USA vs GERMANY

[~Lc~]

Its all really a matter of perspective. Some might say Germany is being rather cruel, using the EU as a post colonial reconstruction of pre-WWI Europe, Germany being the leader of many smaller nations. I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with the EU, but the smaller nations whose development is supposed to be helped, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, essentially any country that isn't Central or Western Europe is being drained economically and directed politically by Germany. Talk about independence... They sold them this , and never let it play out the way they said it would. Politics, go figure!

I'm interested to hear the reasons behind your argument! Please explain

I second that, I think there may be a small minority of people who may think that Germany is bossing around the medditeranean countries because of the bail outs... but Bulgaria, Romania and Poland?

I think in way you are right, super powers have tendencies to meddle in all countries affairs and to declare war against small enemy countries. But I still don't the situation whether is it Germany would be solely declared super power or EU. As a super power you will only declare war ( for own interest) but Germany as far as I know has no enmity with anyone unlike United States. So chances of bullying other countries are low. And even if Germany does commit some atrocities, EU will interfere. And please don't compare USA with Germany, because USA have enemies ( which you are absolutely saying right. US might harass these countries through fair and foul means while Germany have almost none.) Plus Germany bans death penalty, torture etc while USA did not banned.

That's a little confusing, I think you were the one making the comparison between the US and Germany I can think back to a time when Germany had a few too many enemies. Would you not consider that states such as North Korea are as much an enemy of Germany as they are of the US? The enemies of not the nation but the economic and political ideals which runs the country.

I'm not really in with the whole super power discussion, I think the concept of a super power seems to be outdated, or at least that's the impression I'm getting from wikipedia... It's been associated to the British Empire, The soviet union, and post WWII USA. Arguably, the US is the sole remaining one? The world is moving towards coalitions rather than sole powerful empires with a central rule.

I suppose I can humor the idea that the EU may right to be such a power, but the point of the EU was initially cutting the wars in Europe and an economic agreement... I'm not sure if expeditions into foreign territories are in their agenda.

[Black Bird Lockheed]

The concept of super power is just outdated for the name sake. I don't know whether you have noticed it but USA is giving subsidies to wheat which is really ruining the developing states like Africa. Now what WTO is doing there? According to WTO they must be impartial to all member countries irrespective of their powers. As for the death penalty, I believe that USA must be giving considerable amount of capital punishment ( China carries out 1000 executions per year. China is a emerging as a super power.) all for criminals and terrorists. Now at that time what are the Non profit Organisations like Amnesty International, not interfering. Similarly India rarely carries out executions and there are 17 people currently in death row ( Most of them were people who assassinated former PM, some of them who attacked the parliament, and 3 forest brigands who blew up 22 police people and killed scores of people. And guess what? India is receiving a lot of letters from various countries and Amnesty International is pressurizing India to abolish death penalty. Would you call that fair. There China and USA are doing mass executions without any disturbances whereas India which is not as powerful as these 2 countries is getting such a response ( India is already on terror radar). Don't you call that as a privilege of a super power? Of course you are right no one call themselves super powers but the reality is different.

[Brienna]

As a US citizen, born and raised, I'd really like to be able to argue that the US is more humanitarian, but I just can't. The evidence isn't there, save for empty gestures and promises. Yes, Hitler's Germany was responsible for the Holocaust against the Jews and went on a major power trip (taking over Europe and whatnot), and Hitler was a popular political figure at the time, but Germany has really made up for it with their post-war legislation. It could even be argued that an extremist like Hitler was only popular due to the circumstances and consequences of WWI, after which Germany was treated like utter crap by the other powers, and felt a bit underappreciated. Hitler promised to bring Germany back to previous strength, which sounded great at the time.

The US on the other hand has the tendency to not practice as it preaches. With hostility towards immigrants, crazy relaxed gun laws, and close-mindedness in general (which could be because I live in the Bible Belt), as well as aggressive foreign policy and more lenient with torture and the death penalty, the US isn't in a place to compete with Germany.