OK, but that threat... hasn't had the effect of promoting good governance.
Lol no.
All of those approaches can work, contextually and situationally.
In what way are they worse than the US? Barring not having easy access to semi-automatic rifles?
Have you two been living under a rock? Yes, those countries have robust healthcare systems. But the cost of living has skyrocketed. In Canada, food prices have gone up, and it's near damn impossible to get a home, rent is sharply increasing.
angusreid.org
www.theguardian.com
www.skynews.com.au
I've been living in Australia, and IIRC, Silvanus in the UK. Now, sure, there are problems in the countries you mentioned (Australia is also home to the world's most incarcerated ethnic group, as it happens), but that is not to say that that makes them worse than the US.
Try buying a home near where the jobs are. In many cases Australian prices and cost of living > US ones. Because the landlords, property developers, and property investors are gutting the system.
Yeah, there's a cost of living crisis.Have you two been living under a rock? Yes, those countries have robust healthcare systems. But the cost of living has skyrocketed. In Canada, food prices have gone up, and it's near damn impossible to get a home, rent is sharply increasing.
Tightening up, drawing down: Vast majority of Canadians making tough decisions to handle cost-of-living crisis -
Two-in-five say they’ve taken money from savings or other accounts that they generally try to avoid April 6, 2023 – More than a year into a stubborn and persistent cost-of-living crisis, a considerable number of Canadians have progressed from belt-tightening on spending to drawing on existing...
The Daily — One in four Canadians are unable to cover an unexpected expense of $500
In fall 2022, over one-third (35%) of Canadians reported that it was difficult for their household to meet its financial needs in the previous 12 months. When asked whether their household had the resources to cover an unexpected expense of $500, 26% said that they would be unable to do so, with...www150.statcan.gc.ca
I don't even have to google this, it's everywhere on Tik Tok.
In the UK ditto.
UK cost of living crisis | The Guardian
Latest news, sport, business, comment, analysis and reviews from the Guardian, the world's leading liberal voice
Now Australia wouldn't be on this list normally since it enjoys lots of trade, but it's also ditto as well.
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Small business owner's heartbreaking reality amid cost of living crisis
A cafe owner working up to 60 hours a week has opened up on the "tough" reality of navigating the cost of living crisis as a new report lays bare the financial struggles.
And I am sure you guys will come up with an explanation. But it's because the prices have increased faster than salaries. And who invests in the companies doing this to people, billionaires, and in Australia's case rich politicians.
One could also note that this thread was originally about one example of a severe problem that happens constantly in the US, which hardly ever occurs in the rest of the Western world.
Income inequality is everywhere. As of right now, it's bigger in the US, but eventually, it will be almost as big, as big, or even worst due to property speculators. Political disenfranchisement I agree with. Pollution... Wait for climate change and the wildfires, air quality will get a lot worse. Education somewhat but in the US if you go to a State school for college you should be fine, as for K-12 yeah we have shitty K-12. Violence, and crime I agree with but mostly because we have guns which gain will prove useful one day against economic concentration policies by the government, and oppression by the police yeah I agree with that. Democratic backsliding, the UK, and Canada are as worse if not worse at this, Canada has fewer checks on executive power, and the UK is banning protesting.
Except it's also growing faster in the US.
Climate change which is driven more by the US than by the UK, Canada, France and Australia. So sure, you could say it might get almost as bad elsewhere eventually.... due to the actions of the US.
Firearms in the hands of the people are never, ever going to allow them to take on the military, overthrow the government and redress unpopular policies. That's a complete fantasy.
The UK is implementing some draconian anti-protest laws, yes... which the US is still worse for, seeing how the American polite routinely brutalise protesters already. And the US has a major party involved in intensive efforts to disenfranchise voters in the thousands. Even the UK and Canadian conservatives couldn't do something so brazenly anti-democratic, much as they'd sometimes like to.
Again that's why we need our guns. Because this is a government for the few, owned by the few, and benefiting a few.
Which guns have done nothing to stop, and can do nothing to stop. And which guns help perpetuate via the NRA.
I've always said to people who cite our right to bear arms as a means to protect ourselves from the government approaching an autocracy: who fires the first shot, and who do they aim to kill? Could that person, in earnest, use their fear of the government's overreaching as a lawful exercising of the right to bear and use of firearms? We saw what happened on January 6th a couple years ago, and such "righteous" insurrectionists are getting prison time, and as far as I know, gun violence that day wasn't near the scale it'd take to actively subvert a government a scant, insane few don't agree with.
Tell that to John Brown. As for guns and the NRA, when I buy stuff from Costco, Walmart, Disney, Apple, Amazon, Google, Target, etc. I am helping the republican party. I am giving them money to lobby and send campaign constructions to the Republicans, and corrupt democrats. Should I stop doing that or live in a cave and waste my time hunting down a local store that is paying their workers also a low wage of say 12 to 15 dollars an hour when the moral return on that isn't good either?
The guy who failed to overthrow the state government and was executed?
If you think the impact of personal expenditure at supermarkets and entertainment companies is equivalent to the lobbying impact of the NRA, that's just silly.
The French protests are pretty effective.
But he ultimately won that is the point, slavery wasn't going to end in the South at least not for a couple more decades without a civil war. As for the gap between citizen power, and government power, I don't agree. Everything in a military needs a supply chain. Disrupt it and they can't run.
Well, the retirement extension is still there. Yet the French head of state has basically played a waiting game against them. And time is on his side, not theirs. If I am a neoliberal head of state I just wait out any protests and eventually, my institutional power will win out. He will have a successor to run in the next election, and that person backed by the French billionaires will likely end up winning due to the backing of the French establishment.
When the food runs out, the economy suffers too much, or due to a lack of water like in any other revolution.
Right-- it was ended by a civil war in which the victor was the federal government. Not individual citizens with guns taking on the government. Its sort of exactly the opposite of the situation you're describing.
And random citizens with guns in their sheds are going to be able to pull that off, are they? Defeat the most powerful military on the planet by "disrupting their supply chain"?
Whilst not having the state forces disrupt their supply chains in turn. Or even stop them from establishing a supply chain in the first place, because they don't come with one in place the way the military does.
