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Oh, now this is getting so very, very silly. Apart from anything else it is a gross insult on the peoples of the Continental countries that they are so juvenile and uncivilised that without the EU they would go to war with each other, ever again.
He is saying that outside Europe we always end up getting dragged back in to sort out the mess. Indeed. I would heartily agree. But this time 'sorting out the mess' is getting out of the EU (and hopefully accelerating its collapse). To demonstrate to free European peoples that they do not need the latest in a long line of European demagogues intent on building an Empire of Europe.
The difference with the EU is that the bureaucrats - who in previous attempts at Empire worked under an inspirational (not in a good way) figurehead - to achieve their narcotic of power, sinecures and fat entitlements. This time they have cut out the middleman and gone straight for power for themselves.
And this utterly unaccountable bureaucratic rule is now engendering just as much political and public unrest and economic failure as every previous Empire builder from Charlemagne to Hitler (ignoring the Romans pro tem).
Also he is fundamentally misunderstanding history. Europe developed so well because it had competing Nations with different jurisdictions, tax rates and so forth. Do not forget the 'free movement of people' pre dates Shengen by thousands of years.
And yet again is it left to the UK to spend blood and treasure to sort out the mess. Well, not so much blood this time, and without doubt we will be saving treasure by getting out of the EU and carrying on being good friends with all European peoples and Sovereign nations.
What a silly, silly man he really is.
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People who want brexit BECAUSE it will lead to total collapse of EU institutions really, really piss me off. How childish and stupid, when there's a guy threatening EU and NATO members with the world's 2nd largest military, who has form in invading 3 countries of his former empire in the last decade. The only world leader who's shitting himself with glee at the prospect of Brexit, is Putin, and you childish prats are basically doing his dirty work.
J. Nope. The EU is going to collapse whatever anyone does. No society in history has ever survived this level of bureaucratic interventionism and bad money - and they always go together - and survived. The question is just how long in the future that will be and at what cost to the people. The last experiment in an empire based on bureaucratic central planning - the USSR - took about 70 years to write down all its capital and collapse.
The point I am making is the that the argument is the precise opposite to the point that Cameron is making. In past times we have spent blood and treasure freeing European nations from one attempted tyranny or another. They were - if you like - 'positive' freedoms. This time it is a 'negative' freedom. Our exit would probably start a process of eroding the EU bureaucrats undemocratic, arbitrary and capricious power. Their whole project would be much reduced in legitimacy.
In regards to Putin and his military, it is NATO that has been most successful in denying him and the previous Soviet regimes the opportunity for expansion. Nothing at all to do with the EU.
The trick is to get out of the putative EU Empire in such a way that it permits and orderly winding down of it. The exit is the UK, with our absolute commitment to continuing offers of friendship is likely the best way to achieve this.
@L
Not much doubt that the EU has fixed the industrial Germany versus France-and-everybody-else problem that it was specifically set up to sort out. Peaceful, productive Germany is the quintessential EU success story and has much to teach the rest of Europe in economic terms. If you want to get back to the good old days of trade war with Germany just to dispense with bureaucracy which you never notice in the private sector (London is solid bureaucracy public and private)then you are losing it.
BTW the US has organised a functioning society with a centralised bureaucracy for some time on the federal system.
Don't panic!
DBCR. To a degree, yes. the original European Cola and Steel Union was predicated on the notion that as these two industries were necessary to wage war then unifying between France and Germany would tend to stop France and Germany waging war on each other. Probably even by the late 1940's that was a redundant notion. In any event incorporating Germany into NATO did more to ensure European peace than anything else. Having the excuse (reason?) of the Warsaw Pact as a common enemy probably helped a bit too.
The 'trade war' bit is also redundant too. Otherwise all the discussion about the benefits of free trade. In any event the WTO makes the EU redundant in that respect.
The US is an excellent example of creeping bureaucratisation and central planning. The federal governments remorseless expansion is exercising the US demos just as much as it does us in the EU. The US was a very decentralised state until, well, about 1913, say?
Agreed about the bureaucratic centric nature of London. The government one is a monopoly. The private ones are not and generally are competing, unless they manage the crony corporatist trick - banking for example.
I would disagree with some of Lola's reading of history.
The idea that the US became more bureaucratic and less democratic from around 1913 could be argued [if you only cared about Income Tax] but the trend probably started from very near the beginning of what became the greatest power on Earth. Start with Alexander Hamilton who opposed and ultimately trumped [no relation to Donald] the decentralising, free trading advocate, Thomas Jefferson.
Even if you are granted the year 1913 as some sort of watershed the rest of that century hardly stands as a warning against adopting such measures...seeing as the USA started the century as a second rate power and ended it as the single undisputed global superpower.
Now of course more recently it does face some challenge in geopolitical and economic spheres from that other great bastion of free trade and minimal government. China! Oh dear...
P156 Agreed about Alexander Hamilton. Ditto China. But the more that everyone else free trades the more China will be forced to do so.
It's utter nonsense. Yes - if any organisation deserves credit it's NATO.
And as I said before, France vs Germany is a nonsense anyway. The last time they wanted a piece of each other was 1870, the Franco-Prussian war. WW1 and WW2 were related to other countries. And we've had numerous disincentives to prevent war since then - far more efficiency in food production, improvements in transportation and nuclear weapons.
If you look at war around the world, it's pretty small nowadays and almost exclusively in oil states and poor states.
@L
Nato was formed six years before Warsaw pact,which was therefore a defensive bloc.Nato is not a European organisation but an American project to stop peoples this side of the pond getting too pally with the Russians and Eastern bloc.
They did not want to hear too much of the likes of Enoch Powell declaring that Russia was the UK's natural ally.
European Cola and Steel Union? Love it! That's what put the sparkle back into Europe! Pity it's gone flat after all these years.
European Cola and Steel Union? Love it! That's what put the sparkle back into Europe! Pity it's gone flat after all these years.
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