> Please keep espousing this nonsense: 2028 will be fun.
I hope our little pushback against deporting random legally present gay bakers to the foreign gulag doesn't force you to support Trump's 2028 22nd amendment violation.
> The USA is not a democracy. The USA is a larger republic of a union of republics.
"The USA is a democracy" is a perfectly valid and correct statement. "No, it's a republic" is kind of a nonsensical retort, and I'm not sure how it got so popular.
There literally are no democracies which do not have representative elements, and "constitutional republic" and "constitutional monarchy" are concepts that are both perfectly compatible with the separate concept of democracy.
> An American illegally immigrating to Europe for financial gain (work) would be deported forthwith just for having done so.
They would be afforded a way to challenge their deportation, not be denied access to a lawyer, sent to a foreign gulag on the account of a random guys interpretation of their tattoos, then having videos of themselves in chain gangs posted on the governments social media.
> They would be afforded a way to challenge their deportation
So all one has to do is obtain a critical mass of illegal immigrants who "challenge" their deportations, clog up any court system created for this purpose, and they're good to go - continue working illegally for years?
Independently of your overall point, what strikes me here is that Trump could not possibly care less about any promises that the "US" may have made. He is effectively breaking every deal ever made, with no regard for any continuity of policy (not just now, think the Iran deal in his first term). With Zelensky yesterday, he again went on about this ceasefire deal would be with "him", not like "the other presidents".
In this context, its a bit rich for the pro-Trump "great peace negotiator" group to imply that the US needed to keep verbal promises made 35 years ago. It was, after all, just what some dude said one time.
He's maybe breaking continuity of the US as a whole, but in general he seems to be quite consistent in his actions and motivations. And maybe he's the first president in a long time that actually understands Russia's perspective.
From the last presidents he's the one that started the least wars. I don't understand why people are saying that he's pairing with Russia when he wants to end a war that's been going on for 3 years.
> As an aside, in Canada, a sentence of life without parole is considered unlawful because it conflicts with Section 12 of the Charter guarantees that individuals have the right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. Courts have ruled that life without the possibility of parole deprives offenders of any hope of rehabilitation or reintegration into society, which could amount to cruel and unusual treatment.
Germany's highest court has held the same thing.
This is right and proper. We need to defend these principles, now more than ever.
> The blood of the Palestinian civilians that Hamas waged war from behind is absolutely on Hamas's hands.
Everyone is responsible for their own actions. Thousands of Palestinians children are dead, and for every single one, Israel could have chosen not to kill them, and the decision to do so is on them.
They had no choice. If you're Natanyahu on October 8, 2023, and the reports of the Hamas massacres on civilians come in, there is almost no leeway for reacting in a way differently than how the Israeli government and the IDF reacted. What I've heard from "pro-Palestine" (= pro Hamas) supporters as alternatives so far was utterly unconvincing, basically variations of the following:
- The "Israel should disband itself" reply: Give in to terrorists' demands, give them their country, and humbly negotiated for a freeing of the hostages without any military response. Hamas remains in charge as military dictatorship of Gaza.
- The military genius reply: I would have sent only special forces to Gaza to go after the Hamas leadership and free all hostages. No civilians would have been harmed and all collateral damage is avoided.
Neither of these are even remotely realistic. What was ordered and how events unfolded was more or less like any other country would have reacted. Two goals: #1 Destroy Hamas, #2 Free the hostages.
The problem right now with the hostage deal is that it leaves Hamas in charge. That's a huge problem.
They had a choice every single time they dropped a bomb! In fact, "the IDF is the most moral army in the world" supporters would like us to believe that very often, they chose not to.
If they want credit for the ones not dropped, they need to take responsibility for the ones they did. Not really that hard!
This is important because "it's all on Hamas's hands" is really just a refusal to engage with the ethical questions at all. Folks could (and clearly would!) say that, whether one child is killed, or a million. It's just a question of when it becomes untenable to brush the question away.
The idea that "this is more or less like any other country would have reacted" is the same trap; this makes Israel no worse or better than any other country, and conveniently means we don't have to ask ourselves about the morality of it all.
> If you're Natanyahu on October 8, 2023, and the reports of the Hamas massacres on civilians come in, there is almost no leeway for reacting in a way differently than how the Israeli government and the IDF reacted.
Any lack of political leeway to react differently is squarely within Israel's ethical score card. I.e. "Israel as an entity is not responsible for its choices because the entities constituent parts forced those choices" is reductive.
> The problem right now with the hostage deal is that it leaves Hamas in charge. That's a huge problem.
That this is the current outcome is maybe an indication that your framework of the three possible options (what Israel did + two strawmen) is lacking.
Israel was and still is fully justified to go to war against Hamas. You're the one who's dodging moral questions. You also fail to present any reasonable argument, only the usual sentiments and hand-waving. That's because you're unable to state any realistic path that the Prime Minister of Israel could have taken other than the one he took. That's exactly my point.
Do you think Palestine has a future under a Hamas government? If you do, you're supporting Hamas. If you don't, you need to come up with a plan to oust Hamas. Sadly, any realistic option would involve high collateral damage because Gaza is a densely populated area and the Al Aqsa brigades were comprised of about 40k prepared fighters with extensive tunnel systems.
I'm tired of hearing terrorist apologists coming up with vague "in between" replies that ultimately fall into one of the categories I've mentioned. If you can't even state how you would have dealt with the October 7 attacks, you should shut up.
At least I don't agree IDF is the most moral army. Armies and morality at wartime is an oxymoron. IDF retaliated with brutal force, and thats the fact. There is no defending IDF, just like there is no defending Hamas. There is no defending any war. In wartime, it is foolish to ask one party to be restrained. War is about military might. It is good for nothing, so everyone must be ultra careful not to trigger one.
Yep. Everyone is responsible for their own actions. Hamas could've just surrendered and returned hostages. Before every single Palestinian child lost life, Hamas could've chosen to do that. So its on them
That's why when referring to the price people generally don't talk about sales, but about the "floor price", that is, actual committed listings that someone is willing to sell for.
The floor price can be a dubious measure of value for many NFTs, since there are few buyers, but for highly liquid collections like the Penguins, there are corresponding standing "offers" that owners can sell into any time they want, therefore creating a spread between listings and bids.
> The U.S. Constitution provides rights for citizens to have free speech — not non-citizens.
This is basically untrue. At times, the court has applied different standards to speech by residents, but this does not mean that they would allow the government to apply any kind of limit on their speech, or indeed, more than very narrow ones.
In addition, the first amendment also covers the right to receive information.
Foreign ownership rules are not the same thing as the EU banning RT through legal means, or Israel shutting down Al-Jazeera and instituting internet blocks. You will notice that RT is not blocked in the US, nor is any other foreign media company.
I believe RT actually is blocked from operating broadcast or radio services in America (although not cable services, since those are exempt — only free-to-air broadcast coverage is included in the legal restrictions), which is why it never operated free-to-air broadcast or radio services in the U.S., unlike in other countries.
It's not really a big deal if someone sneaks on board, therefore, no reason to burden millions of flyers every day with additional checks. Also, you may well not have ID on you. Maybe you don't like to carry it. Maybe you forgot your wallet. Maybe you don't even have one. Who cares?
Most companies tell you the name of the tickets you purchase must absolutely match the name on your ID, so no you can't just not carry it if you are flying.
So it really depends on airlines AND departure/destination laws. Like if you are flying in or out of Spain, I am 100% positive you need your ID.
It's actually somewhat similar in Germany. You need a Ehefähigkeitszeugnis, essentially that document proving that you are not married yet. You would have needed to get this from the US.
Because most countries don't have that sort of document (including the US), you then instead need to apply to your local Oberlandesgericht (Higher Regional Court) for an exemption.
All the way, any foreign government documents need to be notorized by the German embassy in that country.
Virtually all common law countries provide this easily, and civil law countries provide a slightly different worded document of similar usage, i.e. a certificate of being eligible to marry under your country law. In most cases they are treated as equal once you have them, although the procedures and conditions vary.
No, I had to do this when I moved to Europe with my non-married fiancee.
Some states can give you a statement saying "This person never has gotten married in our state", but they cannot pull the records of every state. In fact, the state that I was living in could not even do that -- only individual counties could pull records saying "This person did not have a wedding within this county". There are no central records.
When I tried to use that as a record of non-marriage, it was not accepted for the above reasons. My fiancee and I needed to give a signed oath to a notary that we were not married, and take that document to the state's office to be apostilled.
Well, if they want a federal document that makes sense, and yeah I don't think the fed issues that, we're too stratified so there's no such thing as a federal marriage license afaik.
I think the real issue is that what they want is a document that the person is not married. A state document might work if states required and tracked documentation for out-of-state marriages of residents, and could confirm that the person was a resident who would be subject to that requirement and was not, per records, married, whereas what the documents offer is documentation that an event did not occur within the state, not the absence of the condition of being married.
I can't speak to whether that would qualify in Germany, but it seems like it'd be pretty easy to establish residency in some state for the explicit purposes of getting one of these if you were committed to this for some sort of scam or something.
I am seeing different things online about this, de.usembassy.gov says "no such government issued document exists in the United States", but maybe they are referring to the federal government.
In any case it say that since 2021 Germany will accept a sworn oath from US residents to declare their eligibility.
Yes, it is. Usually, a certificate that says, "No record of marriage of this person in this county". Though, there is still a step to apostille and translate it to German for German cities to use it.
- Countries with a link, but are cursive, generally provide the certificate in most cases (this seems to be broken, I see no cursive ones, but the UK is among this group, which one can see when opening the link; but that seems to be the minority).
- All others they seem to suggest need to go through the exemption process.
I hope our little pushback against deporting random legally present gay bakers to the foreign gulag doesn't force you to support Trump's 2028 22nd amendment violation.