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A reminder to all you far left and far right nutjobs that think Joe Biden has done nothing significant in office (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/politicalmemes@lemmy.world
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[–] 128 points 2 years ago (20 children)

"saved democracy in Europe"? i'd argue democracy works better here than in the US of A, and certainly not due to any US president

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  • [–] 34 points 2 years ago (15 children)

    Saved from a Russian invasion. It's a bit exaggerated, but not entirely untrue I believe.

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  • [–] 29 points 2 years ago (14 children)

    Europe has contributed more money than USA, so they can share a little less than half the credit.

    It's basically the same deal as WW2 - sure, the USA has had a big impact - but Europe's not exactly shirked its share of the heavy lifting.

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  • [+] -7 points 2 years ago (13 children)

    You are comparing a single country to an entire continent though

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  • [–] 17 points 2 years ago (10 children)

    But don't forget that the EU and US have very comparable surface area and population

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  • [+] -7 points 2 years ago (9 children)

    Who told you that? Google the populations.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago (8 children)

    EU is slightly over 448 million people vs 332 million in the USA.
    4.233 million km² in EU vs 9.833 million km^2^ in the USA.
    91 billion USD equivalent support from EU (including the EU organization and EU members) versus 75 billion USD from the USA.

    91/75 = 1.213...
    448/332 = 1.349
    If you want per capita you get 0.203 (unit not given, they are the same for each comparison) per capita from EU, versus 0.225 per capita from the USA. The numbers based on area will be a lot worse for the USA.
    To be clear; yes, the USA has contributed a little more per capita, but less in absolute terms. There's a maximum of 35% difference in the populations between the EU and the USA. That's "very comparable" when it comes to such large populations.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (7 children)

    Then there is a lot of varying census data. When I searched, the site said 780 million. I wonder if some sites still include the UK and others are maybe restricting the definition to the Schengen area.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    It's because some people are using Europe in its proper continental usage, and some people using it really mean the EU. In this thread we're discussing the EU because it's a comparable entity to the US as covered in a previous reply.

    FYI the UK is a shade under 70m population the last time I checked - nowhere near enough to add 300m to Europe's population.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    Any count of Europe's population that is over 700 million is including Russia, which is 140~150 million that shouldn't be included when trying to answer the question about who has contributed more per capita to fighting Russia.

    If someone wants to give an explicit list of the countries that should be counted for populations regarding the question of "who has given more to help the war in Ukraine, the US or Europe?", we can get to the bottom of this real quick.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago* (3 children)
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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (2 children)

    I mean, he's right in that the population of EU seems to have two very different numbers. If you Google it, the first two results agree on over 700 million and it isn't until the third result that you get 400 millon. Your argument literally goes either way depending on the definition of "Europe".

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    There's no definition of Europe at all in play here. It's the EU. A specific subset of countries, which is not the same as Europe. So what I wrote only goes one way. I'm not quite sure it's an argument, really. I presented the facts, and said that something with a maximum difference of 35% is very comparable. The first result I got through Google was the numbers I have given, which are also the official numbers from the European Union itself. That should be a lot more correct than other numbers you could find.

    If you want to google it, make sure you use "EU population", not "Europe population". Or you can look at that link I gave, which gives data not just for the EU, but a lot of other European countries as well.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    a continent united through trade, (mostly) shared currency, open borders, and a union that governs over member countries each having their own laws.

    Now compare it to the US, united through trade, open borders, shared currency, and a federal government that governs member states that each have their own laws.

    obviously there are major diffences between the two but for the sake of comparison in the "who put more effort into something" debate comparing US and Europe on the grounds of "single country vs many countries" is rather silly

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago

    Well the other person said you can compare based on surface area (wtf?) and population. Googling population of Europe gives me a number that’s twice the size of the USA. So per capita, assuming they’ve both given the same effort, the USA has given twice as much as Europe.

    Come up with a metric that’s not silly then.

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  • [–] 18 points 2 years ago

    Not only that, but Putin has essentially started a 2nd cold war, with Iran and China as allies. This has not been prevented, the US is just helping fight it while they can (Trump clearly won't, and it's clear GQP majority in congress has stopped a big portion of this aid).

    In regards to "saved democracy", the US should look to Europe to save its own. It is because of coalitions based democracy based on a plurality of parties that values compromises even if each party has their own goals, that reactionary populism has been denied because of its inability to compromise or make promises that could be trusted. In Europe, third party votes matter, and party shenanigans to keep candidates out by dividing votes during primaries is not a thing. Europe is still susceptible, but not as much. At least manage to stop a near century of gerrymandering, can the US at least do that?

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