Are we witnessing the collapse of America?

Iran and North Korea are ruled by the military, with the egomaniac dictators being puppets. If they seriously attempted to launch nukes knowing damned well the US would turn their entire country into a radioactive waste land, their own guards would shoot them. The Roman emperors had their own Germanic guards, specifically to prevent being assassinated by their own military but, thankfully, nobody gives the bastards that kind of freedom today, unless they are a poor banana republic and can't afford better.

The real worry these days, is something like biological weapons, which current estimates place at requiring less than a million dollars for a trained researcher to make in their basement, while advances in things like CRISPR technology are rapidly driving down the costs further. Nor will the situation get any better in any other field of research.

 

I don't agree with your sentiment for the president.

I think China and Iran are problematic. North Korea too. But I feel like the pathway to peace is through diplomacy.

I don't fault Obama for extending diplomacy to Iran, if that's what he did; i don't know/didn't follow politics at that time. I think he was a fantastic leader and diplomat.

President Trump is mostly about hate. His campaign depends on it.

I'm not into arguing. I only want to be clear about things instead of shrouded in some kind of nostalgia for a bygone era, or stymied by hate.

 

It can be done so much cheaper. People have been using biological weapons for thousands of years. It's still a simple matter of tossing a corpse into the water supply. Refining biofilth can be done in a trailer park and atomized by some creep pretending to wash windows on Wall street.

Chemical weapons are also pretty easy. All you need to extract poison sumac oil is alcohol. Then spray it on any surface (like the toilet seats in the executive washroom) for a dandy blistering effect for anyone who touches it.

So far nobody has scratched the surface of the potential we have, particularly in developed nations, for ordinary citizens to become amateur bio/chem weapons users. Acid attacks certainly qualify. The chemical weapons we see in these riots (er, uh peaceful protests) are readily available mace/tear gas/pepper spray and sometimes wasp/hornet spray. But the users of that shit are learning why it was so precarious in World War 1, the wind can change. And blow your chemical shit right back in your face.

So we'll likely see bio/chem attacks in other places like public transportation, shopping malls or targeted specifically like a corporate headquarters or sports arena. A place where wind isn't an issue. I've been expecting this sort of thing since well before 9/11. Primarily because it is so cheap and relatively simple. I'm kind of surprised we haven't seen it more often already.

 

One advantage Iran has diplomatically is that they lay claim to never having been the aggressor in any conflicts. All of their actions to date have been claimed as defensive. And nobody seems to be able to prove their connections to various global terror events. Iran has played this very well, even made Carter look like a fool when he had the perfect opportunity to invade Iran and bomb their infrastructure back to the 19th century.

It seems to me that the US is waiting for absolute proof that Iran has a nuke so they can justify the attack that Carter wouldn't even consider. If they test a nuclear weapon, it doesn't mean they will have them forever. It means it's time to clean house. And bombing the infrastructure back to the 19th century will grind nuke production to a halt. The waiting game is particularly dangerous for Israel since they are the likely first target for an Iranian nuke.

And this game has been played by every president since Carter. Obama delivered pallets of cash to keep it from happening on his watch. Sure, it was already their money. And it had been substantial leverage for other presidents. But Obama needed a bonafide deal to ensure his administration wasn't the launching point for a nuclear war.

I can't read Trump on this issue too well. Since he has already allowed the democrats to goof him up for a couple of years now I can only wonder what kind of capitulation he might present to Iran. He'd be in the company of every president since Carter, so there's no personal shame in it if you think of it as policy. Somehow though, I don't think it will be so easy for him. Of course if Iran nukes Tel Aviv, all bets are off and Trump will be forced to react (though not necessarily with nukes).

 

I don't see Trump being about hate, but I understand why some people see him that way. He is a very limited man, with a lot of issues that preclude him from being an effective leader. But the real question is is he good for America, and on balance, jerk that he is, I think the answer is yes, he is. His mistakes are largely reversible by the next administration, whereas say, Hillary would have just lead us further in the direction of the collapse that this thread is dedicated to.

Not into arguing either .... am open to discussion.

 

Because if Iran gets a nuke, they'll immediately just use it of course.

 

Not likely. Nukes are worth more as a deterrent. It would give them instant leverage in the region. But only if they can mount it to a missile. The first successful nuke in North Korea was too big, like half the size of a truck. Very dated technology. Now of course they have much smaller nukes and missiles with substantial range.

So we're living in an exciting time again.

When the Berlin Wall came down we had an odd time of peace because up to that point we all lived our lives under the notion that a Soviet nuke was less than 20 minutes away. But, then we got 9/11 and came to realize that nukes were not the only way to kill large numbers of people. So we're back to perpetual dread.

 

I doubt it would be immediate. But their having nukes would be a major strategic change. Actually, they may not "have" them- they may just be in a position to assemble them within days. A lot of dimensions to this issue.

 

A corpse won't do it or we'd already be dead after the Mafia's first fight. Thankfully, we have modern medicine, or we'd still be suffering from the black plague, which people still contract in the southwest US, usually from rats hanging around dumpsters. The real strength of using cheaper approaches to biological weapons, is you can cost a country billions just by spreading the flu.

 

You were saying?

 

Love thy neighbor, build higher walls, shoot anyone that comes over the wall, then raise rent. That's not hate, its real estate. Shove a few of them in ovens, and the cost of land goes up. The Nazis need woodchippers.

 

Get a grip, people. The U.S. is nowhere near the verge of collapse, although Trump's divisive leadership makes it seem that way. I think most of us still value the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Another term of Trump's court packing may seriously erode those and the separation of powers that have kept dictatorship in check and the rights we hold dear, but I suspect there's a limit to how far Republicans can go without a major popular backlash.

 

crash and burn. baby.

 

Yep,

(Burn baby burn) disco inferno
(Burn baby burn) burn that mother down..........

 

There is no government to collapse. You could kill Donald Duck and all of congress, and nobody would miss a beat. Everyone would keep right on voting for whoever advertises the most and pretending they have a functional government. The mass media now runs the country as far as the public is concerned, and all they care about is making a profit from a country where over half the population insists they lie to them. Beam me up Scotty, their primitive AI is the only intelligent life on the planet.

 

Trump is getting us closer everyday!!!

 

Looks like it's going down the drain but not so easily.

 

Capitalism works, it's just that extreme, unchecked, no holds barred, "fuck the very society upon which it's mounted upon" type of capitalism doesn't.

 

Yes America is falling and the Chinese are better.

 

Hardly surprising that China is doing so well, since the US and most of western Europe are sending them all our money along a one way street.