"I stopped reading halfway because it sounded like pure propaganda to me without any justification as to why it was unreasonable." Please stick to the HN rules. Please act in good faith
The mutual assistance clause doesn't oblige member states to support each other with military force even in case of aggression. A member can send blankets, food rations, or even just express diplomatic solidarity. Stretching definitions enough one can call it military alliance, but it is not in any practical form.
Looks like I'm right. I don't read in German regretfully, but what I get with machine translation fully supports my point - national discretion allows for civilian or humanitarian aid rather than an automatic military response
I literally started the discussion from the point that "the mutual assistance clause doesn't oblige member states to support each other with military force" - quoting from the comment just 2 levels above.
I shifted nothing, and as we are on the nets, everybody can verify it above. I said you can stretch the notion of military alliance to cover the EU, but because nobody's obliged to come to your rescue in force, in practical terms it is not.
Like if Russia lands on IS, there's no agreement to defend it even if it joined the union.
>Why not auto translate them?
I did, and I clearly mentioned it. And it supports what I said, isn't it? Can we please agree to read those letters in full, and not run to accuse me after finishing just the first sentence?
" nobody's obliged to come to your rescue in force, in practical terms it is not. "
1.) My source claims the opposite.
2.) This is the same for NATO and Mecca Pact practically.
3.) Actually a lot of lawyers see the EU article is more stricter than the NATO article. I trust them more than a goal shifting HN poster.
I think a point is to be made that international treaties and alliances work on trust. They don't "oblige" a country in the sense that you may be obliged to do something.
Now the EU is not a military alliance per se and Article 42.7 (which was essentially sneaked in by the Lisbon Treaty) is a bit fuzzy so members will consider all aspects and offer some assistance, sure, but scramble their whole military because that's "all the means in their power", no unless they see that the threat to themselves is critical not least because the article also states that it "shall not prejudice the specific character of the security and defence policy of certain Member States". So basically some help will be sent but calibrated by all the usual political and self-interest considerations.
1. You are welcome to cite exact wording.
2. That's literally the first normal argument you expressed in the thread. I'm so delighted! NATO is practically very much different, cause it has tried-and-proven structures, drills, and more importantly American military behind it. Given the current state of affairs we of course can have our doubts, but during its existence there always has been a wide consensus, that the USA considers NATO members its area of responsibility, and are ready to act. And the alliance's Article 5 is way more obliging. Once agreed it forces members to regard themselves to be in conflict.
3. Good ones, bad ones, imagined ones? Care to show them?
Ad hominem doesn't make anybody look smart. Dishonest ad hominem, I guess, even worse?
OK, the Treaty of the EU does have a mutual defence clause but the military is specifically out of scope.
Considering the huge ramifications of EU membership in all areas it still does seem ridiculously onerous if you are "just" after security and NATO-like alliances.
If only there was a type of nation-wide poll that could be conducted to make such claims so strongly. Maybe we pick a single day, each side makes their cases to the people, and then they cast their choices to be counted. But I guess it can't be done.
This thread at worst is a negative example of HN.
The blog post is reasonable and constructive, the petition is reasonable, the EU 's packaging law is bad executed on this part (other parts are good like forbidding PFAS on food packages, you cant imagine, this was aloud!) but whuge amout of people (or are these bots?) freak out up to stupid conspiracy theories that EU politics want to beg down small companies with packaging laws(or something). HN moderation totally failed and repeatedly fails on EU policy topics. Sometimes I think these are paid bots by some SV dude, sometimes I think it just frustrated Americans who cant handle that Trump is failing and they become aggressive that US is not the best country or something. But the moderation failure is very very consistent.
The reason is there is a huge movement against abortions and gay people in the US including the president voted by 50%+. E.g. Germany has strict abortion laws and liberal gay laws, but no real important movement to strict abortions or exclude gay people. This is the reason of perception. Maybe you should ask yourself why people in the internet feel like that.
The first line of German law on abortions is "Whosoever terminates a pregnancy shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding three years or a fine.". If this had been adopted into the US criminal code in the 2010s, even with all the same exceptions and caveats, I'm pretty confident that American anti-abortion advocates would have declared victory and moved on.
Germany legalized same-sex marriage two years after the US, and it's really a non-issue in both countries today. Scott Bessent is married to a man and I don't think I've seen a single politician comment on or care about it.
The reason people on the Internet feel differently is that they have an incorrect understanding of these issues.
And abortion in Germany is practically legal for the 3 months. Though CDU is against abortions the current government hasnt done any step to stiff it, quiet in contrast to Trump government.
Many Americans just ignore Trump. Probably they really think they live in the greatest nation on Earth and Trump is just a minor annoyance or something.
I'm not ignoring it at all. It's true, as this article says, that Trump and his political movement are anti-trans. But they have no issue with gay people.
This fact is strange and confusing to many people involved in LGBTQ advocacy, who see sexual and gender diversity as linked issues. They don't understand how someone could possibly square this circle, so they occasionally try to construct 4D chess theories of how Trump secretly hates gay people too. But there's really no evidence of that.
Pickleball and Hyrox is very common in the DACH region, Hyrox was invented in Hamburg...
" Furthermore, the Ivy-versus-nonIvy division and rhetoric is nonexistent in the Bay. " Non existent in DACH region or CEE because why should it?
" Thirdly, the vibe change around layoffs the job market is completely different. While there have been plenty of layoffs (and friends and acquaintances of mine have been impacted), most have been able to land jobs within weeks with a similar base/bonus/equity structure." I think people with problems are more likely to post and secondly maybe you are convoluting your social circle with the whole SV.
No I'm a long time Bay Area tech person also and what alephnerd is saying tracks with the interest profile of my circle as well. Predictably I was not on HN during a great weather day with plenty going on. This weekend was also Oakland Pride :)
I haven't done the analysis to see whether it's DACH influenced or not but the rhetoric here does not feel Bay Area shaped at all and hasn't for years. It feels like what happens when too many people read about the Valley from too many Techcrunch articles but don't actually live here. It's largely a worldview composed of too many online articles and gripes.
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