Comments
By shubhamjain 2026-01-236:036 reply > Going forward, the U.S. government will continue its global health leadership through existing and new engagements directly with other countries, the private sector, non-governmental organizations, and faith-based entities. U.S.-led efforts will prioritize emergency response, biosecurity coordination, and health innovation to protect America first while delivering benefits to partners around the world.
The funny thing about this administration is that they label existing system as "bad" and "corrupt", use that as justification to abandon it, and then proceed to recreate the same thing different way.
By hackyhacky 2026-01-236:081 reply The point is to enable corruption that benefits current office-holders and prevent any activity, corrupt or not, that benefits anyone else.
By 0928374082 2026-01-236:161 reply See Goldstein, "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism" (1949)
By jasomill 2026-01-239:30 “For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.”
By xingped 2026-01-236:13 You think they will actually replace it with something similar though. They won't. They have no desire to do that. Even in name. Just like all their other supposed plans - it's just smoke and mirrors and no one will actually do any such thing.
I dunno, reading it in context of the whole statement, "...and its inability to demonstrate independence from the inappropriate political influence of WHO member states" deserves a bit of focus. The UN is structurally designed to give China and Russia outsized influence. Coordinating technical matters like healthcare through the UN does seem a bit unwise given that everyone is posturing up for some sort of Cold-war or potential WWIII style scenario. I don't think we've seen much deescalation of tension in the last decade.
Better to leave the bandwidth of the UN free to focus on diplomacy without distractions, the military situation is urgent.
By hshdhdhj4444 2026-01-2313:07 > Coordinating technical matters like healthcare through the UN does seem a bit unwise given that everyone is posturing up for some sort of Cold-war or potential WWIII style scenario.
On the contrary, the fact that we have to coordinate technical matters like healthcare through the UN is a large part of the reason why the Cold War remained cold and we had WW2 within 20 years of WW1 but no WW3 in the 80 years since.
Until the US decided to re-elect a literal madman, the necessity of coordinating on technical matters was obvious to all, which meant these countries weee constantly talking, building relationships and communicating with each other which helped prevent minor conflagrations from escalating.
> The UN is structurally designed to give China and Russia outsized influence.
An interesting assertion. I presume you are implying outsized influence over the US (or do you mean every other country?). I'm honestly curious: can you describe this structural design?
The thing that jumps to mind is the Security Council, which they can parley into diplomatic favours from other people. And the whole point of the UN is that it was the victors of WWII explaining to the rest of the world how international affairs were going to work, so I'd be pleasantly surprised if the special privileges stopped there.
And even without that, the UN isn't really set up to handle technical matters. It is a diplomatic club. The point is to give people a seat at the table without considering their competence.
Perhaps they mean that Russia, a corrupted warmonger weak country, has veto power, while more powerful, free and democratic countries have not.
By jjav 2026-01-2310:36 > proceed to recreate the same thing different way
Not a same or similar thing in any way. Everything that is being torn down is being replaced by grifter schemes where all that money is funneled to personal pockets.
By RajBhai 2026-01-236:08 NAFTA bad. USMCA good.
By 0hw0t 2026-01-236:37 Art of the Deal
> faith-based entities
Look, believe what you want, but praying literally has no known demonstrable deterministic scientific or medical effect on people
Not sure how it is in the US but in Germany there are many faith-based entities providing regular health services. Malteser would be one of them.
These church-owned entities in Germany are almost 100% government fincanced [1], while abusing a loophole in the German constitution to discriminate their employees for religious reasons. For example, the Catholic ones are notorious for firing employees that get divorced. This system is an absolute disgrace, but the churches are still too powerful in German society and have so far been able to block any attempt at fixing the constitution.
[1] https://www.malteser-international.org/en/about-us/how-we-wo...
It’s not uncommon in the U.S. either. Providence Health is a Catholic nonprofit that owns 51 hospitals, including several of the big ones in Seattle. It was a big deal when they bought Swedish and people were afraid they would stop offering abortions even in cases of medical necessity.
By snehk 2026-01-237:36 My point was that they don't get funding to pray and instead provide real medical services.
> the Catholic ones are notorious for firing employees that get divorced
Wow.
catholics> divorce is bad mmkay?
also catholics> refuse to openly discuss the 2 biggest causes of divorce, sex and money
(I once got a dating profile banned... twice... on EHarmony... simply for expressing a sexual preference!)
By pmarreck 2026-01-2314:22 I am ENTIRELY fine with faith providing moral support or justification to tangible human benefits. One of my favorite (and possibly world-famous) hospitals is St. Francis Heart Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Francis_Hospital_(Flower_H...
I am not fine with government funds being used to support "prayer" as a means to a more healthy end. In fact I think this arguably violates the 1st Amendment to the Constitution.
By King-Aaron 2026-01-236:10 There is literally no point invoking research and factual information into an argument with a religious person.
By plagiarist 2026-01-236:201 reply I sure wish demonstrable facts had mattered to the constituents at any point in time over the last 10 years.
By King-Aaron 2026-01-237:571 reply Amathia runs rife in these people.
By pmarreck 2026-01-2314:24 I don't know how this is the first time I'm hearing this word, but thank you for that lesson! "Amathia" is indeed a source of evil IMHO.
By pixxel 2026-01-2313:57 [dead]
By ChrisArchitect 2026-01-236:24
