The BEST Guide to POLAND
Unanswered  |  Archives 
 
 
User: Guest

Posts by Tacitus  

Joined: 6 Jul 2017 / Male ♂
Warnings: 2 - OQ
Last Post: 1 day ago
Threads: 2
Posts: 1,382

Displayed posts: 1384 / page 9 of 47
sort: Latest first   Oldest first   |
Tacitus   
31 Dec 2021
News / Green electricity in Poland [41]

Not that this a particular smart way if you also want to decrease Carbon emissions, but it is likely going to be much cheaper long-term than using nuclear energy.
Tacitus   
30 Dec 2021
History / Chances of Moscow becoming part of Poland again? [102]

You do understand what excess death means right? Those people died in addition to those you would expect to die based on previous years since the pandemic started. Based on those figures, Russia lost several times more people relative to its' size than all the other Western countries (whose populations siffer from high obesity rates and hogh median ages, factors which make Covid more deadly).

Or in simple terms: Russia hast lost more people to Covod than the USA despite having slightly more a 1/3 of the American population.
Tacitus   
30 Dec 2021
History / Chances of Moscow becoming part of Poland again? [102]

The reports of excess death rates since the pandemic started are btw. also based on official Russian statistics. If anything, they might still be too low.

themoscowtimes.com/2021/12/03/russias-excess-death-toll-passes-810000-a75729

rferl.org/amp/russia-covid-life-expectancy/31547862.html

google.com/amp/s/rferl.org/amp/russia-covid-deaths-double-numbers/31536128.html

And like I said, there are many more articles available.

There have long been suspicions that the Russian government has been hiding the true death toll, and those numbers confirm this suspicion
Tacitus   
29 Dec 2021
History / Chances of Moscow becoming part of Poland again? [102]

Tacitus, always take a deep breath and count to 10

I already do, which is why I only reply to your most inane posts.

You praise Russia, while I point out that it is failing its' citizen during the biggest crisis of the last 76 years.

The Russian government has downplayed the number of Covid victims in thr past, but the excess death rate reveal the true picture. Up to 1m people have died.... That is more than three times the number of Polish victims relative of its' population size and five times the number of victims of Germany.
Tacitus   
29 Dec 2021
History / Chances of Moscow becoming part of Poland again? [102]

Yeah, who needs a working infrastructure and hralth system outside of Moscow when at least the subway looks beautiful. NK has also relatively beautiful looking subways as well.

Meanwhile, Russia reports more than 1m excess deaths thanks to Covid, but who needs hospitals when you have tanks and missiles?
Tacitus   
24 Dec 2021
News / Poles say a big YES to our European Union [957]

in London democracy is done differently

Indeed it is. They select their head of state through his ancestry, part of their second chamber of parliament is selected by this as well, and their FPTP-system - that no one would choose today as election system - regulary awards the majority to a party that gets less than 50% of the votes. How democratic... .
Tacitus   
13 Dec 2021
News / Poles say a big YES to our European Union [957]

If more Poles would had appreciated the old Commonwealth

People often only appreciate what they have once it is gone. The Roman Empire is perhaps the oldest and best example. Yeah it was heavily flawed, but entire generations could live without direct threats of war to them, something we only experienced again after 1945.

No doubt many of those who now villify the EU would come to miss it, because they would realize that things they are just now imageing (like being dominated by a group or country) would feel much worse once it actually happens.
Tacitus   
12 Dec 2021
History / Royal Family still in Poland? [79]

You simply don't know what you are talking about.

Your post in a nutshell. Your ignorance is so high that you don't really realize how laughable your claims are. You could avoid this by simply reading one or two books about this subject.

James Charles Bergquist's Daily Life in Immigrant America, 1820-1870: How the First Great Wave of Immigrants Made Their Way in America might be a good start.

Please educate yourself before you continue to make a completw fool out of yourself.

Wrong again

Look up how the Irish or Italians were treated. That they had the wrong religion (Catholics) was just the start.

there are few if any accounts of people

There were thousands of Germans alone who fled after the failure of the 1848 revolution, many of whom ended up serving in the US army and fighting in the Civil War. The monarchies in Europe in the 18th and 19th century were incredibly opressive and caused many people to flee. Those are not comparable to the kind of monarchies we have today, which are de facto parliamentary democracies with some dynastic atavism.

the typical left

I suppose anyone who does not agree with you is a Marxist?
Tacitus   
11 Dec 2021
History / Royal Family still in Poland? [79]

@Poloniusz

That was an era of planned, legal and orderly migration

I urge you to read an book by an actual historian about the waves of migration in the 19th century because then you would know how silly your entire post is.

Very little about this would look "orderly" to us today. Registration for instance was rudimentary at best and often non-existence. There was no need, since they were left to their own devives anyway, and interestingly often had to deal with similar sentiments muslims have to live nowadays.

And let us not start with your peculiar idea that there was not a significant of people fleeing the political realities at home... .
Tacitus   
9 Dec 2021
History / Royal Family still in Poland? [79]

There are very few if any accounts throughout history of people trying to escape from a kingdom.

Are you kidding? Millions of people migrated from Europe in the 18th and 19th century in order to luve in the USA, particulary from Ireland and after the failed 1848 revolution. Nowadays monarchies in Europe have been thoroughly defanged and are more or less theme-park versions of republics and thus no longer causing people to escape, but you can easily find examples of other monarchies in the world that produces refugees. Not to mention that there are also brutal dictatorships like North Korea and Syria that are all but monarchies in name which pass power along a dynasty.
Tacitus   
30 Nov 2021
News / Will America send troops to fight a Russian invasion of Baltics and/or Poland? [281]

not even Germany can offer free healthcare and free higher education

Germany does not offer free healthcare but universal one, which interestingly was invented by bonna fide reactionary Otto von Bismarck... higer education is also free except for a few federal states that demand a modest university fee.

Never mind how universal healthcare would most likely be cheaper long term for the USA than the current system. Currently the US spends twice as much per capita than Germany for an inferior service.
Tacitus   
29 Nov 2021
News / Will America send troops to fight a Russian invasion of Baltics and/or Poland? [281]

Just look who constitutes the SPD party in the Bundestag. 1/4 of them are from the JuSos who are very much pacifists and have in the past advocated for North Stream and against the 2% aim. The leader of the SPD in the Bundestag is Mützenich, whose policy goals I already stated. Honestly, the way the SPD prevented the Bundeswehr from buying drones really infuriated me... they were not following arguments, they just wanted to score cheap points with the pacifit voters. At least the Left party is consistent with their pacifist policies. You can not send soldiers to fight and not arm them properly!

And the Green party.... well, they might be for sanctions and all, but expecting them to agree to higher defence spendings is really a joke. We all know what they will want more money for, and it won't be for the army!

I really don't think it could become worse

Merkel was the guarantee that this would not happen. With her gone, and with Covid having ravaged our budget, I am rather pessimistic for the future.
Tacitus   
29 Nov 2021
News / Will America send troops to fight a Russian invasion of Baltics and/or Poland? [281]

I never knew Canada

I mean who is realistically going to invade them?

16 years of Merkel definitely left their bad mark!

You are being dishonest here. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, successive governments have reduced the Bundeswehr in size, and in the 2000s there was a big consensus among the German public and government that Russia was no longer an enemy, and that we would need the army for peace keeping and nation building. That only changed in 2014, and even then Merkel and the CDU (and partly the FDP) were the only ones actually advocating for reaarmament. The SPD (with whom the CDU had to form a coalition) was especially bad in this regard. They made sure that any increase to the military budget should also be matched by an increase to the development fund budged (thus making large increases impossible), have long prevented the Bundeswehr from buying armed drones, and followed Mützenich's denuclearization agenda, which put NATOs nuclear deterrent in Germany at risk. There may be issues on which the new government might perform better than before, but Merkel's departure is bad news for the Bundeswehr and Germany's role in NATO. Obama knew that Merkel was one of the few German politicians who were not catering to the German pacifist mentality, which is why he appreciated her.
Tacitus   
29 Nov 2021
News / Will America send troops to fight a Russian invasion of Baltics and/or Poland? [281]

To be honest, what I am really concerned about is not Putin, but about the actions of his successors. Because by now we know what Putin's deal is. He wants to stay in power, and because he is unable to adress Russia's serious domestic problems, he had to build up the West as an enemy. Crimea will now be used as his great success by his propaganda machine, it will always be brought up when Russians grow discontent with falling wages and pensions and rising food prices. Putin is in the end however pragmatic enough to only take calculated risks.

We do not know what type his successor will be. A successor who will not be able to benefit in the same way from previous foreign political "successes" and who will likely be forced to face some serious domestic turbulences when Russia's long-term problems really come to the fore front. Backed into a corner and no "easy" conquest available, who knows what he will do.

Not to mention how successive American governments will be more and more occuppied with containing China, which in return will make Eastern Europe more vulnerable.
Tacitus   
3 Nov 2021
News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2971]

Realistically speaking Pro choice advocates might be better off waiting a few more years, giving time the chance to reduce their opponents among the old people instead of losing a public vote on it prematurely and having to live with it for a generation or so.
Tacitus   
2 Nov 2021
News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2971]

Yeah, it is the woman who has to go through the agony of pregnancy and labour and who ends up with all the possible health risk. While I do support more rights for fathers (especially when divorced) in general, that is a call they have rightfully no say in. Woman can not prevent a man to e.g. get a vasectomy either.
Tacitus   
2 Nov 2021
News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2971]

It is worth noting that cases like this helped in Ireland tipping the scale towards legalizing abortions.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Savita_Halappanavar

It is easy to have a black-and-white view on such complex issues like abortion, but the reality is more complex and requires more flexibility in order to account for extreme cases. Otherwise you end up with women dying as we were still in the Middle Ages, or women (or even children) being forced to carry their rape baby to term.

I only say that abortion is not a healing method

It can be one in cases where it is necessary to save the mothers life, like cutting out a tumor, especially when the baby is dead or dying and threatens to kill the mother as well. It can also be part of the mental recovery of a raped woman.
Tacitus   
31 Oct 2021
News / Years of Poland in the EU - assessment of pros and cons [1139]

Yeah, aside from the self-inflicted immenent and long-term political and economical, the UK is doing "fine".

the EU experiment is good or bad,

Poland is probably the country that benefits the most from the EU. Financially and economically it is a clear win without a downside, and in political terms the EU provides one last line of defence for Poland's democracy against the increasingly autorcratic PiS.
Tacitus   
30 Oct 2021
News / Years of Poland in the EU - assessment of pros and cons [1139]

Buyers' regret on the part of brexiters and a need to rationalise that.

Indeed. Everybody knows that Brexit was and is a terrible idea, but humans sadly have the tendency to double down rather than rethink their convictions. Pretty much everything the Brexiteers promised to counter the warnings of the Remainers has turned out to be wrong. "Easiest trade deal in history" "No border in Irland" "No need for much paperwork for import/export into the EU" "A quick trade deal with the USA". Of course according to their logic, this is not the result of falsw promises, but others trying to sabotage Brexit....
Tacitus   
28 Oct 2021
Life / Has feminism and lesbianism progressed in Poland? [644]

Considering how many of her adversaries within her party she overcame, that seems safe to say. Merkel has been accused of many things, but never of being a puppet of her party.

first female PM

Apologies, thanks for the correction.
Tacitus   
28 Oct 2021
Life / Has feminism and lesbianism progressed in Poland? [644]

It is rather interesting to note that when it comes to women in high government offices, conservative parties in Europe have a surprsingly good effort. The Tories made Thatcher the first prominent female politician to lead a country and later had with Theresa May their second female PM. Merkel became the first woman as chancellor of Germany, with her party colleague von der Leyen becoming the first woman in charge of the European Comission. PiS gave Poland its first female PM, although she was little more than a puppet.
Tacitus   
28 Oct 2021
Life / Has feminism and lesbianism progressed in Poland? [644]

Something I find rather interesting is the portrayal of murders done by the husband/boyfriend against their wife/girlfriend. In Germany those were often euphemistically called "Beziehungsdrama" (relationship tragedy) but a few years ago the coverage of it started following an international trend and called it "femicide" instead. I was initial sceptical about this term, but after realizing how many women are murdered by their male partner, and that they were indeed ultimately killed because of their sex, it now seems appropiate.
Tacitus   
21 Oct 2021
Off-Topic / Where are you from? [59]

Just a matter of time. Germans are mostly reasonable people, and once it sinks in that the fear of muslims is anything but reasonable, they will change their mind.
Tacitus   
7 Oct 2021
Off-Topic / Germany hunts down a 96 years old woman. [85]

By the same token was the other murder theoretically preventable, e.g. by leaving the EU. In both cases the price would be unacceptable.
Tacitus   
7 Oct 2021
Off-Topic / Germany hunts down a 96 years old woman. [85]

But that didn't happen, didn't it!

You are reading things into it that simply are not there.

People get sadly murdered every day and no one cares. The murders at Hanau were simply large enough to warrant more attention. 3 killings by 1 culprit is, as cynically as it sounds, not that extraordinary. You can find several cases like this. 12 murders however are very unusual, and that is what receives more attention. That the culprit in Würzburg was by all accounts stark raving mad probably also played a part, there is little use in speculating about his motives or how it could happen if the case is clear like that, while the case at Hanau illustrates a serious concern about lone wolves radicalizing themselves via the Internet.

I could easily tell you where the foreign identity of the culprit assured that the case got more attention than it originally would have. When I lived in Freiburg, there were two murders of female college students in a brief period of time. One was done by an Afghan asylum seeker, the other by a Romanian truck driver who later turned out to be a serial killer. Which case do you think made national headlines?