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On November 04 2015 23:44 OtherWorld wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2015 23:08 WhiteDog wrote:On November 04 2015 22:41 OtherWorld wrote:On November 04 2015 22:10 WhiteDog wrote:On November 04 2015 04:33 LegalLord wrote:
Well they did have something along those lines but ended up choosing constitutional monarchy instead. Went much more smoothly than, say, the years following the French Revolution. Because the french were attacked by the entirety of europe ? And their aristocracy betrayed them ? The aristocracy was european already by the way and the rise (and unification) of nations was a way for people to defend theirselves agains those a-national famillies (much like the rise of nationalism in europe is a defence against the mondialisation). Modern arguments are in the same vein btw (they are aristocratic in a sense) : the international power of europe is not enough and we "need" to act collectively to weight in international politics, but in reality it has nothing to do with the masses for which China or the US are not a good exemple - the poor in China, the US or Russia are not better off than in switzerland. French aristocracy did not "betray" the French lol, they merely tried to either flee certain death or try to re-establish their position as the most powerful class of society. Besides, the French revolution had nothing to do with fighting "a-national" families - whatever that means ; only the very highest part of the aristocracy (kings and close relatives) were used to multi-national breeding -, it was mostly a combination of hungry people being angry and not-noble (and sometimes noble), educated people seeing a way to profit off that. Yes the aristocracy and the king betrayed the french, on various occasion, and even before the bastille. The idea that revolutionary are a bunch of "angry" people is a counter revolutionary argument. I think we might not give the same meaning to the word "betray". Could you give examples of what you mean? To me, the aristocracy defended their position in the society. [edit : saw your edit. Yeah, and what? Putting the army in alert state when there's a risk for the governement's stability is betrayal? Jesus, that's a strange conception of betrayal. Honestly, the very conception that you can betray "The French", that you can betray a whole people as if everyone in this people was the same, is absurd] And no, the idea that revolutionaries are a bunch of angry people is cold hard truth. Can you point me to one example of revolution - or attempt at revolution - in history in which the revolutionaries were not angry? Anger is the starting point of a societal revolution. You need anger to go down in the streets. You need anger to kill someone because he doesn't have the same opinion as you. You need anger to make blood shed in the name of an ideal.
Louis XVI basically asked foreign countries to attack France ? He put the army during the general state... And the idea that the revolutionaries are angry is dubious because you make it seem like it is irrational and emotional. They didn't kill people "because they had a different opinion" : they were suffering domination, exploitation, tortures, etc. I suggest reading a little history to get back to facts, the history of the revolution is very lively nowadays (see Sophie Wahnich).
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On November 04 2015 23:54 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2015 23:44 OtherWorld wrote:On November 04 2015 23:08 WhiteDog wrote:On November 04 2015 22:41 OtherWorld wrote:On November 04 2015 22:10 WhiteDog wrote:On November 04 2015 04:33 LegalLord wrote:
Well they did have something along those lines but ended up choosing constitutional monarchy instead. Went much more smoothly than, say, the years following the French Revolution. Because the french were attacked by the entirety of europe ? And their aristocracy betrayed them ? The aristocracy was european already by the way and the rise (and unification) of nations was a way for people to defend theirselves agains those a-national famillies (much like the rise of nationalism in europe is a defence against the mondialisation). Modern arguments are in the same vein btw (they are aristocratic in a sense) : the international power of europe is not enough and we "need" to act collectively to weight in international politics, but in reality it has nothing to do with the masses for which China or the US are not a good exemple - the poor in China, the US or Russia are not better off than in switzerland. French aristocracy did not "betray" the French lol, they merely tried to either flee certain death or try to re-establish their position as the most powerful class of society. Besides, the French revolution had nothing to do with fighting "a-national" families - whatever that means ; only the very highest part of the aristocracy (kings and close relatives) were used to multi-national breeding -, it was mostly a combination of hungry people being angry and not-noble (and sometimes noble), educated people seeing a way to profit off that. Yes the aristocracy and the king betrayed the french, on various occasion, and even before the bastille. The idea that revolutionary are a bunch of "angry" people is a counter revolutionary argument. I think we might not give the same meaning to the word "betray". Could you give examples of what you mean? To me, the aristocracy defended their position in the society. [edit : saw your edit. Yeah, and what? Putting the army in alert state when there's a risk for the governement's stability is betrayal? Jesus, that's a strange conception of betrayal. Honestly, the very conception that you can betray "The French", that you can betray a whole people as if everyone in this people was the same, is absurd] And no, the idea that revolutionaries are a bunch of angry people is cold hard truth. Can you point me to one example of revolution - or attempt at revolution - in history in which the revolutionaries were not angry? Anger is the starting point of a societal revolution. You need anger to go down in the streets. You need anger to kill someone because he doesn't have the same opinion as you. You need anger to make blood shed in the name of an ideal. Louis XVI basically asked foreign countries to attack France ? He put the army during the general state... And the idea that the revolutionaries are angry is dubious because you make it seem like it is irrational and emotional. They didn't kill people "because they had a different opinion" : they were suffering domination, exploitation, tortures, etc. I suggest reading a little history to get back to facts, the history of the revolution is very lively nowadays (see Sophie Wahnich).
Louis XVI tried to maintain his power by using his international influence. What did you want him to do? Sit back and say "OK guys, I think you're definitely right, democracy is the shit and I have no right to be king. Do what you want." ?
And I think the 30,000+ people who died over two years during the Reign of Terror are happy to know they were exploiting and torturing their eventual killers. Surely it had nothing to do with factions struggling for power and killing people they suspected of supporting other factions. And it is always a pleasure for me to deepen my knowledge of the French Revolution, although I am probably not the only who should do so.
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On November 04 2015 23:54 WhiteDog wrote:
Louis XVI basically asked foreign countries to attack France ?
He asked his allies to help maintain peace in a country facing civil war ?
On November 04 2015 23:54 WhiteDog wrote:
He put the army during the general state...
Which any government would do to try to keep peace when risks are that high.
On November 04 2015 23:54 WhiteDog wrote:
They didn't kill people "because they had a different opinion" : they were suffering domination, exploitation, tortures, etc.
Initial motivation, probably. In the following years, the people they killed had little to do with those hardships. It's hard to tell when the reasons became pretexts, but aristocrats make for less than 10% of political executions; executions make for less than 3% of deaths linked to fights within the country (war/genocide in Vendée being the main contributor).
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On November 04 2015 06:11 Sent. wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2015 04:55 maartendq wrote:Austria seeks to limit the duration a refugee can stay in the country, as well as tightens the rules for family renion: migrants on special refugee benefits ("subsidiary protection") will be unable to bring their families over for three years, and after three years their refugee status will be re-evaluated, and canceled if the country they are from is no longer considered unsafe by the authorities. http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/oesterreich-grosse-koalition-verschaerft-asylrecht-a-1060939.htmlIn English: http://www.dpa-international.com/news/international/austria-to-put-time-limit-on-refugee-protection-a-47174950.htmlOf course, humanitarian organisations, left-wing parties and the UNHCR are not amused. It seems to me that the Greek crisis earlier this year and the refugee crisis now have completely polarised the political landscape. It's incredibly hard to find moderate voices in the whole debate. Personally I'd rather see countries invest heavily in assimilating (rather than integrating) the refugees into society by investing heavily in their and their children's education, but since the whole of western Europe is in budget consilidation mode (and will be for the forseeable future) the opposite is happening: countries want to spend as little money on refugees as possible. I'm also still convinced that well-funded and co-operatively run hotspots in the EU border countries is a better solution that tolerating the current streams of what are essentially illegal immigrants we have absolutely no control over. But then again, that'd require the EU member states to actually agree on something, which at this point in time is extremely unlikely (I can't believe than I'm getting as cynical as WhiteDog what EU affairs are concerned ;-) ). I don't think changing asylum/immigration laws will help as long as Europe (as a whole or just particular member states) doesn't have a working deportation system. There will be more money left to help real refugees if we'll have effective means of stopping illegal economic immigration.
In their defense it is incredibly hard to deport people who have no passports or other means of identification, unless you plan to just drop every black illegal immigrant in a random country in africa, or every middle eastern looking person in Afghanistan.
That's one of the advantages of using hotspots though. You can just move any illegal immigrant found within EU borders to those hotspots, and they would pretty much be forever denied entry into the EU, unless they are granted refugee status or have valid visas. In the former case they will be designated a country to live in, which they are not allowed to leave, to avoid all of them moving to the same countries and cities within weeks after arriving in their guest countries. While this does sound harsh, it would allow the guest countries to at least prepare adequate infrastructure for the newcomers.
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On November 04 2015 03:06 zlefin wrote:
I do not find that surprising, an overview of stuff in America also finds that the unelected people often do a better job than the elected people.
On November 04 2015 04:01 LegalLord wrote:
Swapping leaders every X years is not exactly a good way to breed experience. Tyranny is also a concern though, so it's clear that we need both.
There's actually no reason why the House of Lords isn't an utter cesspool of incompetence and corruption. The only thing I can think of is that the peers aren't actually under any obligation to turn up, so the ones that do inevitably turn up are the ones with an interest in the bill being passed in question. Also, they are supposed to be above party politics, so there's less booing and jeering.
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On November 05 2015 00:21 OtherWorld wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2015 23:54 WhiteDog wrote:On November 04 2015 23:44 OtherWorld wrote:On November 04 2015 23:08 WhiteDog wrote:On November 04 2015 22:41 OtherWorld wrote:On November 04 2015 22:10 WhiteDog wrote:On November 04 2015 04:33 LegalLord wrote:
Well they did have something along those lines but ended up choosing constitutional monarchy instead. Went much more smoothly than, say, the years following the French Revolution. Because the french were attacked by the entirety of europe ? And their aristocracy betrayed them ? The aristocracy was european already by the way and the rise (and unification) of nations was a way for people to defend theirselves agains those a-national famillies (much like the rise of nationalism in europe is a defence against the mondialisation). Modern arguments are in the same vein btw (they are aristocratic in a sense) : the international power of europe is not enough and we "need" to act collectively to weight in international politics, but in reality it has nothing to do with the masses for which China or the US are not a good exemple - the poor in China, the US or Russia are not better off than in switzerland. French aristocracy did not "betray" the French lol, they merely tried to either flee certain death or try to re-establish their position as the most powerful class of society. Besides, the French revolution had nothing to do with fighting "a-national" families - whatever that means ; only the very highest part of the aristocracy (kings and close relatives) were used to multi-national breeding -, it was mostly a combination of hungry people being angry and not-noble (and sometimes noble), educated people seeing a way to profit off that. Yes the aristocracy and the king betrayed the french, on various occasion, and even before the bastille. The idea that revolutionary are a bunch of "angry" people is a counter revolutionary argument. I think we might not give the same meaning to the word "betray". Could you give examples of what you mean? To me, the aristocracy defended their position in the society. [edit : saw your edit. Yeah, and what? Putting the army in alert state when there's a risk for the governement's stability is betrayal? Jesus, that's a strange conception of betrayal. Honestly, the very conception that you can betray "The French", that you can betray a whole people as if everyone in this people was the same, is absurd] And no, the idea that revolutionaries are a bunch of angry people is cold hard truth. Can you point me to one example of revolution - or attempt at revolution - in history in which the revolutionaries were not angry? Anger is the starting point of a societal revolution. You need anger to go down in the streets. You need anger to kill someone because he doesn't have the same opinion as you. You need anger to make blood shed in the name of an ideal. Louis XVI basically asked foreign countries to attack France ? He put the army during the general state... And the idea that the revolutionaries are angry is dubious because you make it seem like it is irrational and emotional. They didn't kill people "because they had a different opinion" : they were suffering domination, exploitation, tortures, etc. I suggest reading a little history to get back to facts, the history of the revolution is very lively nowadays (see Sophie Wahnich). Louis XVI tried to maintain his power by using his international influence. What did you want him to do? Sit back and say "OK guys, I think you're definitely right, democracy is the shit and I have no right to be king. Do what you want." ? And I think the 30,000+ people who died over two years during the Reign of Terror are happy to know they were exploiting and torturing their eventual killers. Surely it had nothing to do with factions struggling for power and killing people they suspected of supporting other factions. And it is always a pleasure for me to deepen my knowledge of the French Revolution, although I am probably not the only who should do so.
Well I don't really want to go into detail about the revolution for a few reasons : I'm not an historian I know I will say wrong things. But I also know your narrative is the narrative of the counter revolution - as I've read a little about the revolution.
First and foremost the terror started three to four years after the start of revolution, so resuming the revolution to the terror is a huge error.
Second, the terror started for reasons, mostly what happened the 20th of june 1792 (with pacific revolutionaries entering the tuileries and making fun of the king, revolutionaries who were afterward condemned for it by the parlament) and the 10th of agust, where peaceful revolutionary enter the tuileries again, but armed this time, and got killed by royalist only to fire back and take the tuileries : it did not came out of nowhere just for some desire to shed blood, but as a response (and I could add many other things to that list, such as the fact that the parlament decided to innocent La Fayette on the 8th of august despite the fact that he was a royalist and basically asked others to kill the revolutionaries that entered on the 20th of june).
Third, you don't understand the revolution if you don't understand that the french believed that they had to defend the nation - they even asked many times the national assembly to declare the "patry in danger", to no avail, until they actually started to do justice by themselves (and kill counter revolutionaries in septembre), at which point the terror started as a way to show the people that the parlament will not stay idle anymore.
Finally, you understate the importance of the counter revolutionary movement and of the royalist movement - for exemple, the idea that the prisons were full of royalist was not false. I suggest reading about the revolution rather than caricaturing it. You cannot really understand the terror if you don't restore the moment at least a little - or you are doomed to caricature the revolutiona and believe they were just "angry" people.
I already said it, but 400 000 to 500 000 french died between 1791 and 1799 in the war against other european nations after the revolution... so poiting out the - at best - 17 000 executed by guillotine, and the 25,000 who died in summary executions during the terror is king of short sighted.
It's amazing that some people actually believe here that it is normal, and not treacherous, to tell to the representative of the people that they will be able to change the state and the government and, at the same time, put soldiers around those representatives or even that asking for a foreign nation to wage war on your nation is not betraying your people - when you present yourself as the "father" of France. You have a very biased vision of the revolution (like a good french might I had, because it's the national sport to hate on the few moment in history where we actually did good).
edit : i'm reading some of my books about the revolution to find the real dates because I'm sure I'm wrong.
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On November 05 2015 00:27 Oshuy wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2015 23:54 WhiteDog wrote:
Louis XVI basically asked foreign countries to attack France ? He asked his allies to help maintain peace in a country facing civil war ? Show nested quote +On November 04 2015 23:54 WhiteDog wrote:
He put the army during the general state... Which any government would do to try to keep peace when risks are that high. Show nested quote +On November 04 2015 23:54 WhiteDog wrote:
They didn't kill people "because they had a different opinion" : they were suffering domination, exploitation, tortures, etc. Initial motivation, probably. In the following years, the people they killed had little to do with those hardships. It's hard to tell when the reasons became pretexts, but aristocrats make for less than 10% of political executions; executions make for less than 3% of deaths linked to fights within the country (war/genocide in Vendée being the main contributor).
In truth, "suffering and exploitation" are seldom the true reason that a civil war breaks out when it does, since there were many generations of "suffering and exploited" peasant classes that fared worse than those of the French Revolution did, and they didn't revolt. It's more a product of the time, in the sense that the Enlightenment era just preceded it. For example, a strange truth is that the czars before the Russian Revolution were among the most popular and well-loved in history, though evidently there were enough grievances to lead to the revolution. Historically, Louis XVI was not worse than his predecessors either.
As it turns out, "popular opinion" is a woefully inept way of managing a nation (modern democracy is far from simple popular opinion, and this is for the best), and the people who know how to best manage a nation are generally... the highly educated upper class that often make up the nobility. Which is why the Terror and its mass murders (and large-scale confiscation of property) turned out to be a horrendous idea, and why an emperor like Napoleon seemed like a solid idea.
Point is, overthrowing the old system is a bloody and self-destructive mess, and the French Revolution is a testament to that fact. With much less bloodshed any many fewer years of chaos, the same goal could have been achieved. Burning down the old system, as is the will of the populist peasant class, means that decades of progress are lost. Small anachronisms (that are more imagined than real - the current wealthy class in a nation like the US are hardly different from an explicit nobility) are a small price to pay for a stability that can lead to real improvements in the nation.
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With much less bloodshed any many fewer years of chaos, the same goal could have been achieved.
That's a big hypothesis and you have no way to prove it. Actually, all the non democratic state around the world are there to show you this comment is most likely false.
Louis XVI was not worse than his predecessors either.
There are many things that play a part in the existence of a social movement, even more for a movement that had such importance as the revolution, so of course the wrong doing of the upper class is not the only cause, but it is, in this specific exemple, at the heart of the motivations.
In truth, "suffering and exploitation" are seldom the true reason that a civil war breaks out when it does, since there were many generations of "suffering and exploited" peasant classes that fared worse than those of the French Revolution did, and they didn't revolt.
Absolutly untrue. The "peasant class" revolted way before 1789, but in an anarchist form, without any clear political motive. The french history is full of peasant violent revolts against their masters.
The history of the peasant class in itself is actually very telling : they were revolutionaries before the revolution and counter revolutionaries after the revolution. To someone like P. Bourdieu (in the book Le bal des célibataires) this historical fact is a proof that whatever they do, the peasant class does not have the political power to actually define themselves the reason for their actions and are always manipulated by dominant groups.
It's more a product of the time, in the sense that the Enlightenment era just preceded it.
There is also a big philosophical difference between the enlightment (who wanted to reform the aristocracy and abolish the church) and the revolutionaries (who wanted to reform the church and abolish aristocracy). Resuming the revolution to the enlightment is a big mistake, the most important thinker to revolutionaries was actually the one who basically criticized the enlightment the most (Rousseau) and most of the very pro democratic pieces wrote by thinkers of the enlightment, such as Diderot, were in fact printed after their death.
As it turns out, "popular opinion" is a woefully inept way of managing a nation (modern democracy is far from simple popular opinion, and this is for the best), and the people who know how to best manage a nation are generally... the highly educated upper class that often make up the nobility.
That's basically anti democratic, and a counter revolutionary argument. You picked your camp.
You guys are judging 1789 with XXIth century eyes.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
the basic idea of monarchy and for that matter exploitative and rent usurping class betraying a 'people' is correct and still is going on. whoever this lewis guy is he prob did the same.
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Germany's foreign intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), had systematically spied on friends and allies around the world. In many of those instances, the BND had been doing so of its own accord and not at the request of the NSA.
The BND spied on the United States Department of the Interior and the interior ministries of EU member states including Poland, Austria, Denmark and Croatia.
In October 2013, Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned spying on her mobile phone by saying, "Spying among friends? That's just not done." Apparently these words didn't apply to the BND.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-bnd-intelligence-spied-on-friends-and-vatican-a-1061588.html
Well, it is sad, though I am in no way surprised. However it does in my eyes destroy the foundation of the EU. I mean, you don't spy on your allies to defend yourself - you do it to get the upper hand. And this undermines the idea of the european union working together for everyone's benefit.
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Yeah look, Merkel is just another EU stooge - the goal of the EU is to undermine individual nation states within the EU and increasingly consolidate power over all former European nation states at a centralised location.
Here's a flashback from Merkel, back in 2010. She admits here that multiculturalism has failed, now she has approved 1,000,000+ per year.No other explanation is possible other than to undermine individual nation states within the EU,
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/17/angela-merkel-germany-multiculturalism-failures
Angela Merkel declares death of German multiculturalism
Chancellor Angela Merkel has declared the death of multiculturalism in Germany, saying that it had "failed utterly" , in what has been interpreted as a startling shift from her previous views. The German leader said it had been an illusion to think that Germans and foreign workers could "live happily side by side".
"We kidded ourselves for a while that they wouldn't stay, but that's not the reality," she said at a conference of the youth wing of her Christian Democratic Union party at the weekend, referring to the gastarbeiters, or guest workers, who arrived in Germany to fill a labour shortage during the economic boom of the 1960s.
"Of course the tendency had been to say, 'let's adopt the multicultural concept and live happily side by side, and be happy to be living with each other'. But this concept has failed, and failed utterly," she said, without elaborating on the nature and causes of this failure.
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Zurich15362 Posts
I wouldn't take anything said in front of the Junge Union too seriously. Visits there by conservative politicians are basically campaigning, and have more to do with assuring the conservative base that the leadership still shares their views than with actual policy.
I am sure you can dig up a quote from a Junge Union meeting on virtually any topic that contradicts actual policy decision.
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So what happens now that Catalan has voted to secede from Spain?
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People freak out. Then there is a negotiated exit, but not really because Spain and the EU don't want to encourage popular sovereignty so they will attempt to foist disproportionate amounts of debt onto the new state. And then there will be some sort of Greek- like standoff resulting in either abdication by the EU authorities or a cold war with periodic terrorism.
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Then Putin jumps out of the shadows and gives Catalonia a huge loan in exchange for a Russian naval base in Barcelona.
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The catalan parliament does not have authority to announce independence... So, nothing. Maybe they will manage to achieve bigger sovereignty, but will remain in Spain.
Spain can't let two of their biggest ports to just leave.
Also the success of Catalonia outside of Spain and EU is really questionable to me - no customs union, no free trade etc.
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Would they de-facto secede if the Spanish state is going to continue blocking the movement or would they prefer to stay within the nation at that point? Any Spanish people here?
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On November 10 2015 03:24 Pr0wler wrote:
The catalan parliament does not have authority to announce independence... So, nothing. Maybe they will manage to achieve bigger sovereignty, but will remain in Spain.
Spain can't let two of their biggest ports to just leave.
Also the success of Catalonia outside of Spain and EU is really questionable to me - no customs union, no free trade etc.
The US Colonies didn't have authority, or the Confederates, or the French in 1789, Taiwan in 1949 (or China depends on your POV). Its really just a matter of your people no longer sending taxes to the central authority in Spain. Then it is up to EU and Spanish officials whether they, essentially, wish to impose a blockade on the newly formed state, and whether they wish to wage war on the newly formed state. If they do neither, then all those other things are simple, they simply state they will sign an FTA with the EU (if they do not wish to implement the Euro) similar to England and since they have a transitional plan for moneys that will also be what it is.
Catalonia seems, to me, like it would work perfectly well as a free state, so long as there is not a massive conspiracy against her by EU member states.
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On November 10 2015 01:48 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
So what happens now that Catalan has voted to secede from Spain?
They're in Europe, and europe usually ignores referendums or make them revote until they "got it right". So I wouldn't worry about it. "If they vote yes, we'll go on, if they vote no, we'll continue".
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EU is a club of nation states. Several have secessionist areas in them. At least in the short term Catalonia would probably be a pariah.
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EPT
