Comment by elmo2you | Hacker News Reader

Comment by elmo2you | Hacker News Reader

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> You can use this as a stepping stone to asking other countries to normalize their laws to be similar to yours

You are certainly correct, if maybe only in theory. At the rate things are going, good luck with any country freely harmonizing anything with the USA. The USA is more likely on a steady course of becoming increasingly less relevant to anyone but themselves.

A different president is not going to change that. The country's international policies (current and past), in particular its use of their relative economical and military power imbalance, have been abusive for way longer than just this last president. Ordinary citizens around the globe have become increasingly more aware of this, often from experiencing its unpleasant consequences. It already has become harder for many foreign politicians to keep giving in to US power play, to how it essentially treats the rest of the globe as its own territory. Expect things to get a lot harder for the USA.

Meanwhile, a growing group of people looks at the USA's internal affairs, wondering why on earth anyone would take any guidance or example from such a nation. I guess that plenty of US citizens will blame that all on the last president (certainly in part for very valid reasons), but the problem extends way beyond that. Regretfully, the USA just can't stop itself, for what it does internationally (mostly unknown to its own citizens).

Feel free to shoot the messenger .. it won't matter.

> The USA is more likely on a steady course of becoming increasingly less relevant to anyone but themselves.

While it is certainly true that the USA is loosing it's status as the world's only superpower, it is still very much the most powerfull country and will probably stay, if not number 1, at least in the top 3 for at least the rest of our lifetime. I wouldn't call that irrelevant.

However, the US has about entirely lost their status as a model. As-is, following US legislation would require some amount of apologetic discourse anywhere outside of North America. (That the US have left the international community for the most, or, at least, have proposed to do so – especially, when it comes to treaties and jurisdiction – doesn't especially help either.)

The US stumbled into becoming a model only due to the behavior of European nations constantly fighting each other every century.

Especially post Vietnam, it should never have been regarded as the model, humanity needs competing systems to better allocate risk.

On the other hand, it was exactly this loss of power, which allowed European states to overcome their long-lasting contest and to unite… Realistically, immediate post-Vietnam would have been too soon for this.

I tend to think of the US isolationist stance as a temporary consequence of their loss of total control. Like pouty child who would prefer to pass entirely on cake than to have to share it with their siblings. The frustration to not have the final say anymore is real but reality has purchase and in the end I expect the US to sit at the conference table like everyone else. After all, with it's still mighty power, it's in a good position to negociate.

Now I might be wrong, maybe the isolasionist mentality is more profound than that. An historical argument to show how this is stance is not new is the refusal for the US to enter WWII until Japan basically forced their hand on the issue.

> it is still very much the most powerfull country and will probably stay, if not number 1, at least in the top 3 for at least the rest of our lifetime.

That's funny. What do you really know, about where that power/wealth mostly comes from? Because last time I checked, it actually depends in almost every aspect on what the rest of the world thinks of the USA (including, not in the least important part, it's currency).

I'm even pretty sure that you would be surprised (probably even shocked) if you know how much business the USA does mostly covertly (if not clandestine) abroad, and what amounts of money are involved in that.

This is what I can tell you with a pretty good degree of certainty: during the last decade or so, plenty of the less-than-savory project, run by the USA abroad, have either dried up or been exposed/dismantled/destroyed. I have personally seen several of those go bust.

Less clear, and also with ant causation would be hard to prove, it did "miraculously" coincide with the USA ramping up their anti-Russia rhetoric.

Even a bigger step into speculative territory, one might even suspect that at least some of the turmoil at home in the USA, may have something to do with their most criminal elite no longer being as capable of getting their "fix" abroad, having to resort to exploiting the local population.

Either way though, I'm pretty convinced that most Americans overestimate how their economy has much intrinsic value .. if anything, I'd say it's more or less already bankrupt. Which is probably why we see all these wars, in order to prevent some key players from ditching the Dollar as trade/reserve currency. But that's all borrowed time.

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