clutchtwopointzero

Shopping mall "cops"

...and kids, that's how Putin won the war against the concept of privacy, and Trump got indirect benefit out of it

Bridges can be rebuilt when you get a decent person in office.

This the major defect of US governance that is being laid bare now. American presidentialism puts too much power on the hands of the president, which can result in schizophrenic foreign policy

Yes. Very little reason to trust the United States now. Countries will tend to get very transactional with the US, and shift their allegiances to China or EU

Right. There aren't assets there to take and sell. Offices are rented. Equipment depreciates really fast as technology moves on. IP rights are not worth that much since there are many alternatives and some technologies they developed are unique to their own tech stack, and the trademarks are radioactive garbage.

All that influence and goodwill the US accumulated after WWII is going to dust

I bet he can also walk stilts easily

The way Nixon screwed up South Vietnam back in the 60s kind of indicated how the US puts excessively too much power in the hands of its presidents and result in random foreign policies

Fair argument. My point, however, is that many, many Palestinians wanted out to avoid suffering but the PLA and then Hezbollah made it purposefully difficult for them to leave so that those political leaders would have people forcibly kept there to help bolster their personal political agendas. Being expelled is not right but if people want out to avoid suffering, they should be allowed to go

I understand where you coming from but that view seems half informed. The whole cultural identity argument was also pushed by Arafat as a way to force Palestinians to stay in Gaza instead of assimilating into Israeli society or leaving to Egypt, Syria, or Jordan