Can confirm. I'm not American, but I've followed your politics closely since Bill Clinton era due to my interest in geo politics and America being a super power and my love of economics and the American markets heavy influence on other economies pegged to the green back.
I'm Australian by birth, of Dutch / Irish heritage, but I live in Estonia. I'm here on thedonald, because Trump is an absolutely amazing president and I can no longer get the truth from the MSM or other sites due to their TDS.....and I fucking hate Communists and Nazi's.
So I hope we cool. I love it here with you mad units.
Phew.....I'm in Estonia, glad we made the cut according to this graphic. Lol
1 in 5 murdered or disappeared under the Russians in the ex-Soviet country I live in. They sent entire families to the Gulags if a single family member was thought to be was anti-communist. The terror still has deep social impacts 30 years later.
You can have top tier socialist style funded healthcare and education with small efficient government that uses technology innovatively, an efficient hardworking citizen base, next to no immigration and an essentially automated tax system (2 minutes file each year) We have it here in the country I live in along with an incredibly capitalistic economy that attracts I.T professionals and Start Ups from all around the world.
You just need to pay 52% in tax. 20% personal tax and a 32% social tax. Though company tax is virtually 0% if profit is reinvested in the company.
We have the lowest asylum seekers and immigration levels in the EU. We only allow 0.1% in immigration quotas each year. You don't get free money or house like most of the rest of the EU, so we don't get country shoppers here.
We have 88 weeks full pay maternity leave each year, the lowest infant mortality rate in the EU. Our education system is the best in Europe and 5 in the OECD. We have 10% debt to GDP, around 4% unemployment and 3% growth.
It's a real place called Estonia. It's a tiny Baltic country with about 1 million population. Half the population lives in the capital city. We hate communists as we were under the Russians for 40 years, we also hate lazy ass people and freeloaders.
A little bit of socialism can work inside a capitalist society if everyone has a good work ethic.
I'm a mega hardcore conservative, that's why I hang out with you Pedes, but a little bit of user pays socialism can be a good thing.
Edited: Bernie is cancer though, no doubt. He'd fuck any economy quicker than the Lolita express flew Bill Clinton to fuck kids 27 times.
There is a sign in an exhibit here in a museum. "Communist idealology made absolute" "Promises of a better life workers, turned out to be lies". It pretty much sums it up.
The score settling by the Russians after the Nazis pulled out was horrific. Many here fought alongside the Nazis, not because they supported the idealology entirely, but because they hated the Bolsheviks so much they had a common enemy. This leans into a very interesting perspective held here, that the Bolsheviks were hand in hand with Russian and European Jews and the association here so deep that both were seen as essentially one group. Russian and Western European Jews apparently financed and enabled the Bolshevik revolution. How true this is, I cannot say, but it was widely accepted here from the initial failed takeover attempt in 1918 and through the war of Independence ending in 1920 continuing into WWII. It is remembered here that the Nazis attempt to eradicate the Jews of Europe was driven by the same belief that to destroy Bolshevik Communism, one needed to eradicate the Jewish funders and sympathizers. Very prickly conversation and please do not see this as me being anti-semitic, I am just relaying the version of history here as it is not widely accepted outside of this country. It may mean though that the Nazi's motivation with the Holocaust was not actually ethnically motivated, but political. Still an absolute atrocity and a terrible event in the history of humanity.
With this mindset the locals here became so efficient in working with the Nazi's to exterminate the Jews of the Baltics, the Nazi's sent them here to the capital city. No camps essentially, they just shot them in the street. This caused a shortage of doctors and accountants for some years afterwards. This country was the only part of the German occupied countries to be declared Jew free, not the proudest claim to fame. This came though from the local belief that this was just an important part of the fight against communism. Again I can only relay what I have been told and do not want to diminish the suffering of the Jewish people in anyway.
Some families and areas here supported the Bolsheviks when they occupied the first time at the start of the war, under the Nazis many were shot for those communist sympathies and collaboration. Once the Nazis withdrew, the Soviets did the same to those who fought alongside the Germans. In some cases people had fought for both. It was a very crazy time where survival means took on many forms. The communist, once in power did their best to wipe out the local culture and language, but the will of the people eventually won.
The stories of life under the Russians are almost comical sometimes, but what is always apparent is the suffering of people until freedom was obtained. I challenge any of these armchair commentators to come here, to speak with those who lived under the Communist's and to look them in the eye and tell why it's so great. They'd either think you were crazy or just a complete idiot.
Edited to add: The stories of the NKVD (secret police KGB) are very interesting too. People just disappeared in the middle of the night, whole families just not seen again. People didn't know what was going on at first, but then word started getting around. People would use the NKVD for their own score settling. If someone had a dispute with a neighbor, they tip off the NKVD that they said something anti-government. No more neighbor. Men who wanted other men's wives would tip off the NKVD, now that woman is single. Children and family were educated eventually to tell on their own parents or relatives as the state was bigger than the family in daily life. The fallout from this is still apparent today. You don't talk to strangers, if you aren't good friends with someone, to ask them how they are going is viewed as offensive and with suspicion. You keep your distance from people, you can work with people for 5 years and still not know if they are married, where they live, if they have kids etc. It's very telling just how traumatized the whole country is. The idealologies of both groups bought out the worst in human nature.
I live in one of those ex-Soviet countries. Despite that fact, I've had arguments online with students that have never been here, that are unwilling to accept the atrocities committed in the name of communism. It's dumbfounding when tell them about the memorial right near where I live, dedicated to the 1 in 5 people murdered or disappeared under the Soviets and they just play it down like it's nothing, or there is some other explanation for it...or worse they openly admit and celebrate that it happened because they must of been bad people. A lot of those victims were family members of resistance fighters. That was the favorite trick of the Communist's, you go against us we kill you and your whole family. The memorial wall is filled with many people with the same last names and you get a real understanding of the terror.
The last conversation I had about this, the person had the audacity to say, I bet that number is less than those killed by capitalism in your country......facepalm. Since getting out from under the Russians this country has had an impressive economic boom and the standard of living and services has increased significantly.
Gold! Still laughing.
Europe here. Most Europeans are either indifferent or want Trump to win. He is a God in Eastern and Central Europe. I think most of Europe would like a wall built too. Most of the violent crime here is done by either Non-Europeans or Russians.
Australia only has 2 weeks of oil reserves at any given time. If China were to disrupt the Malacca Straits where all the oil tankers pass through to Australia they would be screwed.
Also Australia's submarines are an absolute joke. They are very loud and easily detectable.
Yeah I like that even better. I'm not a Russian speaker so can only rely on others translations. Thanks for your post.
I hear ya! My father lived in a tent in a swamp for the first 7 years of his life. Worked 3 jobs to put himself through medical school and went on to work at the top levels of medicine in the world....my 'woke' half sister hives him shit all the time fur being a 'rich white guy'....then puts her hand out for money.
I left home and refused any money from my family. Worked 3 jobs too and ultimately moved across the world and started again by doing the same. It's not hard to find a job and make money, in fact it's easier in the long the long run than relying on others or government.
That reminds me of another saying "Corey, Trevor, smokes, let's go."
It may of actually come after the fact based in how it all played out.
You seen Estonian women? Google that shit bloke. My partner here is weeks away from giving birth. It's also an ultra conservative society that hates immigration, inefficient government and freeloaders. The real question is why aren't you here?
Also the capital is like the European Silicon Valley, only without the neckbeards.