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The age of your account has absolutely nothing to do with who sees your posting.

Making new ids every now and then is strange, there is absolutely no need for that unless you are divulging something that might cost you your job or that you're embarrassed to share.

As for your 'come to Europe' call, America needs critical Americans just as much as Europe needs critical Europeans. The better solution would be to push for change locally, rather than to instigate a brain drain.

Europe has just as many problems as the US does, the only difference is that we do not yet have a European president with sufficient power to wield to cause real trouble. But we're getting there. And then what would you tell any Americans that you've tempted here with greener pastures? If you want to improve the world the best place to do it is right where you're living.

Making new ids every now and then is strange

Cycling through IDs online seems like a great way to prevent stuff from haunting you later. It's hard to predict what will turn out to be embarrassing or can cost you your job later.

In theory, you would need to be very careful to prevent a determined adversary from chaining those IDs together and back to you. In practice, it seems unlikely that anyone would be that determined.

Some of us are outraged by where the U.S. is going but stay to try to fix it. Otherwise you get adverse selection effects, like when all the non-crazies left New Hampshire.

Plus have you ever had a European burrito? It's not pretty.

Well, at least there is finally passable sushi being made in Zurich. That's a very, very new thing.

All kidding aside - the euro countries are no better than the US in these areas. They have different code-names and the agencies are different, but they're all going the same direction.

You're just plain wrong. Not about the sushi. Europe doesn't have the means nor the corporate-government cooperation that the u.s. has for spying. It happens in Europe, even Switzerland, but for good, not evil. For example, Switzerland reoprting to the Red Cross the CIA rendition flights that it learned through its satellite communications monitoring program.

There's decent Mexican inn Basel. A Mexican and 1/2 Mexican Swiss have a restaurant.

Europe's a big place. My corner of it had a secret CIA prison.

Also there's a Vietnamese restaurant here called "Hong Kong Lounge". The crimes don't end at the US border.

Poland? Wasn't there political fallout from that?

About as much as in the US.

By which he means, not nearly anything close to what could even remotely be considered enough.

We in the EU like to smugly look at the USA with an air of superiority. But we're not much different — there is a small group that is outraged, and most people simply don't care.

Also Romania.

Btw, yes I know that it was reported to the Red Cross anonymously, not officially.

"Some of us are outraged by where the U.S. is going but stay to try to fix it"

Do you truly believe you'll be able to change anything? Remember, people that reason about these sorts of things are the exception, not the rule. The majority just gobble up whatever "militaristic propaganda" (as one of the siblings called it) is fed to them by the media.

I make the best MoFro burritos and tacos. I'll come and cook for everyone! I think the tequila is worse than the burritos though. o,0

What are you doing to change the system?

I got a bumper sticker!

> like when all the non-crazies left New Hampshire

Huh?

This is why I haven't taken countless opportunities to move to the US from Toronto.

Willingly working in America is supporting the surveillance and military state. Yes, Canada is part of Five Eyes, but the political will to surveil everything is centred in America and the UK, Canada is just along for the ride because the cost to our defensive interests is too great to go against our NATO / NORAD arrangements.

Europe's management has it's own set of problems.

I might add, Europe has also been at war for most of the time it has been inhabited. Just because parts of Europe have taken a break for the last 60 years doesn't negate this.

I expect that it'd be difficult to find any major region in the entire history of the world with 60 years without war.

Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if that was even built in to humans on a sociological level. The recurring need for sword/spear/arrow/cannon fodder has been a socially acceptable way to prevent accumulation of an excess of (male) population. As soon as there are too many disgruntled people, those in power start to worry. Sending this cumbersome segment of population off to be killed has been, historically, a perfectly valid way to deal with the problem. (It has also provided a very convenient way to direct attention away from domestic problems.)

Nature shows the same tendency. When a local population of a species grows too great, lack of resources forces some of them to migrate outside their "normal" region. The inhabitants of the regions under invasion fight back, and eventually things return to an equilibrium.

I'm pretty sure a bunch of old realms having long time land disputes and family feuds and ethnic disavowals for over a thousand years is different from an industrial military complex that keeps conjuring up wars for oil and to keep itself well-oiled, and worse yet stirs its fat finger in the world's cup in the name of self-righteous capitalism.

I wouldn't call the hundred years war, Napoleon, WWI and II family feuds or minor family/ethnic land disputes.

Europe also has a long and bloody history. Sadly it seems violence and tribalism are intrinsic to the human condition. Hopefully we fix this at some point.

(I'm not trying to justify the actions of the US incidentally. I don't approve of war for profit. But it is hardly the first time an empire has engaged in wars of profit.)

I think the u.s. Has been at war for all but 21 years of its existence. I could be wrong - it was a stat from a website with an agenda.

That's nonsense. The US was not involved in armed conflict from 1920 (end of involvement in the Russian Civil War) to 1941 (start of <edit: American involvement in> WWII). That's 21 years right there. Maybe they're saying that 21 years was the longest period between military conflicts.

> The US was not involved in armed conflict from 1920 (end of involvement in the Russian Civil War) to 1941

Except (among others):

1) The US intervention in the insurgency in Cuba (the "Sugar Intervention") which ran from 1917-1922.

2) The US intervention in China from about 1922-1927.

3) The use of the US military to clear the protesting "Bonus Army" of US veterans in Washington D.C. in 1932.

There may be 21 years without armed conflict by the US in its history, but they aren't 21 years in a row.

I think you're stretching the term "armed conflict" beyond any reasonable usage. Would you consider Indonesia to be engaged in "armed conflict" in Lebanon because they contribute troops to UN peacekeeping there (UNIFIL)?

The original commenter is trying to compare the number of years the US was involved in military conflicts vs. Europe. If you're going to include events as obscure as the sugar intervention (of which I found very little mention in books about Cuban history and US/Caribbean relations) then I doubt the comparison would be very meaningful.

UNIFIL isn't an intervention as (like in China where the intervention was to protect US, etc., imperial interest in Shanghai from groups directly targeting them) or on behalf of (as in Cuba, where the intervention was directly on behalf of the government against rebels) a principal belligerent, so I think the attempted analogy fails.

It was a relatively quiet patch in the warring , but a quick look at Wikipedia shows a fair few conflicts during that period including fighting internally against native Americans. Civil unrest with military action, landing troops to protect foreign interests which included shelling and shooting. It all depends how you define armed conflict. I'd say soldiers and guns = armed conflict. Others would say that a declaration of war was required. Have a look at this Wikipedia list of military actions - it may not be outright war, but it wasn't peace. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_mil...

1941 was not the start of WWII. It started in 1939.

Not if you're Chinese, or Abyssinian.

The conflicts that became WWII started at different times in different places.

Yes, but the question is how many years has the United States not been at war. The US did not enter WWII until 1941.

What problems, btw? Surely nothing even close to the scope of the u.s.

Riots is Spain and France. Civil war in Ukraine. Faltering Euro...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/08/spain-one-bn-on...

Problems are all over the world. Europe has them too and more may be coming. Going to Europe won't remove a person from problems. It will simply switch one set of problems for another.

I might add... the US is a big and diverse country. Things that might be a problem in one area are not a problem in another. Don't agree with the international military actions of the US? Well... I agree. The US is too quick to use violence usually and doesn't take a long term view. But this is often done (as of late) with the secret approval of the managers of Europe who generally also benefit from this aggressive stance.

I mostly agree, but remember that evil doesn't stop just because you remove your complicity from it-- it has to be actively contained or else it just continues to spread.

I agree that the US is a force for evil in the world. Getting other Americans to believe this is extremely difficult, as it is directly contrary to decades of militaristic propaganda.

I left. And the country I moved to has lurched even further into the realm of "authoritarian police state" than the US.

I'm of the opinion that all Western governments are headed down this path, inevitably. It's going to take a lot of violence and bloodshed (read: murdering the rich in their sleep) to "fix" this.

>> murdering the rich in their sleep

Well, you're a pleasant fellow.

I'm a realistic person. That's what it usually takes to fix these situations.

Pick up a history book.

The US is still full of good people and so long as those people are allowed to have guns, I'm staying.

Once the government disarms us, I'll probably leave. That will be the final nail in freedom's coffin.

I can't wait to disarm you, brother. And the country will be better for it. Hand over those guns!

Sure. Let's make sure only the government has guns. That always works out well, nothing bad ever happened with that.

Our democratic government has never used force illegally, violated our rights, and has never exceeded its Constitutional authority. That's why there are so many popular posts on HN lauding the US government for its benevolence.

Let me ask you, specifically, why would you want to disarm me?

Take away guns, I have knife. Take away knifes, I have fertilizer and diesel fuel. Take those away, I have propane tanks and model rocket engines. Take those away, I have beer bottles, gasoline, and rags.

Take all that away and we can't have BBQ's because no one has fuel to get there, propane to grill, beers to drink, knives to cut meat, and rags to clean up. I don't want to live in your "safe" world.

Bother, you have effect confused with cause. Guns don't cause violence. People cause violence and will use what ever tool is at their disposal to have that effect.

Lots of brave down voters with no logical discourse to offer today.

Perhaps because there are plenty of countries whose populations aren't armed, yet still capable of hosting a BBQ?