Only on paper. They can effectively do what they want unless they have physical offices in Europe or are willing/able to pay the fines.

Replaced by European knock-offs that are subject to European law. That’d be a big step forward if you ask me.

Do they? It’s not like the palaces and fancy hats just vanish if you abolish the institution. The tourists will come anyway, there’s no king in the Versailles palace and it’s still a major tourist attraction.

It’s not but it’s also kind of irrelevant to the situation in Europe right now because it’s history. The Soviet Union and it’s puppet regimes fell decades ago, and the Eastern Block sponsored communist terrorists (RAF, Red Brigades, etc.) went down along with it.

Almost like fighting fascists by copying them doesn’t fucking work and instead normalises fascism.

Except NATO could and would do the same, and even without the US the European members of the alliance have far greater manpower reserves than Russia. And better tech. And a larger manufacturing base. And more money. And better access to global markets. And navies to protect that access.

Attacking Ukraine was stupid. Attacking NATO would be nothing short of suicidal. Russia would lose a conventional war, and nobody wins a nuclear war.

[Taliban rule] being better than us occupation in many respects

Unless you happen to be a woman. So literally half of the population.

Fuck off dude.

With the amount of alternatives it’s also very likely that you’ll find one that you genuinely prefer over Coca-Cola or Pepsi once you give them a try. I did not start buying Fritz Kola over Coca-Cola because of any “feature”, and not because it’s German either. I just tried it on a whim ages ago and preferred the taste, so that’s what I’ve been buying since.

That’s far from the only issue. Of course all of the things I’d name (systemic racism, horrible prison conditions, gaps in our “universal” healthcare, dismantling of the social state) are also things the current US administration would be in favour of.

Iran’s standing forces are kind of irrelevant without a way to get them to Israel.

The settlers are enabled by the Israeli government’s use military force against whoever already lives on the land they want to “settle.” The money is the smallest of the issues at hand.

Nice victim-blaming, creep.

That was before Netanyahu brought the far right into power, and before the US gave said far right a blank cheque for ethnic cleansing (and that’s the charitable way of phrasing that).

Sadly the current Israeli government isn’t likely to leave willingly. Certainly not while they have the full backing of the US.

It’s better to be told that you can’t enter by the embassy than to be detained at the border.

Well, I certainly do look at him in wonder.

They also won’t result in anything other than US disengagement. Ukraine won’t surrender just because Trump says so. And neither will Poland and the Baltic states, and because of that the EU as a whole won’t.

It won’t even end the war. It’ll just make America look weak.

There won’t be a hanging, nor any other form of execution. We don’t do that here. It’s uncivilised, it’s brutal, and it’s unnecessary.

Nope. I overestimated him.

Doesn’t mean that his party would go for an AfD coalition though. He hasn’t even managed to get them to vote to pass a law with the AfD.

He won’t, at least not this year. There are still too many people in the CDU who’d be up in arms against a coalition or any other form of formal cooperation with the AfD, and many of the CDU’s voters are in the same boat. Not necessarily a majority in either case, but a big enough minority to kill any hopes of stable government or of winning an election with the party and electorate split.

Merz knows that. He’s an asshole, not stupid.

Imperial? Between Germany and China there’s one country that claims territory belonging to virtually all of its neighbours - hint, that country is not Germany.