I Did Not Think That It Could Get Any More Stupid

If it's good enough for Bogie, it's good enough for me

I was misinformed.

It appears that Trump's lust for Greenland can get even stupider, or at least the cadre of those supporting the policy can get even dumber. 

It appears that the the prospect of establishing "Freedom Cities" in Greenland is giving the tech bros a stiffie.

I would note to these folks, that a similar attempt in a far more accommodating and less dangerous local, rural New Hampshire, because some people insisted that it was their business and no one else's if they wanted to feed bears, with predictable results.

Living in Greenland is far more difficult than living in New Hampshire, and polar bears are far larger, and far more aggressive, than are the black bears that are the only member of the family Ursidae in the Granite State.

Doubtless, any such attempt will result in a collapse through technical issues, fraud, or bear maulings.

I favor the latter, particularly for Marc Andreeson. 

This past week, President Trump removed any remaining ambiguity about his intentions toward Greenland. During a White House event, he declared he would take the Arctic territory “whether they like it or not.” Then he laid down what sounded like a mobster’s threat to Denmark: “If we don’t do it the easy way we’re going to do it the hard way.”

Trump also reportedly ordered special forces commanders to come up with an invasion plan, even though senior military officials warned him it would violate international law and NATO treaties. In an interview with the New York Times, Trump said, “I don’t need international law.

……… 

Given the massing opposition to Trump’s quest for Greenland, and questionable security benefits from annexing the island, what’s really going on here?

………

But they stop short of examining the forces that may be actually driving the minerals agenda: tech billionaires like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, who see Greenland not just as a source of rare earths, but as a laboratory for their libertarian economic and social experiments. These tech-billionaires envision unregulated “freedom cities” in Greenland, free from democratic oversight, environmental laws, and labor protections.

Ken Howery, Trump’s ambassador to Denmark and a PayPal co-founder with Thiel and Musk, has reportedly been in talks to set up these low-regulation zones.

There’s an ironic clash of interests here: the national security establishment wants strong state control over strategic territory. The tech-billionaire funding Trump want the opposite: a deregulated playground for their anarcho-capitalist experiments. Both share a common blindness to Greenlandic sovereignty and Indigenous rights.

I'm hoping for bear maulings, lots, and lots of bear maulings.