Well well well… the request to join NATO was done just a few months BEFORE the election, after several changes of government since the previous elections.

People in power specifically didn't want the people's opinion about that one.

But just to be on the safe side, they also did a lot of mediatic fear mongering about russia invading sweden very soon™, which is ludicrous if you look at a map and see that there's a sea in between.

Anyway in sweden the ruling class had wanted to join NATO for at least 10 years, if not more. But the people would have not liked severe welfare cuts to buy expensive bombs. However the invasion of ukraine provided the perfect excuse.

We even warned the Soviet Union of Operation Barbarossa, using information we obtained from cracked Nazi codes. When one of my grandparents fled Norway due to the Nazis they were given asylum. During WWII Sweden was led by a political coalition consisting of the peasant's party and the social democrats, and in Germany, social democrat leadership got put into concentration camps as they were seen as communist-adjacent.

>Yet the calls from Swedes for the US to provide more Ukraine aid are deafening at this point

The Russians have probably threatened us behind the scenes and have probably been saying things that are quite extreme. Otherwise the social democrats wouldn't have flipped and had us join NATO. Furthermore, it's not like the US didn't want Ukraine to join the western block, so why shouldn't they help, now its attempt to do so is being met with an invasion?

I don't hate America. There's much good about it, but the US should rule the US, the Swedes Sweden, and the Ukrainians Ukraine. Just as we help Ukraine, it is reasonable that the Americans do too, since it's near us, and since we're kind of in this together.

>Where is the criticism from Swedes when Russia murders its own journalists or China restricts freedom of speech?

Literally all the time? When has Swedish media stopped caring about people Politovskaya, etc

>Please, if you are so anti-american, impress upon your countrymen to stay away from NATO. You people are clearly not interested in allying with the US.

I am kind of personally opposed to our membership, but I don't hate America, nor am I necessarily anti-American as such. But I don't want US power in Europe, we should rule our lands, and the Americans theirs.

If the Americans have influence here, then that is influence we ourselves do not have. Consequently, it can't be permitted. But this doesn't mean that we can't be friends. It means that the US can't have the keys to our house, or put cameras in it, or hang around the windows with binoculars, or decide what we buy, etcetera.

I understand the US wanting to get at the maniacs after 9/11. 9/11 was much worse than is immediately apparent and there are details that anger me even now, that make me want to reach across the world and dash a whole bunch of people against walls and furniture, so I understand the desire to do something, even the extraordinary rendition stuff, to some degree, but you can't do this kind of thing. You weren't willing to actually go after the Saudis, which you probably should have, instead of the aggression against less relevant countries.

Justice for individuals is important and soverignty is as well and even justified lashing out, when it is at odds with justice for an individual or soverignty of some foreign country, then it's not easy to go along with the lashing out of a country that is justified.