What the fuck is this comment section even? Is vape vs cig the new Star Trek vs Star Wars, where fans of either side congregate to tear into each other with enough vitriol to make both vape and cig look healthy in comparison?

Das war eher als Korrelation gemeint. Wer Amerika verlässt hat eine gewisse Vernunft, was meiner Meinung nach eher gegen Dummheit spricht. Trifft natürlich auch nicht auf alle zu.

Unfortunately, the German bureaucratic clusterfuck does tend to hamstring good intention with stupid regulations carried out to the pedantic letter. It’s a bit of a lottery at times whether you’ll find yourself dealing with a human or with a relentless rule fetishist, and the more complex a process is, the more people it involves and the greater the chance someone will obstruct.

I’d hope things have improved and I hope they’ll improve further. Shame that it’s too late for you.

Ich spreche nicht für alle, aber ein “dummer einsprachiger Amerikaner” der nach Europa abhaut verliert (meiner Meinung nach) zumindest das erste Attribut und mit dem zweiten kann ich ganz gut leben.

I don’t speak for everyone, but a “dumb monolingual American” that to Europe runs off loses (in my opinion) at least the first attribute and with the second I can quite well live.

The awkward word order of the translation is intentional to more closely mirror the German word order. I promise you, I can also good English speak ;-)

The detailed and nuanced answer would take into account the exact crime, but the short answer: No.

A democracy must guard itself against usurpation by demagogues that rally people through deceitful rhetorics and appeals to passion with the intent to break the order of that democracy. That order, among other things, contains laws restraining what politicians are and aren’t allowed to do. A candidate with clear disregard for these laws is a threat to that order, such that this democracy must protect itself by not allowing them to hold powers they are likely to use irresponsibly.

Put differently, someone who shows clear contempt for democratic rules is no longer entitled to democratic rights either. Note the distinction: democratic rights doesn’t mean human rights.

yes, of course, you don’t want to cause an international incident by pointing fingers until you’re really sure. They need to publish the fact that it’s even considered a possibility for political purposes, but they can’t assert with confidence for diplomatic ones.

You might get sued, but you might also go viral

I hope the government put services in place to help rehabilitate and provide those children with the mental heath and support they’ll need.

Why would it? Wait for them to turn criminal out of desperation and you’ve got a reason to enslave them throw them into prison where you can legally force them to work

Probably along the lines of “I approve of what he’s doing, and I find the way he’s doing it very smart.”

I want Russian civilians to suffer a bit because they need to fucking get the hint and do something it they want to survive

Morale Bombing has never, ever, ever worked. It has been tried: Nazi Germany bombed the UK, the UK and US bombed Germany, the US leaned on it during the cold war in Korea and Vietnam, Russia did it to Ukraine. By and large the results have been the same: Civilians hate being bombed. They’ll hate you for bombing them. They’ll rally against you.

Bombing can influence the leadership decisions, if it damages target of value to the high and powerful, but the historical record on bombing civilians to make them oppose the war isn’t just bad, is terribly one-sided. And it makes sense: If Russia were to bomb your hometown, would that make you want to surrender or fight back?

(And in case anyone thinks that Japan was defeated just by the nukes, nothing is ever that simple in war and Japan was on the back foot already. What the nukes achieved was that the political leadership, already distressed by the way the war was going, saw the sheer and unprecedented destructive power and opted to surrender. The civilians’ will had little to do with it.)

My wrist hurt reading that

Imperialism doesn’t imply stupidity.

A state’s sovereignty is contingent on others recognising and respecting it. If Putin claims Ukraine isn’t a sovereign state, that’s not a mistake so much as his opinion – a dangerous opinion, make no mistake, because he uses it to justify his actions to his own people and is putting a lot of effort into trying to convince everyone else to accept his opinion. If we do, Ukraine effectively loses its sovereignty, because that is itself a product of other states’ opinions.

Technically, I’m not new, just recently moved instance, but maybe mine delights you anyway? Assuming it’s still there, idk how long it lasts.