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Although this thread does not function under the same strict guidelines as the USPMT, it is still a general practice on TL to provide a source with an explanation on why it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion. Failure to do so will result in a mod action. |
The United States of Europe could work out. It would be fun to watch them build it, that is for sure.
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On February 28 2017 02:18 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On February 28 2017 02:14 warding wrote:On February 28 2017 00:57 LegalLord wrote:On February 28 2017 00:55 warding wrote:
What issue? The issue of internal divisions within the union. Each "crisis" the EU has gone through within the past few years has shown a completely and utterly confused consensus that paralyzed its ability to deal with things. The US congress has an approval rating of 19% vs 76% disapproval. The country is as paralyzed as ever and the parliamentary houses seem unable to deal with things. The union is doomed and the days of the American republic are over. That, or western people post-Great Recession are grumpy assholes who mood-affiliate their responses to polls on their satisfaction with political institutions. Well the US did just elect a meme president and is as divided across partisan lines as it's ever been... Nations are held together by more than just economics though. Economic unions, not so much. The US for example just destroyed two economic unions (TPP, TTIP) and may very well kill a third (NAFTA).
US trade with Mexico is 0.35% of its GDP. Denmark or Portugal's trade with the EU is around 30% of its GDP. NL: 60%, DE: 23%. The smaller the country, the larger the share.
You see the difference right?
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On February 28 2017 02:36 warding wrote:Show nested quote +On February 28 2017 02:18 LegalLord wrote:On February 28 2017 02:14 warding wrote:On February 28 2017 00:57 LegalLord wrote:On February 28 2017 00:55 warding wrote:
What issue? The issue of internal divisions within the union. Each "crisis" the EU has gone through within the past few years has shown a completely and utterly confused consensus that paralyzed its ability to deal with things. The US congress has an approval rating of 19% vs 76% disapproval. The country is as paralyzed as ever and the parliamentary houses seem unable to deal with things. The union is doomed and the days of the American republic are over. That, or western people post-Great Recession are grumpy assholes who mood-affiliate their responses to polls on their satisfaction with political institutions. Well the US did just elect a meme president and is as divided across partisan lines as it's ever been... Nations are held together by more than just economics though. Economic unions, not so much. The US for example just destroyed two economic unions (TPP, TTIP) and may very well kill a third (NAFTA). US trade with Mexico is 0.35% of its GDP. Denmark or Portugal's trade with the EU is around 30% of its GDP. NL: 60%, DE: 23%. The smaller the country, the larger the share. You see the difference right?
Wrong number.
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On February 28 2017 01:30 LegalLord wrote:
It's the current iteration of the European project that is problematic. While I know you don't care much for nationalism and "the nation-state" it remains true that nationalism is an important force that isn't going away. A European project needs to respect the fact that nations are nations and that an "ever-closer union" is not the way forward.
Historically speaking the 'homogeneous' strong bordered nation state is a rather new invention and not an exactly stable one. 'Empire' like structures with deep integration in some aspects including military, the economy etc.. and city state like autonomy on the smaller level seem to be much more durable. So I think it does make sense for the European Union to move towards an ever-closer union, with enough autonomy on the other hand to allow for regional cultural, political differences and so on.
There are some isolated island nations to which this doesn't apply but the rigid, somewhat paranoid nation state with military sovereignty, especially when bordered by other such states is not exactly a recipe for success.
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On February 28 2017 01:59 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On February 28 2017 01:40 Acrofales wrote:On February 28 2017 01:30 LegalLord wrote:On February 28 2017 01:20 Acrofales wrote:On February 28 2017 00:53 LegalLord wrote:
And what if it stubbornly refuses to change, revealing that the issue is even deeper than it seemed? I'd point out that so far it has been quite capable of being changed. You say the EU only exists since 1993, but that's a bit disingenious. The Treaty of Maastricht rebranded the EEC to make explicit what had been implicit for a while: that the EEC was no longer only about economic issues. And the EU itself has already undergone a transformation with the Treaty of Lisbon. The EU in its current form is simply the 5th iteration (or insert other number here, perhaps 5 is perhaps too many or too few depending on what treaties you count as being an impactful reinvention of the union) of a supra-national body governing certain aspects in the European community. And I'm not opposed to that idea of a European supranational body. It's a necessity for a fair number of reasons - European nations do need that kind of support because they're left in a world where individually they're no longer very strong, and the economic ties do genuinely help stop the effect of imperial ambitions. It's the current iteration of the European project that is problematic. While I know you don't care much for nationalism and "the nation-state" it remains true that nationalism is an important force that isn't going away. A European project needs to respect the fact that nations are nations and that an "ever-closer union" is not the way forward. I mention the EU being <25 years old because people talk about "the EU" as if it were the entire 70-year-old integration project. It's not. Criticism of one is not criticism of the other. Having lived in about 10 different countries (most of them outside of the EU), I can safely say that nationalism is overrated. My current home would rather leave Spain than the EU, for instance. But if your stance is actually that you think the Treaty of Lisbon is untenable and a new treaty is needed to keep a functional European supranational body, we agree. I just disagree that that means it's the end of the EU. It's true that in a lot of countries, especially the ones doing most poorly, they hate their own government more than they hate the EU. And those tend to be the ones most approving of EU membership. When I say "the end of the EU" I mean "the end of the current 'Europe' project iteration, the one that calls itself the EU" rather than "the end of any form of alliance of European nations." The difference is, perhaps, that I would accept and even encourage a more aggressive means towards that end even if such an act will be very painful to those involved.
Without actually having any idea of what you seem to want to follow it up with that seems like an empty statement. So... you'd be fine with an EU "reboot" that calls itself the League of Europe, or European Confederation, to just give two ideas of completely meaningless namechanges?
Because I, on the other hand, see no reason to dump the name, but do feel that the image of the undemocratic, static European Union needs to change, and for that to happen, the governing bodies have to change.
In particular, I feel that a form of direct democracy is absolutely necessary, where the EU is governed by some form of semi-dynamic mandate that defines the limits of what they can and cannot decide on. I envision something quite similar like the governing contract for coalitions in a parliamentary system, but instead of it lasting for a single term, it is permanent, and can be changed by direct democracy (probably filtered through the parliament (so the mandate doesn't become incoherent... something similar to the Swiss system maybe). Of course, this necessitates changes in the Parliament, Commission and Council as well. To keep this whole thing working at a reasonable speed across all of Europe, some form of e-Government is almost certainly necessary.
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On February 28 2017 02:54 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On February 28 2017 01:59 LegalLord wrote:On February 28 2017 01:40 Acrofales wrote:On February 28 2017 01:30 LegalLord wrote:On February 28 2017 01:20 Acrofales wrote:On February 28 2017 00:53 LegalLord wrote:
And what if it stubbornly refuses to change, revealing that the issue is even deeper than it seemed? I'd point out that so far it has been quite capable of being changed. You say the EU only exists since 1993, but that's a bit disingenious. The Treaty of Maastricht rebranded the EEC to make explicit what had been implicit for a while: that the EEC was no longer only about economic issues. And the EU itself has already undergone a transformation with the Treaty of Lisbon. The EU in its current form is simply the 5th iteration (or insert other number here, perhaps 5 is perhaps too many or too few depending on what treaties you count as being an impactful reinvention of the union) of a supra-national body governing certain aspects in the European community. And I'm not opposed to that idea of a European supranational body. It's a necessity for a fair number of reasons - European nations do need that kind of support because they're left in a world where individually they're no longer very strong, and the economic ties do genuinely help stop the effect of imperial ambitions. It's the current iteration of the European project that is problematic. While I know you don't care much for nationalism and "the nation-state" it remains true that nationalism is an important force that isn't going away. A European project needs to respect the fact that nations are nations and that an "ever-closer union" is not the way forward. I mention the EU being <25 years old because people talk about "the EU" as if it were the entire 70-year-old integration project. It's not. Criticism of one is not criticism of the other. Having lived in about 10 different countries (most of them outside of the EU), I can safely say that nationalism is overrated. My current home would rather leave Spain than the EU, for instance. But if your stance is actually that you think the Treaty of Lisbon is untenable and a new treaty is needed to keep a functional European supranational body, we agree. I just disagree that that means it's the end of the EU. It's true that in a lot of countries, especially the ones doing most poorly, they hate their own government more than they hate the EU. And those tend to be the ones most approving of EU membership. When I say "the end of the EU" I mean "the end of the current 'Europe' project iteration, the one that calls itself the EU" rather than "the end of any form of alliance of European nations." The difference is, perhaps, that I would accept and even encourage a more aggressive means towards that end even if such an act will be very painful to those involved. Without actually having any idea of what you seem to want to follow it up with that seems like an empty statement. So... you'd be fine with an EU "reboot" that calls itself the League of Europe, or European Confederation, to just give two ideas of completely meaningless namechanges? Because I, on the other hand, see no reason to dump the name, but do feel that the image of the undemocratic, static European Union needs to change, and for that to happen, the governing bodies have to change. In particular, I feel that a form of direct democracy is absolutely necessary, where the EU is governed by some form of semi-dynamic mandate that defines the limits of what they can and cannot decide on. I envision something quite similar like the governing contract for coalitions in a parliamentary system, but instead of it lasting for a single term, it is permanent, and can be changed by direct democracy (probably filtered through the parliament (so the mandate doesn't become incoherent... something similar to the Swiss system maybe). Of course, this necessitates changes in the Parliament, Commission and Council as well. To keep this whole thing working at a reasonable speed across all of Europe, some form of e-Government is almost certainly necessary.
I think you vastly overestimate peoples average ability and access to use the internet. Not even mentioning immigrants you'd be cutting out a significant amount of of people from being able to vote for things.
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On February 28 2017 00:04 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On February 27 2017 18:33 Biff The Understudy wrote:On February 27 2017 07:56 LegalLord wrote:On February 27 2017 05:03 Biff The Understudy wrote:On February 24 2017 08:33 LegalLord wrote:
Hopefully Le Pen can pull it off in the end. Lol. I don't even know if you are trolling, completely ignorant or, more worryingly, if you are actually sincere. The FN is a party of absolute scumbags. The only thing that unite their leaders and militants is that they are all horrible people. Ultra catholics, skinheads, nostalgic of the colonial Algeria, neo nazis, countryside racists, you tell me. On the local politics level, the FN is doing enormous damage, because they don't have an infrastructure and we end up with people sitting in cantons that are simply morons, to a point it's tragic. I work with local politicians in France, and one wouldn't beloeve the people that are being put in responsibility by the FN. They are super angry, completely dumb, very mean, and can't write a sentence in French without making ten mistakes. The FN was fonded by former pro-french algeria veterans (the sinister OAS), by nostalgic of Petain and the collaboration, and by members of groups such as Action Francaise and Occident. Those were hardcore fascists. Not like the alt right, real, authentic fascists. Le Pen was the kind of guy who was editing and selling SS songs recordings. What do you want LL? The end of civilization? A world war? A genocide? A dictatorship? I ask genuinely. You parrot badly digested uber populistic far right ideology all day long, but what do you stand for at the end? I know who the FN is. I remember them from the history cubes on French African imperialism, and I know what the party represented then. I know exactly why it is that they are so scary to you, and it was amazing to me how far they managed to come over the years. I don't know to what extent I buy the Marine transformation of the party, but I know that keeping the name of the FN isn't really a great sign. What I want is rather simple: the end of the EU. I didn't always feel this way, of course - but the refugee crisis and all the events that came afterward have shown me that there is likely to be no future for the organization. Regardless of all the bluster that the Eurocrats put forth there is no consensus; it's a fractured alliance of convenience coated in the illusion of ideological unity. The longer it survives, the worse it will be when it finally comes apart. I don't evaluate Le Pen from a domestic perspective, the same way you don't really give a fuck what Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump is going to be like domestically. I don't live in France, so I don't have to deal with the consequences directly. I understand perfectly why it should be troubling; if I were a Frenchman I would probably vote Fillon who is more ideologically along the lines of what I would like without being fascist-spawn (to say nothing of what Marine represents herself, because that's quite a bit harder to gauge). I think your other exasperated remarks - end of civilization, world war, dictatorship, genocide - are far overblown. But she would probably be a president for the dredges of society and that would not make me happy if I had to live with it. I will mention it once more that I tire of your exaggerated exasperation. Yes, I am perfectly aware of why Le Pen is terrible for you, same with Trump. But you sort of undermine your position by going too far. And I'm sure the elephant in the room is the question of "what's good for Russia" and if that's why I support the end of the EU. Simple answer is that no, that's not the reason. Whether or not the EU is bad for Russia is a question of where the allegiances lie. If the EU chooses to be a coalition of determined opposition to Russia, then yes, it's bad for Russia and it's best for it to go away. If, as the case actually is, it's a set of nations who aren't exactly friendly but aren't exactly unfriendly, then it's not clear that it would be beneficial. If the question was about the US or NATO then that would be a different story; there really is no peace between the US (or its most loyal Russophobic vassals) and Russia and until we (the US) have a president who understands how to make peace, there isn't going to be (a clown who says he loves Russia isn't going to do that). Trump is going to fail miserably on improving relations with Russia, for one. No, the problem with the EU is that it's a sad excuse for an organization that is at one side pushing to become a United States of Europe, and on the other side pulling itself apart. The kind of crises it's going through right now aren't of the "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" form; they're more of the "you're not quite dead but you lost a few limbs and are permanently crippled" persuasion. It's time for a mercy killing. What are you talking about? I was against Trump first and foremost because of what he is doing and will do in America, and my first concern is for american people and immigrants living in America. I won't wish for a horrendous leader in a major country because that would match some badly digested geopolitical consideration of mine. You clearly know nothing about the EU, except if I understand, that you didn't like the way it handled the refugee crisis. Mate it didn't. It should have, but countries did, independantly. I know, you think arabs are "scary" as you said earlier and don't like when they come to the West (that's called xenophobia, but nvm). But meanwhile Europe actually functions very well despite urgent needs to change its institutions. It's the strongest alliance in the world, and transforms a patchwork of countries into a unified union that can resist great powers, starting with Russia, but also the US. It provides its citizens peace, in the previously conflict ridden place in the world. Tell me, how do you think the baltic states and Finland would feel without the EU? I have lived and worked in 6 different countries in 10 years without ever asking permission or going through democracy. That's Europe. Now, ask yourself, why the only french party that support a "frexit" happens to be a bunch of nazi assholes? Would it be that people who, contrarily to you, know what's at stake, would never want to exit? But that's not even the point. You wish my country a fascist government, because you don't give a shit what will happen to us and to France. What matters is the end of an institution you don't understand so vive the nazis. Many people have expressed being tired with your shit. You clearly don't give a fuck about people and countries future, you just want to make points and express i don't know what, and you are lowering the overall quality of both thread. And if you don't see why "I know they are fascists and I know they will hugely damage France but i support them nonetheless because ..." is unacceptable, you should find other interests and post elsewhere. Your exasperated, hyperbolic bullshit is the reason why I tend not to bother with this discussion with you. Same with your baseless post on Putin in the other thread for that matter. The people who like to work in 6 different countries in 10 years are going to be overjoyed at the existence of the EU and pretend that there's no reason anyone would want to leave it. Evidently people have other concerns as well given that anti-EU sentiment is perpetually growing. I suppose the best simple way to describe the EU is, "in calm waters, every ship has a good captain." Its ability to deal with crises has proven to be inadequate and it simply spreads the effect of local disruptions far and wide.
You don't understand why your argument: "I support a fascist gvt in your country because I don't care about domestic policies and how disastrous it will be for you", is offensive as fuck, I get it. And stupid too, since we are at it, when your will to break the EU is based on the refugee crisis as if that was of any significance considering what's at stake.
If I told you I support the KKK because they are for this or that badly digested geopolitical idea of mine and i don't care about their agenda concerning the US, you would find it both stupid and offensive. Well the FN is not the KKK, but actually, not so far.
Feel free to get angry at my hyberbolic bullshit, but maybe take a second to reflect on what you are wishing to people.
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On February 28 2017 03:08 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On February 28 2017 02:54 Acrofales wrote:On February 28 2017 01:59 LegalLord wrote:On February 28 2017 01:40 Acrofales wrote:On February 28 2017 01:30 LegalLord wrote:On February 28 2017 01:20 Acrofales wrote:On February 28 2017 00:53 LegalLord wrote:
And what if it stubbornly refuses to change, revealing that the issue is even deeper than it seemed? I'd point out that so far it has been quite capable of being changed. You say the EU only exists since 1993, but that's a bit disingenious. The Treaty of Maastricht rebranded the EEC to make explicit what had been implicit for a while: that the EEC was no longer only about economic issues. And the EU itself has already undergone a transformation with the Treaty of Lisbon. The EU in its current form is simply the 5th iteration (or insert other number here, perhaps 5 is perhaps too many or too few depending on what treaties you count as being an impactful reinvention of the union) of a supra-national body governing certain aspects in the European community. And I'm not opposed to that idea of a European supranational body. It's a necessity for a fair number of reasons - European nations do need that kind of support because they're left in a world where individually they're no longer very strong, and the economic ties do genuinely help stop the effect of imperial ambitions. It's the current iteration of the European project that is problematic. While I know you don't care much for nationalism and "the nation-state" it remains true that nationalism is an important force that isn't going away. A European project needs to respect the fact that nations are nations and that an "ever-closer union" is not the way forward. I mention the EU being <25 years old because people talk about "the EU" as if it were the entire 70-year-old integration project. It's not. Criticism of one is not criticism of the other. Having lived in about 10 different countries (most of them outside of the EU), I can safely say that nationalism is overrated. My current home would rather leave Spain than the EU, for instance. But if your stance is actually that you think the Treaty of Lisbon is untenable and a new treaty is needed to keep a functional European supranational body, we agree. I just disagree that that means it's the end of the EU. It's true that in a lot of countries, especially the ones doing most poorly, they hate their own government more than they hate the EU. And those tend to be the ones most approving of EU membership. When I say "the end of the EU" I mean "the end of the current 'Europe' project iteration, the one that calls itself the EU" rather than "the end of any form of alliance of European nations." The difference is, perhaps, that I would accept and even encourage a more aggressive means towards that end even if such an act will be very painful to those involved. Without actually having any idea of what you seem to want to follow it up with that seems like an empty statement. So... you'd be fine with an EU "reboot" that calls itself the League of Europe, or European Confederation, to just give two ideas of completely meaningless namechanges? Because I, on the other hand, see no reason to dump the name, but do feel that the image of the undemocratic, static European Union needs to change, and for that to happen, the governing bodies have to change. In particular, I feel that a form of direct democracy is absolutely necessary, where the EU is governed by some form of semi-dynamic mandate that defines the limits of what they can and cannot decide on. I envision something quite similar like the governing contract for coalitions in a parliamentary system, but instead of it lasting for a single term, it is permanent, and can be changed by direct democracy (probably filtered through the parliament (so the mandate doesn't become incoherent... something similar to the Swiss system maybe). Of course, this necessitates changes in the Parliament, Commission and Council as well. To keep this whole thing working at a reasonable speed across all of Europe, some form of e-Government is almost certainly necessary. I think you vastly overestimate peoples average ability and access to use the internet. Not even mentioning immigrants you'd be cutting out a significant amount of of people from being able to vote for things. That's why effective voting reform practically requires an accompanying update in infrastructure.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On February 28 2017 02:54 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On February 28 2017 01:59 LegalLord wrote:On February 28 2017 01:40 Acrofales wrote:On February 28 2017 01:30 LegalLord wrote:On February 28 2017 01:20 Acrofales wrote:On February 28 2017 00:53 LegalLord wrote:
And what if it stubbornly refuses to change, revealing that the issue is even deeper than it seemed? I'd point out that so far it has been quite capable of being changed. You say the EU only exists since 1993, but that's a bit disingenious. The Treaty of Maastricht rebranded the EEC to make explicit what had been implicit for a while: that the EEC was no longer only about economic issues. And the EU itself has already undergone a transformation with the Treaty of Lisbon. The EU in its current form is simply the 5th iteration (or insert other number here, perhaps 5 is perhaps too many or too few depending on what treaties you count as being an impactful reinvention of the union) of a supra-national body governing certain aspects in the European community. And I'm not opposed to that idea of a European supranational body. It's a necessity for a fair number of reasons - European nations do need that kind of support because they're left in a world where individually they're no longer very strong, and the economic ties do genuinely help stop the effect of imperial ambitions. It's the current iteration of the European project that is problematic. While I know you don't care much for nationalism and "the nation-state" it remains true that nationalism is an important force that isn't going away. A European project needs to respect the fact that nations are nations and that an "ever-closer union" is not the way forward. I mention the EU being <25 years old because people talk about "the EU" as if it were the entire 70-year-old integration project. It's not. Criticism of one is not criticism of the other. Having lived in about 10 different countries (most of them outside of the EU), I can safely say that nationalism is overrated. My current home would rather leave Spain than the EU, for instance. But if your stance is actually that you think the Treaty of Lisbon is untenable and a new treaty is needed to keep a functional European supranational body, we agree. I just disagree that that means it's the end of the EU. It's true that in a lot of countries, especially the ones doing most poorly, they hate their own government more than they hate the EU. And those tend to be the ones most approving of EU membership. When I say "the end of the EU" I mean "the end of the current 'Europe' project iteration, the one that calls itself the EU" rather than "the end of any form of alliance of European nations." The difference is, perhaps, that I would accept and even encourage a more aggressive means towards that end even if such an act will be very painful to those involved. Without actually having any idea of what you seem to want to follow it up with that seems like an empty statement. So... you'd be fine with an EU "reboot" that calls itself the League of Europe, or European Confederation, to just give two ideas of completely meaningless namechanges? Because I, on the other hand, see no reason to dump the name, but do feel that the image of the undemocratic, static European Union needs to change, and for that to happen, the governing bodies have to change. In particular, I feel that a form of direct democracy is absolutely necessary, where the EU is governed by some form of semi-dynamic mandate that defines the limits of what they can and cannot decide on. I envision something quite similar like the governing contract for coalitions in a parliamentary system, but instead of it lasting for a single term, it is permanent, and can be changed by direct democracy (probably filtered through the parliament (so the mandate doesn't become incoherent... something similar to the Swiss system maybe). Of course, this necessitates changes in the Parliament, Commission and Council as well. To keep this whole thing working at a reasonable speed across all of Europe, some form of e-Government is almost certainly necessary.
I want something resembling the earlier EEC - a looser, non-exclusive pact that has no plans for deeper integration, that provides some of the most important benefits (freer trade and the like) while also having a deeper respect for national sovereignty and the ability of nations to make decisions for their specific benefit. The name doesn't matter of course - but don't conflate "the EU" with "Europe" because that's disingenuous.
I could probably write a longer post on what I want to change in the EU, but that would take a while and I just don't have the time right now. Maybe over the weekend I'll do it as one of those long-post format descriptions.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On February 28 2017 03:14 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On February 28 2017 00:04 LegalLord wrote:On February 27 2017 18:33 Biff The Understudy wrote:On February 27 2017 07:56 LegalLord wrote:On February 27 2017 05:03 Biff The Understudy wrote:On February 24 2017 08:33 LegalLord wrote:
Hopefully Le Pen can pull it off in the end. Lol. I don't even know if you are trolling, completely ignorant or, more worryingly, if you are actually sincere. The FN is a party of absolute scumbags. The only thing that unite their leaders and militants is that they are all horrible people. Ultra catholics, skinheads, nostalgic of the colonial Algeria, neo nazis, countryside racists, you tell me. On the local politics level, the FN is doing enormous damage, because they don't have an infrastructure and we end up with people sitting in cantons that are simply morons, to a point it's tragic. I work with local politicians in France, and one wouldn't beloeve the people that are being put in responsibility by the FN. They are super angry, completely dumb, very mean, and can't write a sentence in French without making ten mistakes. The FN was fonded by former pro-french algeria veterans (the sinister OAS), by nostalgic of Petain and the collaboration, and by members of groups such as Action Francaise and Occident. Those were hardcore fascists. Not like the alt right, real, authentic fascists. Le Pen was the kind of guy who was editing and selling SS songs recordings. What do you want LL? The end of civilization? A world war? A genocide? A dictatorship? I ask genuinely. You parrot badly digested uber populistic far right ideology all day long, but what do you stand for at the end? I know who the FN is. I remember them from the history cubes on French African imperialism, and I know what the party represented then. I know exactly why it is that they are so scary to you, and it was amazing to me how far they managed to come over the years. I don't know to what extent I buy the Marine transformation of the party, but I know that keeping the name of the FN isn't really a great sign. What I want is rather simple: the end of the EU. I didn't always feel this way, of course - but the refugee crisis and all the events that came afterward have shown me that there is likely to be no future for the organization. Regardless of all the bluster that the Eurocrats put forth there is no consensus; it's a fractured alliance of convenience coated in the illusion of ideological unity. The longer it survives, the worse it will be when it finally comes apart. I don't evaluate Le Pen from a domestic perspective, the same way you don't really give a fuck what Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump is going to be like domestically. I don't live in France, so I don't have to deal with the consequences directly. I understand perfectly why it should be troubling; if I were a Frenchman I would probably vote Fillon who is more ideologically along the lines of what I would like without being fascist-spawn (to say nothing of what Marine represents herself, because that's quite a bit harder to gauge). I think your other exasperated remarks - end of civilization, world war, dictatorship, genocide - are far overblown. But she would probably be a president for the dredges of society and that would not make me happy if I had to live with it. I will mention it once more that I tire of your exaggerated exasperation. Yes, I am perfectly aware of why Le Pen is terrible for you, same with Trump. But you sort of undermine your position by going too far. And I'm sure the elephant in the room is the question of "what's good for Russia" and if that's why I support the end of the EU. Simple answer is that no, that's not the reason. Whether or not the EU is bad for Russia is a question of where the allegiances lie. If the EU chooses to be a coalition of determined opposition to Russia, then yes, it's bad for Russia and it's best for it to go away. If, as the case actually is, it's a set of nations who aren't exactly friendly but aren't exactly unfriendly, then it's not clear that it would be beneficial. If the question was about the US or NATO then that would be a different story; there really is no peace between the US (or its most loyal Russophobic vassals) and Russia and until we (the US) have a president who understands how to make peace, there isn't going to be (a clown who says he loves Russia isn't going to do that). Trump is going to fail miserably on improving relations with Russia, for one. No, the problem with the EU is that it's a sad excuse for an organization that is at one side pushing to become a United States of Europe, and on the other side pulling itself apart. The kind of crises it's going through right now aren't of the "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" form; they're more of the "you're not quite dead but you lost a few limbs and are permanently crippled" persuasion. It's time for a mercy killing. What are you talking about? I was against Trump first and foremost because of what he is doing and will do in America, and my first concern is for american people and immigrants living in America. I won't wish for a horrendous leader in a major country because that would match some badly digested geopolitical consideration of mine. You clearly know nothing about the EU, except if I understand, that you didn't like the way it handled the refugee crisis. Mate it didn't. It should have, but countries did, independantly. I know, you think arabs are "scary" as you said earlier and don't like when they come to the West (that's called xenophobia, but nvm). But meanwhile Europe actually functions very well despite urgent needs to change its institutions. It's the strongest alliance in the world, and transforms a patchwork of countries into a unified union that can resist great powers, starting with Russia, but also the US. It provides its citizens peace, in the previously conflict ridden place in the world. Tell me, how do you think the baltic states and Finland would feel without the EU? I have lived and worked in 6 different countries in 10 years without ever asking permission or going through democracy. That's Europe. Now, ask yourself, why the only french party that support a "frexit" happens to be a bunch of nazi assholes? Would it be that people who, contrarily to you, know what's at stake, would never want to exit? But that's not even the point. You wish my country a fascist government, because you don't give a shit what will happen to us and to France. What matters is the end of an institution you don't understand so vive the nazis. Many people have expressed being tired with your shit. You clearly don't give a fuck about people and countries future, you just want to make points and express i don't know what, and you are lowering the overall quality of both thread. And if you don't see why "I know they are fascists and I know they will hugely damage France but i support them nonetheless because ..." is unacceptable, you should find other interests and post elsewhere. Your exasperated, hyperbolic bullshit is the reason why I tend not to bother with this discussion with you. Same with your baseless post on Putin in the other thread for that matter. The people who like to work in 6 different countries in 10 years are going to be overjoyed at the existence of the EU and pretend that there's no reason anyone would want to leave it. Evidently people have other concerns as well given that anti-EU sentiment is perpetually growing. I suppose the best simple way to describe the EU is, "in calm waters, every ship has a good captain." Its ability to deal with crises has proven to be inadequate and it simply spreads the effect of local disruptions far and wide. You don't understand why your argument: "I support a fascist gvt in your country because I don't care about domestic policies and how disastrous it will be for you", is offensive as fuck, I get it. And stupid too, since we are at it, when your will to break the EU is based on the refugee crisis as if that was of any significance considering what's at stake. If I told you I support the KKK because they are for this or that badly digested geopolitical idea of mine and i don't care about their agenda concerning the US, you would find it both stupid and offensive. Well the FN is not the KKK, but actually, not so far. Feel free to get angry at my hyberbolic bullshit, but maybe take a second to reflect on what you are wishing to people.
I wouldn't take it personally if you supported a less pleasant group - let's say the Tea Party, which would be roughly ideologically equivalent to the modern FN - for your own political purposes. I would certainly disagree but I wouldn't be offended.
The refugee crisis is "the straw that broke the camel's back" far more than it is a singular reason. Looking at the trajectory of populism it seems that I'm not the only one who thinks it was so.
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On February 28 2017 03:08 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On February 28 2017 02:54 Acrofales wrote:On February 28 2017 01:59 LegalLord wrote:On February 28 2017 01:40 Acrofales wrote:On February 28 2017 01:30 LegalLord wrote:On February 28 2017 01:20 Acrofales wrote:On February 28 2017 00:53 LegalLord wrote:
And what if it stubbornly refuses to change, revealing that the issue is even deeper than it seemed? I'd point out that so far it has been quite capable of being changed. You say the EU only exists since 1993, but that's a bit disingenious. The Treaty of Maastricht rebranded the EEC to make explicit what had been implicit for a while: that the EEC was no longer only about economic issues. And the EU itself has already undergone a transformation with the Treaty of Lisbon. The EU in its current form is simply the 5th iteration (or insert other number here, perhaps 5 is perhaps too many or too few depending on what treaties you count as being an impactful reinvention of the union) of a supra-national body governing certain aspects in the European community. And I'm not opposed to that idea of a European supranational body. It's a necessity for a fair number of reasons - European nations do need that kind of support because they're left in a world where individually they're no longer very strong, and the economic ties do genuinely help stop the effect of imperial ambitions. It's the current iteration of the European project that is problematic. While I know you don't care much for nationalism and "the nation-state" it remains true that nationalism is an important force that isn't going away. A European project needs to respect the fact that nations are nations and that an "ever-closer union" is not the way forward. I mention the EU being <25 years old because people talk about "the EU" as if it were the entire 70-year-old integration project. It's not. Criticism of one is not criticism of the other. Having lived in about 10 different countries (most of them outside of the EU), I can safely say that nationalism is overrated. My current home would rather leave Spain than the EU, for instance. But if your stance is actually that you think the Treaty of Lisbon is untenable and a new treaty is needed to keep a functional European supranational body, we agree. I just disagree that that means it's the end of the EU. It's true that in a lot of countries, especially the ones doing most poorly, they hate their own government more than they hate the EU. And those tend to be the ones most approving of EU membership. When I say "the end of the EU" I mean "the end of the current 'Europe' project iteration, the one that calls itself the EU" rather than "the end of any form of alliance of European nations." The difference is, perhaps, that I would accept and even encourage a more aggressive means towards that end even if such an act will be very painful to those involved. Without actually having any idea of what you seem to want to follow it up with that seems like an empty statement. So... you'd be fine with an EU "reboot" that calls itself the League of Europe, or European Confederation, to just give two ideas of completely meaningless namechanges? Because I, on the other hand, see no reason to dump the name, but do feel that the image of the undemocratic, static European Union needs to change, and for that to happen, the governing bodies have to change. In particular, I feel that a form of direct democracy is absolutely necessary, where the EU is governed by some form of semi-dynamic mandate that defines the limits of what they can and cannot decide on. I envision something quite similar like the governing contract for coalitions in a parliamentary system, but instead of it lasting for a single term, it is permanent, and can be changed by direct democracy (probably filtered through the parliament (so the mandate doesn't become incoherent... something similar to the Swiss system maybe). Of course, this necessitates changes in the Parliament, Commission and Council as well. To keep this whole thing working at a reasonable speed across all of Europe, some form of e-Government is almost certainly necessary. I think you vastly overestimate peoples average ability and access to use the internet. Not even mentioning immigrants you'd be cutting out a significant amount of of people from being able to vote for things.
If the Estonians have been running an e-Voting system efficiently and without problems for 10 years already, I'm pretty sure we can figure out a way to do it across most of Europe. It'll obviously require infrastructure investments and education campaigns on the new voting system. I also have not been to remote areas in Romania or other poorer countries in the union (although speaking for Spain and Portugal internet coverage is not a problem), but there is at least 3G coverage in every European town I have visited.
As for immigrants: I think you are confusing cultural barriers and technological barriers. The former is a real problem, the latter is generally rapidly overcome. That's more a factor of age than their birthplace. If you hadn't noticed: mobile internet is booming in Africa.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On February 28 2017 02:36 warding wrote:Show nested quote +On February 28 2017 02:18 LegalLord wrote:On February 28 2017 02:14 warding wrote:On February 28 2017 00:57 LegalLord wrote:On February 28 2017 00:55 warding wrote:
What issue? The issue of internal divisions within the union. Each "crisis" the EU has gone through within the past few years has shown a completely and utterly confused consensus that paralyzed its ability to deal with things. The US congress has an approval rating of 19% vs 76% disapproval. The country is as paralyzed as ever and the parliamentary houses seem unable to deal with things. The union is doomed and the days of the American republic are over. That, or western people post-Great Recession are grumpy assholes who mood-affiliate their responses to polls on their satisfaction with political institutions. Well the US did just elect a meme president and is as divided across partisan lines as it's ever been... Nations are held together by more than just economics though. Economic unions, not so much. The US for example just destroyed two economic unions (TPP, TTIP) and may very well kill a third (NAFTA). US trade with Mexico is 0.35% of its GDP. Denmark or Portugal's trade with the EU is around 30% of its GDP. NL: 60%, DE: 23%. The smaller the country, the larger the share. You see the difference right?
You are off by a factor of 10. https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/americas/mexico (Canada, the other NAFTA member, has an even higher trade volume.)
The trade volume (imports plus exports) with Mexico is bigger than the Polish GDP. That's even more significant for Mexico since its GDP is 1/15 of the US's. Plus all the immigrants and guest workers, many of whom send remittances back home.
What's your point though? That smaller countries trade more as a percentage with their bigger neighbors? That somehow your point about US = EU in terms of disapproval shows a form of stability that I didn't see? I'm not sure what you're saying.
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Why the far-right will never change, episode 15671867:
“I want to tell [public] officials, to whom a desperate political staff is asking to use the powers of the State to monitor their opponents, persecute them, organize low blows or State cabals, that they should not be part of such abuses. In a few weeks, this political power shall be swept away by the election. But as for those officials, they will have to assume those illegal methods. It is their personal responsibility. The State we want will be patriotic.” + Show Spoiler +Loose translation from me.
Statement from Marine Le Pen yesterday, at some meeting. She's basically warning/threatening people who work on her cases, using the classic victim/plot rhetoric from the far-right (it's a plot from the left/the socialist power/red judges/medias/the system 1!1!1!1). She is hinting at some future punishement because people... merely did their job, following the rule of law. Fascist methods.
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How easy is it for someone like Marine Le Pen to clean house like that in the French system? It is almost impossible to do that without the support of congress in the US(or for them to look the other way). But I don’t know where the separation of powers lies in a lot of the EU systems.
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I'd want to say, generally speaking, that given the string of offensive executive orders signed by mr. trump, I do not think you have a leg to stand on. What does it matter if you need congress to sign off on anything? When clearly very very few will ever vote against their party? Even though it is the blatant correct choice.
Le Pen is simply more eloquently taking a page out of any alt-right book anyways.. It's a conspiracy, complot, blah blah blah.
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I was asking a question, not making a value judgment. I use the US system as an example. I don’t know how the French government works on a nuts and bolts level, so I asked.
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At this point I'm just going to say that I'm happy that we don't have a presidential system. They seem to be going off the rails everywhere
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
Well before Trump we had a decent president and a terrible Congress. That would have been ok had it continued. I certainly wouldn't want a PM selected from our Congress.
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On February 28 2017 07:54 LegalLord wrote:
Well before Trump we had a decent president and a terrible Congress. That would have been ok had it continued. I certainly wouldn't want a PM selected from our Congress.
A country being in complete gridlock for 6 years is not OK. Having it last for 14 years is far from OK.
The US system is terrible in creating an actual functioning government. Not to mention the lack of many basic safeguards.
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Yes, thank god we don't have PMs selected from congress. Though it would require our parties to talk to each other, which would be a change of pace.
On February 28 2017 08:00 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On February 28 2017 07:54 LegalLord wrote:
Well before Trump we had a decent president and a terrible Congress. That would have been ok had it continued. I certainly wouldn't want a PM selected from our Congress. A country being in complete gridlock for 6 years is not OK. Having it last for 14 years is far from OK. The US system is terrible in creating an actual functioning government. Not to mention the lack of many basic safeguards.
Hey, our system worked great up until the mid 1990 when one party decided to weaponize the House of Reps against the president and then everyone else. And our federal goverment is not the whole US goverment. We have 50 smaller governments under it.
But yes, our congress has been very happy being wildly dysfunctional for like 16+ years.
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EPT
