NATO's 2% goal

[Speaker to Animals]

The Danish army has a union.

That is not a joke.

[BjornP]

Norway's off the hook for now, but Denmark has been mooching off us for years. They didn't even bring guns to Afghanistan (due to a Danish law saying that firearms cannot be used against muslims due to fear of rioting and respect for the Prophet) and their MRE's were apparently just some nasty pickled sardines with some dry ass cookies. I think Denmark should have to pay 4%+payback all that money we spent on you in WW2. Let's call it 1 trillion. The alternative is the US will destabilize another mid-east country and send another wave of refugees your way. Its up to you.

No. Denmark have been one of the more supportive NATO members. In a different way than Norway, but there's no doubt Denmark has been one of the best smaller nations when it comes to supporting all the adventures abroad. They did bring guns to Afghanistan. And they're not afraid to insult the muslims. Remember the whole caricature debate years ago. Denmark pretty much stood their ground, while most of the anglosphere tried to distance themselves from them, to not insult the muslims.

Denmark have had one of the largest casualty rates of the coalition forces in Afghanistan, due to them sending their troops to the most dangerous regions, and pretty much all they sent were combat troops.

There's a reason NATO's general secretary from 2009 to 2014 was their prime minister from 2001 to 2009. The Danes absolutely pulled their weight in that war.

When the current foreign minister was asked to describe his party's (Liberal Alliance - a classic liberal/neo-Liberal party) foreign policy in a TV interview in 2014, he summed it thusly:

We've been sitting in Folketinget (parliament) for three years, and of course we also have a foreign policy. Our foreign policy is, to do what the Americans ask us to.

Pretty succintly sums up seven decades of US-Denmark relations... no matter if it's the Social Democrats or Liberal party in the PM's chair, the foreign policy has been the same. During the Cold War, Danish parliament once voted on, and passed, a bill stating that no nuclear weapons must be stored or placed in Danish territory. The US asks the PM if they could store some nukes on Greenland.... and the PM at the time agrees, as long as they both agree to keep the deal a secret. Managed to keep that a secret from 1958 to 1995, when some government documents of the time were made public.

And yeah, alot of Danes at the time of the Muhammed cartoon nonsense were actually confused and felt a little betrayed when the Bush administration likened the cartoons to anti-Semitic caricatures.

[BjornP]

The Danish army has a union.

That is not a joke.

And that's a problem...because? Also, it's all military personnel. The army have their own union, the rest have theirs. Military servicemen can't go on strike, nor can they can locked out by their government employers. (Obviously) 67% of all people in the workforce, no matter their profession, are unionized, and those unions ally themselves within big-ass union federations like 3F who negotiate in the case of labor conflict with the equally-as-organized "unions" representing the employers (Danish Industry Danish Employers Association are the biggest). The union that represents the interests of the military, therefore have alot of civilian allies who will go on strike FOR them.

[Speaker to Animals]

I'll have to get with your union rep to see if there is a problem..

[BjornP]

Ah, I see... you're thinking Danish unions are as incompetent and inefficient, and that the "union rep" will bitch if you move a box and only teamsters are allowed to move those boxes, shit like that? Yeah.... nope. Basing your assumptions about other countries' unions and how they work, on your own unions, is a like when a Pashtun shepherder gets smuggled to Europe and starts fondling little boys, because hey!, that's the perfectly normal and why don't these crazy foreigners not know that?

[Fife]

When the Danish military union negotiates, who is it negotiating against?

In other words, who is the adversary of the rank and file Danish soldier?

[Speaker to Animals]

Ah, I see... you're thinking Danish unions are as incompetent and inefficient, and that the "union rep" will bitch if you move a box and only teamsters are allowed to move those boxes, shit like that? Yeah.... nope. Basing your assumptions about other countries' unions and how they work, on your own unions, is a like when a Pashtun shepherder gets smuggled to Europe and starts fondling little boys, because hey!, that's the perfectly normal and why don't these crazy foreigners not know that?

LOL, no. I am thinking the same thing as Fife, apparently..

[BjornP]

When the Danish military union negotiates, who is it negotiating against?

In other words, who is the adversary of the rank and file Danish soldier?

"Adversery"? There is no "adversery". Completely fallacious assumption. A wage or working conditions negotiation is akin to hammering out the terms of a sale. You either get what you want or not. Your employer is not an "enemy" just because you can't agree on wage or working conditions.

I know the assumption behind your question, and I've seen it here dozens of times in arguments against public unions: That to organize into a public union is the "public sector employee really organizing against the people!". That's about as reasonable, sane and neutral a statement as: "A private sector employee is really organizing against capitalism!". The tax-paying citizen is not an employer simply by paying their taxes.

A citizen is a citizen. People who work public jobs are citizens, therefore they have a citizen's right to organize into a union. If Americans want to curb each other's liberties, fine by me. We don't want that here, so there there is no "adverserial" relationship when someone in a public daycare, school or social workers want to go on strike.

[Speaker to Animals]

Comrade, there is no adversary; only the dialectic.

[BjornP]

Oh, given your frequent anti-capitalist screechings and love for totalitarian government, I bet you're growing a Stalin moustache even now, StA.