I don't know. It's your leadership that started the contest in the first place, take it up with them.
Either way though, they decided to care and now they're trying to abandon their winning hand. You don't get to both play the game and then pretend you don't care.
>You don't get to both play the game and then pretend you don't care.
Why not? You seem to think that these silly arguments based on your invented verbal classifications such as who is "playing the game" should count as constraints on US foreign policy.
The fundamental problem is that we gave you a sweetheart deal for decades. You got used to it and took it for granted. Aspects of that deal are being renegotiated. You're now saying: "Where are my entitlements?" But they were never entitlements.
In any case--good luck buddy. I think you're beyond my help.
Because now that you started it, the Chinese won't stop playing. Your own behavior is what creates constraints, the irony is that you haven't even realized my language is purely descriptive of geopolitical grand strategy while yours is enacting the late stage imperial hubris I'm describing.
And it was you that is throwing away the sweetheart deal and still being arrogant about it.
You're correct that they were never entitlements. They were the bare minimum compensation for our support.
I don't consider European "support" to have much value. It seems to mostly come in the form of whining, lectures, and things which would happen anyways, such as trade.
One recurring issue here has been that the American public is apparently operating under the assumption that their personal preferences are directly translatable into geopolitical reality. You can want things and you can even vote for them, but you are within a larger system who's other factors or trajectory you don't control.
Personally, I think realistically with that in mind, the EU should work for rapprochement with China considering America's current loss of ambition.
Most importantly, I think this whole frame is way too stuck in the inane back-and-forth between states, when I believe Climate Change is the defining issue of our time - for all of us, independent of national allegiance.
With this humanity defining issue in mind, the American behavior becomes particularly dangerous, not honoring their international commitments and actively making the problem worse while pretending the world could be the same as a hundred years ago.
We need to move forward and deal with the problems of right now, instead of harking back to some perceived glory days. History flows forwards, not backwards. We don't have time for these petty squabbles, we can't afford to wait for you to get your house in order.
The final irony is that now apparently you're praising the Swiss model after just calling it "moral facade that allows them to dodge responsibility"? Which one is it? An example to inspire or a dodge to avoid? Once again, you want your cake and eat it.
I want the US to stop being the designated country which gets blamed whenever anything goes wrong. What am I allowed to do in order to make that happen, O European Master?
> I want the US to stop being the designated country which gets blamed whenever anything goes wrong.
You don't get to be simultaneously one of the biggest actors on the global stage and exempt from scrutiny on how you interact with the rest of the world.
The system you helped build is the system you're decrying. I don't know what to tell you, this is not about my desires, it is simply about geopolitical realities.
Some random blog post where some dude used Claude is not a serious source. Reuters reports that U.S. emissions accounted for 36% of the global increase in 2025, with U.S. emissions rising 3.2% year-on-year versus 0.3% in China: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-leads-global-co2-...
More importantly, you exited the Paris agreement. Again, this is about systemic consequences of your behavior, not some insular self-perception.
> I'm tired of being the designated punching bag.
Then stop giving the rest of the world the surface to do so, get your house together and stop complaining about the world being unfair to you. This is the reality we live in, this is the reality you were instrumental in building.
We all gotta live with it, your sudden lack of desire or ambition doesn't change the fact that this is how the world works. Changes in your self-conception do not change the incentives of other actors.
You can complain about scrutiny all you want, but it won't make it disappear. You're playing one of the major powers, and you get judged by those standards, whether you like it or not.
>You don't get to opt out of being one of the biggest actors globally and thus always involved and evaluated on how you interact with the rest of the world.
China is also one of the biggest actors. They didn't exactly provide support to Ukraine. They're happy to sell gear to Russia. Now you're planning your rapprochement with them.
Face it, you hold the US to a standard that you hold no other nation.
This business about "the system you set up" is just another way of you admitting that you took us for granted. We're tired of being taken for granted. We're burnt out. You haven't said a single positive thing about the US in this thread, have you?
>Then stop acting like one
Bro this is literally just bullying. I've had enough.
> China is also one of the biggest actors. They didn't exactly provide support to Ukraine.
Yes, their geopolitical alignment is different. They did provide support to Russia, which they have shared interests with. That is precisely my point - you have to nurture your alliances, you don't get to just have them.
> Face it, you hold the US to a standard that you hold no other nation.
The US is in a position that no other nation is in. Your complaint is effectively about the US' position as the most powerful nation in the world.
> This business about "the system you set up" is just another way of you admitting that you took us for granted. We're tired of being taken for granted.
You are the ones taking us for granted. You think we owe you loyalty, while at the same time wanting to reduce any support. You claim to want us to become more independent, yet at the same time get upset when we put in place measures to do so. No! Gratitude has to be earned, it isn't just given. Disengagement never comes for free, it always means a disentanglement of interests.
> You haven't said a single positive thing about the US in this thread, have you?
I could turn this question right around and start listing my own grievances, but I won't because it would a silly, petty, ego-based distraction from the systemic analysis at hand.
> Bro this is literally just bullying. I've had enough.
If you think I've made a factual or argumentative error, point it out. Calling an argument 'bullying' doesn't address the argument, especially when I've been polite throughout.
I don't know. It's your leadership that started the contest in the first place, take it up with them.
Either way though, they decided to care and now they're trying to abandon their winning hand. You don't get to both play the game and then pretend you don't care.
>You don't get to both play the game and then pretend you don't care.
Why not? You seem to think that these silly arguments based on your invented verbal classifications such as who is "playing the game" should count as constraints on US foreign policy.
The fundamental problem is that we gave you a sweetheart deal for decades. You got used to it and took it for granted. Aspects of that deal are being renegotiated. You're now saying: "Where are my entitlements?" But they were never entitlements.
In any case--good luck buddy. I think you're beyond my help.
Because now that you started it, the Chinese won't stop playing. Your own behavior is what creates constraints, the irony is that you haven't even realized my language is purely descriptive of geopolitical grand strategy while yours is enacting the late stage imperial hubris I'm describing.
And it was you that is throwing away the sweetheart deal and still being arrogant about it.
You're correct that they were never entitlements. They were the bare minimum compensation for our support.
I don't consider European "support" to have much value. It seems to mostly come in the form of whining, lectures, and things which would happen anyways, such as trade.
Obama also considered you guys to be freeloaders: https://www.theatlantic.com/press-releases/archive/2016/03/t...
I don't particularly want the US to be a empire. I like the Swiss model better. We did something like this successfully pre-WW2.
Since the US alliance has been so burdensome for you, you should be happy about this development.
One recurring issue here has been that the American public is apparently operating under the assumption that their personal preferences are directly translatable into geopolitical reality. You can want things and you can even vote for them, but you are within a larger system who's other factors or trajectory you don't control.
Personally, I think realistically with that in mind, the EU should work for rapprochement with China considering America's current loss of ambition.
Most importantly, I think this whole frame is way too stuck in the inane back-and-forth between states, when I believe Climate Change is the defining issue of our time - for all of us, independent of national allegiance.
With this humanity defining issue in mind, the American behavior becomes particularly dangerous, not honoring their international commitments and actively making the problem worse while pretending the world could be the same as a hundred years ago.
We need to move forward and deal with the problems of right now, instead of harking back to some perceived glory days. History flows forwards, not backwards. We don't have time for these petty squabbles, we can't afford to wait for you to get your house in order.
The final irony is that now apparently you're praising the Swiss model after just calling it "moral facade that allows them to dodge responsibility"? Which one is it? An example to inspire or a dodge to avoid? Once again, you want your cake and eat it.
I want the US to stop being the designated country which gets blamed whenever anything goes wrong. What am I allowed to do in order to make that happen, O European Master?
You're doing it again in this comment with regard to greenhouse gas emissions. Ours have been dropping. See https://www.onepercentbrighter.com/p/who-emits-the-most-co
I'm tired of being the designated punching bag.
> I want the US to stop being the designated country which gets blamed whenever anything goes wrong.
You don't get to be simultaneously one of the biggest actors on the global stage and exempt from scrutiny on how you interact with the rest of the world.
The system you helped build is the system you're decrying. I don't know what to tell you, this is not about my desires, it is simply about geopolitical realities.
Some random blog post where some dude used Claude is not a serious source. Reuters reports that U.S. emissions accounted for 36% of the global increase in 2025, with U.S. emissions rising 3.2% year-on-year versus 0.3% in China: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-leads-global-co2-...
More importantly, you exited the Paris agreement. Again, this is about systemic consequences of your behavior, not some insular self-perception.
> I'm tired of being the designated punching bag.
Then stop giving the rest of the world the surface to do so, get your house together and stop complaining about the world being unfair to you. This is the reality we live in, this is the reality you were instrumental in building.
We all gotta live with it, your sudden lack of desire or ambition doesn't change the fact that this is how the world works. Changes in your self-conception do not change the incentives of other actors.
You can complain about scrutiny all you want, but it won't make it disappear. You're playing one of the major powers, and you get judged by those standards, whether you like it or not.
>You don't get to opt out of being one of the biggest actors globally and thus always involved and evaluated on how you interact with the rest of the world.
China is also one of the biggest actors. They didn't exactly provide support to Ukraine. They're happy to sell gear to Russia. Now you're planning your rapprochement with them.
Face it, you hold the US to a standard that you hold no other nation.
This business about "the system you set up" is just another way of you admitting that you took us for granted. We're tired of being taken for granted. We're burnt out. You haven't said a single positive thing about the US in this thread, have you?
>Then stop acting like one
Bro this is literally just bullying. I've had enough.
> China is also one of the biggest actors. They didn't exactly provide support to Ukraine.
Yes, their geopolitical alignment is different. They did provide support to Russia, which they have shared interests with. That is precisely my point - you have to nurture your alliances, you don't get to just have them.
> Face it, you hold the US to a standard that you hold no other nation.
The US is in a position that no other nation is in. Your complaint is effectively about the US' position as the most powerful nation in the world.
> This business about "the system you set up" is just another way of you admitting that you took us for granted. We're tired of being taken for granted.
You are the ones taking us for granted. You think we owe you loyalty, while at the same time wanting to reduce any support. You claim to want us to become more independent, yet at the same time get upset when we put in place measures to do so. No! Gratitude has to be earned, it isn't just given. Disengagement never comes for free, it always means a disentanglement of interests.
> You haven't said a single positive thing about the US in this thread, have you?
I could turn this question right around and start listing my own grievances, but I won't because it would a silly, petty, ego-based distraction from the systemic analysis at hand.
> Bro this is literally just bullying. I've had enough.
If you think I've made a factual or argumentative error, point it out. Calling an argument 'bullying' doesn't address the argument, especially when I've been polite throughout.