As much as I loved reading your prose, don't you think that you are giving this too much energy?
Besides, as bad as reddit moderators can be, any hate towards them is just a distraction from the real problem, the corporate ownership of the platform.
I don't have an answer but I have wondered the same. Serbia, Georgia and Türkiye have currently some very large pro-democracy demonstrations, but the USA hasn't. What there is seems to be pretty small scale.
Maybe pro-democrat Americans don't feel like their actions matter? Perhaps the opposition just isn't that popular? Maybe the USA just didn't have all that strong traditions of civil action to to begin with. At least when compared to countries lile Georgia or Serbia.
While I don't consider the system of governance there very good, I'll have to agree. While I do absolutely worry for the American democracy, it isn't a dictatorship in its current form. I also agree that the primaries do make the system better and more democratic. I still think that the two part system is abysmal, but the primaries do make the claim to democracy stronger.
I would like to try out being a some short of cop in Sweden or Germany. I'm not 100% sure if this would be my answer if someone actually offered me this, but it would be interesting to see.
It's really not that the Canadian government is necessarily any good or even better than the one in the USA. But in case of an invasion there would be a war going on and violent deaths would be expected. Although the part with penises in mouths would most likely constitute a warcrime.
While the situation in the US is indeed very dire, I would say that places like Hungary did fall first. I am also afraid that the US wount be the last to fall. Many countries in Europe are shaky at the moment.
Check BBC. They have pretty cood coverage of global news. Other might be Deutsche Welle, which despite the name is in English.
The best option would be to follow the news in Italian if at all possible. I actively follow the news in four languages and it really helps to show how differently they report on the same events. If you ever wonder why, for example, Sweden, Germany and USA have so different opinions on Palestine vs. Israel, just checking how their respective medias report about it in their own languages makes it clearer.
While I might make similar choices, it still sound like a horror story. My immortal soul stuck eternally among the empty make-believe-people of GTA or the solitary existence of Minecraft?
Well... My health conditions mean that I am unlikely to survive long term after apocalypse. Even if no zombies get me. The first week would be fine, the first month maybe, but I wouldnt be alive to see the second year. I could try to do a camping trip to see if the "apocalypse" passes over quickly. If not, then there is no point trying to plan for long term survival.
I watched similar thing happen in my own country. It was just one decision (so far) and made with a very comfortable parlamentary majority. The problem was that it was supposed to be unconstitutional according to wast majority of constitutional experts. That turned out to be absolutely no problem for the parlament and the administration.
It's not even that I am too much against what they decided, but it did change my views on the nature of law. Any law or constitution is just a paper if it isnt enforced and will carry no weight, when it is simply ignored.
If a country gets away with not having a mandatory military service, then it sholdn't have one. Forcing people (usually just men) to spend a substancial amount of time in something, they might have zero motivation to, is unjust.
That being said, I absolutely support the fact that we do have a conscription based army here in Finland. There simply is an existential imperative for an army that is wastly larger than what could be achieved with volunteers. Maybe an initial fighting force could be mustered, but we would have problems refreshing it throug years of heavy attritional combat. Like Ukraine could most likely never maintain a fighting force through volunteer only.
That being said there is an option of civilian service here in Finland. I hold no grudge against anyone choosing that option. I agree that the system is fundamentally injust. I just see no alternative.
Very good point. Many of these alternatives with less traffic are much better if one doesn't see them as 100% replacements.