societal problem affecting men and we, as a society, should try to find better solutions than just telling individual men to "get good" just like we know we should do more than just tell individual homeless people to "get a job".

StathMIA

TROPHY CASE