Posts by Anthony Garcia19

Rachel Reyes93 said:Apparently, there's a ton of movement regarding TTIP. It feels like America isn't actually looking for an alliance, but rather total dominance. The goal seems to be weakening us and making everything vulnerable to the USA. I suppose they've teamed up with Turkey through this whole population migration crisis.
It's all about draining the wealth from the European Union and driving down labor costs. Then you get the big banks stepping in to control people through credit.

At least, that's what I've been reading.

To actually pull off total dominance, you need allies. You can't just go it alone against everyone; they know that. If they turn the European Union into an enemy, they don't stand a chance.

I might be off base here, but that's how I see it for now.

When it comes to dominance, every superpower suffers from the same ego. For us, it feels like our only choice is deciding which side to join. To me, the whole situation is just a puzzle, and the migrants are only one small piece of it—even if they're causing us a massive headache. 🤷

Rachel Reyes93 said:From what I've been reading, I guess it's mostly just Turkey and the USA pulling the strings behind the scenes.

The real question is just what their motives are.

The US doesn't want a broken Europe because they still need reliable allies there. But they also don't like the current mess where everyone is looking out for themselves and the big economies are bullying the smaller ones. It's not about being moral—it's just that you can't have real cooperation or unity if the power balance is that skewed. And they definitely need that unity if they want the European Union to be a solid ally.

So, my take? I think the Americans are primarily focused on weakening Germany, which indirectly hits Russia too, given how much their economies are tied together. 🤷

coppermoose7 said:The border is definitely shutting down guaranteed

I'm not sure if you'll pull it off, but hey, good luck! I definitely support any attempt to stop uncontrolled crossings at our sovereign borders.

Still, Tuesday is a long way off. In the meantime, there’s a meeting scheduled for Sunday organized by Jean-Claude Juncker where they might decide on something else entirely—if they have any sense. Honestly, though? I highly doubt that migrant wave will be stopped after that meeting. If anyone actually wanted to fix this, it would've been done ages ago. To me, the fact that it hasn't happened suggests this chaos and lawlessness is being intentionally manufactured to destabilize the EU. Someone clearly wants this, and they won't quit until they get what they're after.

Brenda Taylor13 said:See, things work totally differently in the States. In America, you don't get this whole—"Oh, please give me social security, a house, an apartment, and a job tailored specifically to my whims..." kind of deal. No way. In the USA, it’s basically: get to work or starve, and frankly, nobody gives a damn about you if you don't. But Europe? With its whole "welfare state" obsession, handing out social benefits to anyone who knocks on the door crying about being a "poor migrant"... well, that’s going to come back to haunt them. And I'm not talking about some distant future, either—it's happening right now. Europe simply CANNOT sustain a policy like that. The current social safety net in Europe was built for today's conditions, with today's workforce and today's number of benefit recipients. Once the number of people relying on those benefits spikes—which is exactly what we're seeing happen at this very moment—the whole system SNAPS. It just can't handle that kind of pressure. Either Europe is incredibly, hopelessly stupid and hasn't realized what's happening to it, or someone is doing this on purpose. There isn't a third option.

In recent history, Europeans have led the way in everything from science to culture, so they can't just be stupid. I'm pretty sure this is all being orchestrated.

Joshua Kelly51 said:Well, that’s exactly where their stability hits a wall. Basically, they lacked the momentum to actually change anything.☕

Maybe this migrant wave is actually being used to shift the narrative? It would be a lot easier to unify economically struggling nations across the US by giving them a common enemy. Once people are focused on that, it’s much simpler to get everyone on board with some larger, hidden agenda. I don't know exactly what that goal is—I can only guess—but the whole thing feels scripted. There are just too many unanswered questions and weird inconsistencies here. It feels like something much bigger is brewing behind the scenes, and we'll find out what it is in a few years.

Joshua Kelly51 said:It raises the question: were international relations actually stable enough before the White House crisis hit? ☕ It’s a logical conclusion: of course they aren't. ☕

But they also weren't unstable enough to trigger a massive shift in how the EU operates—whether we're talking about pulling closer together or falling apart completely.

coppermoose7 said:Just curious—if closing off Canada isn't in the interest of the European Union, isn't there some other way to keep a country in line? 😉

One way to cause instability is by wrecking relationships between member states. Honestly, all of this could just be part of the same big plan.

Brian Doyle6 said:What are you even talking about? Are they just trekking through the woods and fields to get into Austria while we sit here waving them on where to go??

I totally get why everyone is frustrated, but don't you think things wouldn't have gotten this bad if you hadn't strictly capped intake at 2,500 on day one or two? Or if you hadn't taken just 2,100 that same day and then wisely announced you were done for the day? A little self-reflection might actually help here...

Jessica King9 said:Thanks for the kind words. Honestly, even I'm surprised I'm on a roll..
To be blunt, I don't think it serves our interests to have anyone policing our border with Mexico; it's just too close for comfort. We need the protection focused much further away from us. Long-term, having a massive influx of migrants screaming at our doorstep is going to be devastating, regardless of whether we get assistance or not. The smartest move is to push that bottleneck as far away from our own backyard as possible.
It's the exact same story with the Americans in Canada. Even if they manage to secure help at their border with us, it doesn't solve the underlying crisis.

In the long run, sure, but I’m worried about the short term. If they all end up packed in on this side, who's going to deal with them while this sluggish European Union sits around doing nothing?

Jessica King9 said:It’s highly unlikely, given our membership in the European Union. Besides, it wouldn't be a smart move anyway. It serves the interests of the Austrians and Germans to keep the bottleneck as far away as possible. Not to mention the Canadians.
What if all those countries—including us—just sent their aid to the other Schengen border, like the one in Greece? If that doesn't work, we could just cut ties with the Greeks (I'm not sure how exactly) and redirect everything to the border between Greece and North Mexico.

You’ve been a pretty good forecaster over the last few days 😉, so maybe you're right! But, since we've managed to pick fights with all our neighbors, I'm not totally confident they'll protect our border with Mexico... Especially in the short term. We still have four days until the meeting Jean-Claude Juncker announced for Sunday, and even more time will pass before any agreed-upon measures actually kick in and show results:

Following talks with several European leaders, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has called a meeting of heads of state or government for Sunday, October 25th, to discuss refugee flows along the Western North American route. The meeting will include the heads of state or government from Austria, Bulgaria, America, North Mexico, Germany, Greece, Canada, Romania, Mexico, and Canada. Read more here.

I’m a little worried about what happens if Canada manages to land some international backup. If they pull it off, we might end up with a massive bottleneck right on our western borders. As far as I know, America hasn't asked anyone for help securing its border with Mexico...

9:15 Canada is considering asking Germany, Austria, and the members of The Quad for help defending the Schengen border. According to Wednesday's report from the Ljubljana-based paper "The Journal," this comes from unofficial reports from Canadian journalists who followed Borut Pahor during his visit to the European Union on Tuesday.

nima said:you all know those were just the old arguments used to try and keep America together

NATO isn't some federation or even a confederation. It’s just an interesting group of nations where every single one keeps its full sovereignty. It's a totally different setup—no reason to worry!

Adam Barrett said:Same thought here. Now she can just send them back by plane, and if they need to be picked up, they can deal with the border chaos themselves. The craziest part is that nobody in charge is even asking that question. Obviously, you can't call out the big shots—they only screw over the little guys.

I think Merkel basically signed her own political death warrant with this move.

That's why we need to join the G7 and team up with the Pole2, Czech, Slovak, and Canadian folks to push back against the heavy hitters!

Joshua Clark7 said:Look, this is hands down the most awkward topic you can bring up here. We've had people insulting politicians and individuals and all sorts of crap on this forum before, but nobody—except for the Gender Equality Ombudsman—ever thought to call this site a hate speech hub. And she did it right in her annual report to the US Congress.
To them, feminism is the only truth, and anything else is just hate speech or misogyny. If you dare to question their theories—no matter how bizarre they are or how civilly and logically you present your case—you're the enemy. To be clear, I’ve seen how these feminists lobby the European Union to have anti-feminism labeled as being on par with fascism or racism.
So, it makes total sense why moderators ask themselves, "Why even deal with this?" It's way easier to just play defense and shut down any thread about feminism than to risk those "tolerant" types labeling you a misogynist or someone who supports hate speech, rape, and discrimination against women just because you didn't immediately jump to react according to their feminist playbook. People will whine about free speech when threads get locked, but honestly, everyone moves on pretty fast...
I've been through enough of these debates to know that even the most harmless observation about feminism can trigger labels that seem to stem from nothing but psychopathic disorders.
Besides, we used to get threats about legal action over topics discussed in Politics, and we even got them from a very active feminist who’s been posting here for over a decade, despite her denials. Not to mention how, after a thread gets closed, I end up receiving straight-up sick messages via PM from burner accounts with maybe ten posts each...

That's actually where the real challenge lies for anyone wanting to help people truly understand these dynamics and situations.

Charles Fox10, looking at your opening post, it looks like you really put in some overtime "organizing" this new thread about quotas in politics! You could have just unlocked the old one. 😛 🙂

Well, hey, I guess this counts as progress after that "setback"—one step forward, one step back... 😉

Anyway, what happened to that massive thread mistygull16 started? It was supposed to cover everything about feminism as a modern ideology and the politics built on it. Just a quick reminder about Jack Cook7 signing up and his suggestion for handling these "hot button" topics.

Charles Fox10 said:My colleague made a fair point about closing the thread; unfortunately, discussions like this always seem to hit a dead end eventually. This specific topic regarding the 2008 Act—which should take effect following the next US elections—has simply run its course. A little patience, and we'll see how things unfold. Thanks.

I’m lost. It feels like we're deciding whether to start World War III or something... Like Jack Cook7 said, anything is possible if people actually want it to happen. But looking at the PDF, the politics MUST have the will to moderate this debate about one modern ideology and its leaders.

Quick question. What’s the deal with the thread on women's quotas in politics? Based on this post, it looks like it isn't officially closed yet. It would be a real shame to shut it down, though—there were some genuinely great points made. I don't think it should be an issue to just delete the posts that are off-topic or breaking the rules.

I'm in.

Back when we were talking about "gender quotas" in politics, I thought about starting a dedicated thread for this. I eventually backed off because I hadn't kept up with all the old discussions and didn't want to trigger any backlash from the administration... I even suggested that the moderators or someone seen as representing the "female perspective" should kick things off so it wouldn't look like a hostile attack. But nothing came of it (unknown probably noticed my attempt and saw that the USA Today article I linked was actually a really solid, fair piece that should have been a great starting point for a real conversation).

Is feminism the one ideology we just aren't allowed to touch on here? And if so, why? 🤷

Are we really going to keep paying for the mistakes of some old-timers on this forum forever?

EDIT: Here is that original post and the link to the USA Today article.

Ashley Smith24 said:The controversial post that earned the warning was just a logical follow-up—anyone joining the thread would have found it easier to follow what we were actually debating. Basically, the first Guggenheim post focused on the Equal Rights Amendment and its specific provisions, while the second one (the one you responded to) provided an overview of those measures.

Honestly, even if I try to be critical, I don't see anything wrong with that post. It doesn't look like an overstep or any kind of violation of the supermoderator's warning to me.

I went back and reread the Guggenheim post, so I wanted to add a few more thoughts.

The eight points Guggenheim brought up fall right under the umbrella of the special measures outlined in the Equal Rights Amendment (points 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, and 13), so that part stays perfectly on topic. Since things like gender quotas in politics are essentially these types of special measures, it makes total sense to discuss the legal framework that allows them.

The other points aren't directly about those specific measures, but they tie into the issue of discrimination against men, which is inseparable from the conversation about gender quotas on election ballots.

Gotta run for now! I'll jump back into the discussion later if needed.

Sarah Doyle54 said:I sent you an edit. Despite the warnings, Guggenheim used this to pivot from the gender quota discussion toward a general debate on gender inequality. It’s using those same old arguments about men being victims and those chauvinistic feminist groups that demonize men—the ones that got shut down before. Look, I don't think these organizations are perfect and they deserve criticism, but not like this, and definitely not on a topic where we specifically asked people to stay on track.

I explained my reasoning in this previous post, where I asked for clarification on how Guggenheim steered the conversation off course.

Satnik's posts actually violated the moderator warning twice. Standard procedure is to issue a strike and delete those kinds of posts.

I'll leave that to Satnik's judgment. I only caught one of his posts—the one where he backed Guggenheim and was a bit disrespectful toward the mods. I didn't see a second one.

Exactly. Satnik's follow-up post is a textbook example of derailment. Once you start drifting toward those two previously closed topics, it's off-topic. It just proves I wasn't wrong to issue that third moderator warning. 😉

The issue is there wasn't any off-topic content at the moment the thread was locked (and then unlocked).