EPTEuropean Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 720
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farvacola
United States18838 Posts
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LegalLord
United States13779 Posts
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Sent.
Poland9245 Posts
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LegalLord
United States13779 Posts
On March 19 2017 20:11 warding wrote: It's fashionable to say that the EU is deeply flawed but I don't remember anyone here making a clear, substantiated argument for that being the case. I made this post a while back which got buried before a more interesting post right after mine. For all intents and purposes the forces of nationalism are probably among the most significant threat to the life of the EU. An economic argument against the EU is harder to make, of course, but it does exist. | ||
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Toadesstern
Germany16350 Posts
Not that I did expect anything else LOL: ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/YTdQePC.png) I guess that makes sense. Took the german one and it literally pinpointed where I live oO | ||
Liquid`Drone
Norway28706 Posts
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Sent.
Poland9245 Posts
I don't trust this quiz because I'm at 64% with CDU/CSU union but with CDU alone I'm at only 49%. | ||
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warding
Portugal2394 Posts
On March 20 2017 09:29 LegalLord wrote: I made this post a while back which got buried before a more interesting post right after mine. For all intents and purposes the forces of nationalism are probably among the most significant threat to the life of the EU. An economic argument against the EU is harder to make, of course, but it does exist. I know you're convinced of the robustness of your nationalism>EU argument but apart from Brexit I just don't see it elsewhere. I'd be more inclined to hear about specific policy aspects of the EU whose negatives significantly outweigh the positives. Macron 55%. | ||
TheNewEra
Germany3128 Posts
On March 20 2017 10:10 Sent. wrote: This is the German version. As expected, my highest result is CDU/CSU at 64% (61% CSU alone). 51% with AfD surprises me, I guess they're not as bad as Le Pen. I don't trust this quiz because I'm at 64% with CDU/CSU union but with CDU alone I'm at only 49%. Oh my best result is a satirical party. What does that say about me  | ||
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Karis Vas Ryaar
United States4396 Posts
On March 20 2017 10:16 TheNewEra wrote: Oh my best result is a satirical party. What does that say about me You're just like Poland in the 90s? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Beer-Lovers'_Party I redid it and got 70 percent with pirate party. (highest was alliancs 90s/green at78 percent.) It apparently locates me right near the netherland belgian border. | ||
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Toadesstern
Germany16350 Posts
On March 20 2017 10:10 Sent. wrote: This is the German version. As expected, my highest result is CDU/CSU at 64% (61% CSU alone). 51% with AfD surprises me, I guess they're not as bad as Le Pen. I don't trust this quiz because I'm at 64% with CDU/CSU union but with CDU alone I'm at only 49%. I'm not too sure either. I've taken those tests some time over the years and this is the first time it has shifted quite a bit for me. I've got Die Linke as 2nd highest option for the german one, a party I'd proooooobably never consider voting for. I guess being in the opposition for the last 4-8 years gives you pretty easy answers to some of those questions? Maybe if you make me choose between AfD and Die Linke I'm going to vote them but really in no plausible scenario So either I've shifted drastically myself or it's just a bit weird this year. It DID literally pinpoint my place where I live on that map though. A region where Merkel usually gets like 50+ percent by herself in what's now effectively a 6 party systemeffectively. /holy shit the typos at 2:30am. Should be good now | ||
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LegalLord
United States13779 Posts
On March 20 2017 10:10 Sent. wrote: This is the German version. As expected, my highest result is CDU/CSU at 64% (61% CSU alone). 51% with AfD surprises me, I guess they're not as bad as Le Pen. I don't trust this quiz because I'm at 64% with CDU/CSU union but with CDU alone I'm at only 49%. 66% SPD, 65% Greens, 59% Left, (further down) 52% CDU and CDU/CSU union and CSU. 48% AfD. Lol. | ||
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Incognoto
France10239 Posts
Glad I don't agree with that pig of Le Pen. Thing is though I have no idea why I'm so high with Mélechon. I hate him, he's a communist. Communism does not really correlate with progressive values, communism is just the oppression of personal freedom and personal freedom is endangered by communism/redistribution/statemicromanagement. You can be free and live in a progressive society. Funnily enough I'm from Brittany and that map at the end showed that I agreed with people in the Finistère. Good. | ||
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LegalLord
United States13779 Posts
On March 20 2017 10:10 warding wrote: I know you're convinced of the robustness of your nationalism>EU argument but apart from Brexit I just don't see it elsewhere. I'd be more inclined to hear about specific policy aspects of the EU whose negatives significantly outweigh the positives. Nationalism is important. Sure, countries may be able to set it aside for a time in order to pursue something beneficial to them. They will be very happy to do so despite nationalism if they get as much free money as, say, Poland. But at the end of the day, every European nation has its own national history and national goals that are not so easily forgotten. They have and will continue to flare up as the convenience of the moment dissipates and sooner or later it is likely that they will tear the union apart. There are many historical examples of superstates and most of them don't have a long lifespan. Though that's definitely not everything I focused on in that earlier post. I stick to the nationalism argument more so than most simply because it's the most universal reason. For example, it's an underappreciated fact that although the same pattern of populists movements is visible across the lands of Europe, the character of these movements is very different. UKIP isn't much like FN isn't much like Syriza isn't much like PiS isn't much like Five Star... and so on. Everyone wants something different and is unhappy for different reasons. And while you could probably rule by consensus in a smaller alliance of a few well-developed West European nations, once you go out and double the size of the union it starts to be far too diverse for its own good. From nationalism stem a lot of the other issues. Paralysis by a lack of consensus is an age-old story that dogs the EU through every crisis so far. Dealing with the Ukraine issue? Going to have to deal with the full spectrum of opinions on Russia throughout the EU and consider how willing everyone is to take the biggest country in Europe (with corruption and fascism and god knows what else) as another liability. Greece? Well I guess it's technically small enough that you could bury it for however long, but there's the issue of how unwilling certain nations are to budge on austerity while others realize that there is no way that Greece is going to austerity its way out of the debt. Refugees? Another utterly confused consensus, worse than the others because this is supposed to be something that the EU is actually good at. I could and did consider some of the other issues. Freedom of movement has the problem that you can't control migration and while it's good for talented people to be able to move around, you lose a lot of control with free movement. Free trade has seen a downward trend in support over the past few years and that's a lot of what the EU actually is. A common currency also leads to a cascading failure when even some tiny economy like Greece goes down the shitter. Though on the other hand, those shitty countries can't control their monetary policy and are stuck with a currency that doesn't do them a whole lot of good. And migration does tend to be quite unidirectional in the case of worse-developed country citizens moving to more-developed countries. You also have an everlasting push for an ever-closer union that hardly allows dissent. Choose not to ratify the Lisbon Treaty a la Ireland? Well vote again because that was the wrong answer. Sure, the second one had slightly higher turnout, but there certainly would not have been two votes had the right answer been chosen the first time (and I know at least a few people who voted "no" once then didn't vote a second time because they saw it for what it was). Any problem that arises within the union? Well it's because Europe doesn't have enough power. Hell, I even heard of some fuckers trying to convince France/UK to give their UNSC permanent seat to the EU. But ultimately I focus on the nationalism issue because it's the most universal and most damning. Superstates don't seem to work well as a unified entity, not for long. While we would like to believe that we can reach some sort of end of history and put those issues aside, we aren't even close to the point where we could actually do that. Brexit was of course just the exit of a single country, one of those that is most critical of the EU in its current form. It won't be the last. The EU might enjoy a rather stable 2017 if it's lucky (and it might not) but all of the aforementioned crises are buried rather than resolved, and it adds new ones every once in a while. In its current form it will not survive, and it's not clear that it can reform into a form that will. Personally I think what is going to kill it is that it grew too big and in doing so ensured its own downfall. | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
On March 20 2017 10:58 Incognoto wrote: Here's mine: http://imgur.com/QwNbeqa Glad I don't agree with that pig of Le Pen. Thing is though I have no idea why I'm so high with Mélechon. I hate him, he's a communist. Communism does not really correlate with progressive values, communism is just the oppression of personal freedom and personal freedom is endangered by communism/redistribution/statemicromanagement. You can be free and live in a progressive society. Funnily enough I'm from Brittany and that map at the end showed that I agreed with people in the Finistère. Good. Yes it is a little weird I also would have expected to score lower with them. When I do the British and German test I get lib dems and greens respectively and a wider gap than I get with French candidates. I thought the opposite would be the case. | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12320 Posts
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LegalLord
United States13779 Posts
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a_flayer
Netherlands2826 Posts
This is why I prefer looking at an overall platform of the party they represent and then judging the person on the way they speak about things, attempting to find their personality, do I perceive any corruption/dishonesty, is there a spark of intelligence in their words, etc... Basically the "how do I feel about this person" approach. I suppose it at the very least just as flawed as any other approach though. | ||
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Artisreal
Germany9235 Posts
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Mafe
Germany5966 Posts
 Now I'll have to check out the german version. | ||
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