u/Barbarian

And then the rest of society has to pay for the healthcare. Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy to subsidize or completely pay for the healthcare of those less fortunate than me via taxation, but that necessarily has to be combined with a protectionist attitude towards food standards to keep costs manageable.

Yup. Did specifically say that I was missing tons of stuff in that super short summary of the formation of Israel. Also left out the Balfour declaration, the White Paper of 1939, the Buraq uprising, the Black Hand, Lehi and their attempted alliance with Nazi Germany, and much much more.

Here's the long version.

Short version is that in WW1, the UK conquered Palestine from the Ottoman empire. 1922-1948, the British ran the territory, getting shot at regularly by both native Arabs, the tiny number of native Jews, and the comparatively much larger group of immigrant Jews. In the 1940s, the UK asked for and got US help with counterterrorist operations, especially against Jewish ones. Arabs and Jews pinky promised to play nice with each other if the UK left, so rather than continue getting shot by everyone in the region, they left. Arabs and Jews immediately started a war as soon as the UK army left. Then, every single neighbouring country attacked the newly formed Israel, which they somehow survived.

(Missing HUGE amounts of context and nuance here, obviously)

This is what underfunding education for decades and TikTok does to a country. Romania has the highest number of TikTok users per capita in Europe.

It applies to instances outside Romania if the user is Romanian in Romania. There are no major social media companies based in Romania, and yet the law still applies on TikTok, Facebook, X, etc.

The fact that the law is selectively applied against one side but not the other is a different issue.

This post is technically illegal, btw. You can try and convince people publicly to vote, but not who to vote for 24h before polls open.

Took time off work and have been campaigning hard for 2 weeks (you can guess for who xD) and am completely physically exhausted. Slept for 14 hours today now that the campaign is over. All that's left is to vote tomorrow and see the result.

It's an important weekeND.

Kill switches are almost entirely a misconception, as far as I understand it. What's far more dangerous with US defence products is reliance on them for spare parts, repairs and upgrades. Piss off the US in some way, your very very expensive aircraft no longer gets spare parts, plane can't fly safely, it's functionally useless.

Customs union and single market aren't the same thing. Customs union means no tariffs, and a unified tariff policy on those outside the union. Nothing more, nothing less. There are active discussions about doing this.

Single market is joining the EU, with regulatory alignment and free movement, as you quite rightly say.

Not only did he support the neonazi, the neonazi returned the favour by endorsing him.

Joining the EU right now doesn't make sense politically. Far more useful and effective to work on getting a customs union in place. Most of the benefits without most of the headaches.

They could simultaneously work on regulation alignment, and then they're off to the races.

Switzerland or Finland?

>is it called Jewish or Jews in this case?

Jews. A thing can be Jewish, a group of people can be Jews. Another rule of thumb you can use is adjective vs noun.

There are plenty of anti-Israeli Jews. Don't paint us all with the same brush.

My dad grew up in a communist country, and I know exactly what you mean.

I'm incredibly lucky that we have a kind of mutual intellectual respect, where we fact-check each other a lot and are both willing to change our minds about stuff. Consequently, I've managed to explain the differences between totalitarianism, communism, and fascism (had to explain why horseshoe theory isn't a thing).

He thought I was being hyperbolic about the US' slow descent into fascism in 2017, as I ran through the fascist identification checklist. As a victim of communism, he naturally tried to make excuses for Trump. That ended the first week of his second term, and we're having some close calls with a similar candidate here.

Was at the one in Bucharest. Was a little disappointing tbh. Was just a photo op with extra steps. Organizers maneuvered the crowd into the formation they wanted for the photo, took the photo, then wished everyone a good night and wandered off.

The EU has multiple "second class" membership options. Multiple non-EU countries are in Schengen, even more have no visa requirements.

Multiple countries have trade deals with the EU, including Canada (as soon as CETA gets fully completed).

I enjoy the "Canada can into EU?" memes, they're fun. It's also really nice that in this period of insanity we can help each other.

That said, yeah. A trade agreement that drops basically all friction, bilateral visa agreements that make travel and business easier & cooperation on military purchases would be the ideal scenario. There's a ton of things the EU and Canada can help each other with without Canada becoming a member.

There is strong legal backing to this. Romania bars anyone with ties to or rhetoric similar to the Iron Guard (Romanian fascists) from running. Georgescu has strong ties to them, and he's not even the only politician barred from running due to this for this election (Sosoaca).

Oh, they absolutely do. As far as I'm aware though, the people Ukraine got out ASAP to any country that would have them were women whose husbands were conscripted and were the caretakers for multiple children.

As we all know, women are incapable of fighting. When we fire a gun the recoil breaks all our bones!

I know, military service is the final boss of sexism, but that's still how it is in Ukraine. There's some murmuring they may be expanding their conscription to women of fighting age without children, but it is still the case that women are exempt from mandatory military service.