this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2026
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[–] xxce2AAb@feddit.dk 63 points 2 months ago (4 children)

I never want to hear the word "democracy" spoken by an American again until they've cleaned up their shitshow of a so-called country.

[–] Formfiller@lemmy.world 27 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Sane Americans need your country to boycott America and American tech until democracy is restored

[–] xxce2AAb@feddit.dk 13 points 2 months ago

We're working on it.

[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 5 points 2 months ago

Look, you’re going to need to up your consumption of Greggs sausage rolls and Warhammer figurines, and then we’ll review your case.

[–] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I still value democracy, while recognizing that the US is a shitshow right now. The americans who support democracy are not in favor of what's going on right now.

Throwing out democracy because it's being destroyed by a fascist in america is akin to throwing out the baby with the bath water.

Democracy is the baby. It's fragile and helpless on it's own, and requires attention and active participation from adults in order to be nurtured and grow. Fascism is the pile of dog shit the baby got into when the adults left the room. The baby just needs a bath.

[–] hector@lemmy.today 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I just had someone make one of those arguments. Because the west has liberal democracies, and they do a bunch of bullshit with israel, therefore liberal democracies are the problem, and seeing them fall to fascists, the same fascists doing the most of those things justifying their criticisms, is a good thing to them.

It fails reason but what argument doesn't nowadays, just stupid tankie shit, they just want to make cheap points not help anyone.

[–] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Tankies are so exhausting to deal with. In my view, they're as bad as maga. The two really seem to feed off each other.

[–] hzl@piefed.blahaj.zone 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The entire spirit of bickering about everything on the internet as if making some point or dunking on someone actually has some meaningful social value is exhausting regardless of the particular viewpoint being espoused. Like, yeah, if it's dirt stupid and inherently destructive it's worse, but I see the same sort of behavior from all sorts of different perspectives and none of it is good.

[–] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It's almost impossible to have a good faith, rational debate on the internet. Logical validity and soundness go out the window the moment someone has to examine their biases and check whether their assumptions have been accurate.

[–] hzl@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah, but I'm not sure "debate" in the sense the internet uses it has any relevance anyway. Debates in the formal sense are basically an academic sport, but what people on the internet do is basically just aggressively dribbling at people who have no interest in playing basketball.

Like, generally people on the internet just start trying to debate bystanders making casual comments or sharing their opinions who aren't in it to prove anything. It's kind of weird. Debating shouldn't be assumed to be the default form of conversation, or even the default form of disagreement.

[–] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 months ago

One doesn't have to be a professional to play a sport. One shouldn't have to be a professional to participate in a rational debate either.

Dribbling and dunking on an unwilling participant in the grocery store who's just trying to do some shopping would be a douchebag move. But if you go to a basketball court and start engaging with the people dribbling, then they're not being a douche when they dunk on you.

Internet forums are a public space where theoretically people can discuss whatever they want. If someone doesn't want to participate in a discussion then they don't have to, but they shouldn't get upset when they see someone lay out a well-crafted treatise on the nature of toe beans. If they don't want to debate, they don't have to engage. That's the freedom of the internet.

I think the problem are the trolls who don't engage in good faith or rationally, and simply make disingenuous strawman arguments so they can insult people about scenarios that they've made up and projected onto the other person. That's not what I mean when I say rational debate.

[–] xxce2AAb@feddit.dk 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Uh, agreed. I don't believe I made the argument that we should do away with democracy. I certainly didn't mean to.

[–] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Fair enough. I just meant cause I'm (unfortunately) american, but I'm not going to stop extolling democracy just because fascists are destroying it here

[–] xxce2AAb@feddit.dk 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

No indeed, and you absolutely won't hear me complain about it. I'm not religious, but if I had been I'd have said 'bless you'. Instead, I'm just going to personally thank you for fighting the good fight. Keep it up! You're one of the good ones.

Hopefully, one day we'll be able to enjoy a nice BBQ together.

[–] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Ah, thank you. Honestly I'm already formulating an exit plan; if midterms aren't administered fairly this year then all is lost.

Denmark is at the top of my list of places to try to live, but migrating permanently there seems like a challenge. I'm already studying Danish though, just in case.

[–] xxce2AAb@feddit.dk 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

We'd be fortunate to have you, I'm sure. Please feel free to DM me if you need help. Pronunciation - which is probably the hardest part - is going to be tricky to assist with, but I can certainly help with grammar and spelling. Don't worry too much about pronunciation though - most Danes speak English perfectly well, and nobody is likely to hold relying on that against you until you can get up to speed.

[–] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Thanks! I appreciate that and I'll keep that in mind. I'm using Babbel, which has native speaker recordings, so I definitely understand the challenge of pronunciation but I think I'm slowly getting it.

It only goes up to A2 though, so if I ever make it to Denmark I'll have to use Prøve i Dansk and maybe attend a language school.

I'll DM you if I have a question I can't find an answer to!

[–] xxce2AAb@feddit.dk 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It's a pity that DR has restricted access to their content for international visitors. I've had a few British colleagues tying to learn Danish, and watching the news was a good way to get exposure to received pronunciation and a wide vocabulary.

Nevertheless, while I'm not always on Lemmy, whenever I'm around I'll be happy to answer what questions I can.

[–] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 month ago

Yeah, I had to watch the nytårstale on youtube because it was region locked on DR.

I also wish I could stream Danish media, but the Scandinavian streaming services are also region locked

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 25 points 2 months ago

Barring politicians that stand against child sexual abuse, this is America...

[–] reddig33@lemmy.world 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)

🤷‍♂️ Why would they want to come here anyway? So they can have their face scanned? Or their social media analyzed? Or be pulled off the street and deported by ICE for no reason?

[–] hector@lemmy.today 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

UK politicians are as bad as any in the West. They manage to keep up the facade they aren't fascists, but they are ahead of us in a lot of things, illegalizing protest, allowing politicians to unilaterally declare protest groups terrorist, direct police to arrest anyone protesting that issue as terrorist, they cancelled jury trials for up to 3 years in prison, cancelled for up to 1 year in 2020.

They created a masterbaitorbase, for national security purposes they've to know all the pages you've considered whacking off to, making you connect your likeness and id to your accounts and ip, keeping a record of everything you've done or said and subjecting it to ai threat detection run by palantir type companies to make secret social scores to be used against us. Together with age checks, they surrendered their populations to tech for a copy of the feed in effect.

What else, labor has done all of this too, the supposed good option, in a short period went full fascist.

[–] Denjin@feddit.uk 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I agree, but one one specific point:

they've to know all the pages you've considered whacking off to

As someone who has gone through developed vetting, GCHQ already know everything you've considered whacking odd to and every message you've sent over a public channel.

[–] hector@lemmy.today 1 points 2 months ago

Yes, but that is limited to natsec folks. This is meant to be held in a way lower level govt, business, oligarchs, hackers, foreign intelligence, other groups can access, I suspect.

Most importantly I think tech will be holding it, or have copied it to data banks. Fed to ai to make assumptions about us. I bet.

[–] abbiistabbii@lemmy.blahaj.zone 19 points 2 months ago (2 children)

If you can ban people for trying to enforce the law against an American site from entering America, does that therefore mean that Twitter is a state media outlet?

[–] monkeyslikebananas2@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

🌍👨‍🚀🔫👨‍🚀

[–] nickb333@fedia.io 1 points 2 months ago

At the rate these bans are going they may just as well remove the UK from the visa waiver program.

[–] T00l_shed@lemmy.world 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

"I see this as an absolute win"

[–] maam@feddit.uk 5 points 2 months ago

Good bye american firms.

[–] manxu@piefed.social 13 points 2 months ago (1 children)

If I think of all the crap Blair and Johnson did for America, justifying it with the "Special Relationship..." Or the Brexit lie that the UK would finally be able to take advantage of the "Special Relationship" once the EU was out of the way.

At least, when the Germans realized that, yes, Putin was crazy enough to give up all the money they handed over for oil and gas, they were being rational. The UK thought that a feel-good slogan would translate to economic and political advantage.

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 13 points 2 months ago

The "special relationship" has always been "we're happy to let you abuse us."

[–] vpol@feddit.uk 11 points 2 months ago

Traveling to the US is not a privilege, it’s a punishment. So I don’t see any issue here.

[–] astutemural@midwest.social 9 points 2 months ago
[–] wewbull@feddit.uk 8 points 2 months ago

Oh no!

Anyway...

[–] 01011@monero.town 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I thought X was privately owned. Why is Uncle Sam getting so upset over an asset owned by a South African?

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 5 points 2 months ago

It hasn't even been blocked yet and they're already upset about it.