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Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Jun 27, 2016 11:59:48 GMT -5
But it has!!! You've lived in a european war free world for many decades now Which pretty much has nothing to do with the EU, as far as I can see. We also had 40 years of peace in Europe before the EU as we now know it came into existance in the '80s. The argument that the EU is responsible for 70 years of peace is simply not convincing to me, Arthur. Also on the environement, you're talking about CHina and Brazil, but let's just focus on Europe... Why? It's a much bigger problem than Europe. And as off 2016, the biggest threats to the global environment are located outside of the EU. Again, I don't see how the EU has really been all that effective in dictating how the world treats the environment. I know the whole "leading by example" argument, but I'm not convinced by it. The fact that the UK joined the EU only 40 years ago doesn't make it younger then at least 66 years old when it was founded between France, Italy, Germany, Netherlands and Belgium/Luxembourg after years of negotiation, countries that had waged war towards each other for centuries, ones that were thought to be irreconcillable after the two WWs (France and Germany). So it has EVERYTHING to do with the EU and to deny it is almost offensive when you take in account the amount of shit those countries had to overcome. North and South Korea has nothing on the original EU! The European Community has been the only thing that prevented the US and Russia to use Europe as their war laboratory, and we know how much they tried. When the UK joined, that strenghened that potential massivly. About the environement, of course it 's much bigger than Europe, but aren't we specifically talking about Europe and the UK here? European countries sometimes/often have bad solutions on their own as a "lone" country is more likely to get its policies influenced by private capital lobbying then it would if part of a bigger organisation of countries, which is exactly what happened in the exemple of law I linked on the previous page |
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Post by tingramretro on Jun 27, 2016 12:21:16 GMT -5
This is a very, VERY important distinction to make and one that a lot of people seem to misunderstand. That is absurd : when the UK joined, the EU had already elvolved many many times, they perfectly knew it was the aim of the organisation. It started out as the European Community of Steel and Coal. What you say is like if Germany suddenly decided to quit an ideal because it's not solely about coal and steel. The UK itself evolved many many times before it became lead by the current english parlementary monarchy. I'm not sure the welsh, scotts or irish ever really had anything to say about this... It is not absurd. We were told we were joining a trade partnership. We were never told the aim was a federal Europe, and if we had been, I doubt we'd have ever joined. And we don't have an "English Parliamentary Monarchy", the United Kingdom is a United Kingdom because it is just that; four countries united under a single monarch. The Queen is not English. In fact, the Queen legally has no citizenship. She is the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom. You seem to be expressing some strong opinions on matters you have a very shaky understanding of. |
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Post by tingramretro on Jun 27, 2016 12:29:04 GMT -5
Which pretty much has nothing to do with the EU, as far as I can see. We also had 40 years of peace in Europe before the EU as we now know it came into existance in the '80s. The argument that the EU is responsible for 70 years of peace is simply not convincing to me, Arthur. Why? It's a much bigger problem than Europe. And as off 2016, the biggest threats to the global environment are located outside of the EU. Again, I don't see how the EU has really been all that effective in dictating how the world treats the environment. I know the whole "leading by example" argument, but I'm not convinced by it. The fact that the UK joined the EU only 40 years ago doesn't make it younger then at least 66 years old when it was founded between France, Italy, Germany, Netherlands and Belgium/Luxembourg after years of negotiation, countries that had waged war towards each other for centuries, ones that were thought to be irreconcillable after the two WWs (France and Germany). So it has EVERYTHING to do with the EU and to deny it is almost offensive when you take in account the amount of shit those countries had to overcome. North and South Korea has nothing on the original EU! The European Community has been the only thing that prevented the US and Russia to use Europe as their war laboratory, and we know how much they tried. When the UK joined, that strenghened that potential massivly. About the environement, of course it 's much bigger than Europe, but aren't we specifically talking about Europe and the UK here? European countries sometimes/often have bad solutions on their own as a "lone" country is more likely to get its policies influenced by private capital lobbying then it would if part of a bigger organisation of countries, which is exactly what happened in the exemple of law I linked on the previous page The EU was founded in 1992 with the Maastricht Treaty. It has sod all to do with all this stuff you're spouting. You seem to believe that Britain should have stayed in because it should have put some dubious dream of a united Europe first, but this referendum had nothing to do with Europe-it was about Britain deciding what was best for Britain, making a choice it was previously denied. I'm sorry you don't like it, but really, it has absolutely nothing to do with anyone outside the UK. I'm getting annoyed now, so I'm going to step away from the discussion. |
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Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Jun 27, 2016 13:45:51 GMT -5
Ting, to state that the EU has existed only since 1992 is dishonnest. It has had several incarnations, several names and several roosters, but it indeed was founded in 1950, it's common and accepted knowledge. I don't know what your agenda is with this, but it's a tad disturbing.
And excuse me but my understanding was that indeed England was a parlemantary (& constitutional) monarchy, and that because of its history in the UK, it's always been its leading force. I don't see how this contradicts what you wrote about (which is unrelated to what I was refering to) If that understanding is that shaky, please correct me, but I'm glad you found my exemple as absurd as I did myself, since it was just to underline how unfair and absurd the argument about the EU having evolved since the UK joined is.
Hey, it's a topic we disagree on, but at least we exchange points and exemples and feel passionate about it. that's always good.
But if you really feel that the EU has nothing to do with the peace we currently enjoy in Europe amongst other things, well, I did give exemples on why I feel like it does, I hoped for more than mere "it has nothing to do with it"... If I misread you or something sliped my reading, please forgive me.
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Post by tingramretro on Jun 27, 2016 14:03:38 GMT -5
Ting, to state that the EU has existed only since 1992 is dishonnest. It has had several incarnations, several names and several roosters, but it indeed was founded in 1950, it's common and accepted knowledge. I don't know what your agenda is with this, but it's a tad disturbing. And excuse me but my understanding was that indeed England was a parlemantary (& constitutional) monarchy, and that because of its history in the UK, it's always been its leading force. I don't see how this contradicts what you wrote about (which is unrelated to what I was refering to) If that understanding is that shaky, please correct me, but I'm glad you found my exemple as absurd as I did myself, since it was just to underline how unfair and absurd the argument about the EU having evolved since the UK joined is. Hey, it's a topic we disagree on, but at least we exchange points and exemples and feel passionate about it. that's always good. But if you really feel that the EU has nothing to do with the peace we currently enjoy in Europe amongst other things, well, I did give exemples on why I feel like it does, I hoped for more than mere "it has nothing to do with it"... If I misread you or something sliped my reading, please forgive me. It is not "dishonest". It is a fact. There was no such entity as "the European Union" before the early 1990s. The E.E.C was not the European Union. And 'England' and 'Britain' are not interchangeable terms. I don't know what you mean by my "agenda" or why you find it "disturbing" but I find your revisionist attitude to history pretty damn disturbing, personally, and pretty bloody offensive. Are you trying to assert that I am ignorant of history that I lived through? We'd never heard of the bloody EU when I was growing up, and as I said, we would not have been a willing part of it. How old are you? |
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Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Jun 27, 2016 14:07:20 GMT -5
Alright, I guess that if you believe that the "EU" or whatever it is/was called only existed in the past 40 or 24 years, you might not see that much of a change between before and now (except that since it joined, the UK economy has climbed to currently become the 5th in the world), but the problem with this take is that it's a weird revisionist one as the EU was born in 1950, joining the economical destiny of three of the main enemies of WWII and threee other invaded countries so that there would be less and less room for wars between those and their then hoped growing ranks. If you read the inaugural speaches of its founder Jean Monnet, he already talks about federalism, a notion that has always been present in the aims. The last word of the speach was actually "peace".
In 1950 the German economy was thriving much faster than its european neighbours, and fear of revenge was very real. Schuman, Adenauer and Monnet therefore publicly invited the interested party to join a free trade union of countries intended to ensure collective growth, prosperity and more then anything peace.
That is the historical begining of the EU.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 27, 2016 14:15:17 GMT -5
I'm American, so I don't pretend to know about the inner workings of the EU. There's two things I know that seem very, very bad for the UK if they're leaving... one completely practical, and one rather whimsical. 1) The EU wants to continue to exist. If they let the UK leave and give them a good trade deal going forward, the EU disintergrates. That's not even an arguement, just a fact. Also, the UK needs Europe trade wise alot more than Europe needs the UK. I'm not sure what they have to bargain with.. seems like it can only go poorly. 2) All the good 60s sci fi says at least Europe (if not the world) should be unified by now.. the farther the way we get from that, the worst things'll be.  |
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Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Jun 27, 2016 14:18:54 GMT -5
Ting, to state that the EU has existed only since 1992 is dishonnest. It has had several incarnations, several names and several roosters, but it indeed was founded in 1950, it's common and accepted knowledge. I don't know what your agenda is with this, but it's a tad disturbing. And excuse me but my understanding was that indeed England was a parlemantary (& constitutional) monarchy, and that because of its history in the UK, it's always been its leading force. I don't see how this contradicts what you wrote about (which is unrelated to what I was refering to) If that understanding is that shaky, please correct me, but I'm glad you found my exemple as absurd as I did myself, since it was just to underline how unfair and absurd the argument about the EU having evolved since the UK joined is. Hey, it's a topic we disagree on, but at least we exchange points and exemples and feel passionate about it. that's always good. But if you really feel that the EU has nothing to do with the peace we currently enjoy in Europe amongst other things, well, I did give exemples on why I feel like it does, I hoped for more than mere "it has nothing to do with it"... If I misread you or something sliped my reading, please forgive me. It is not "dishonest". It is a fact. There was no such entity as "the European Union" before the early 1990s. The E.E.C was not the European Union. And 'England' and 'Britain' are not interchangeable terms. I don't know what you mean by my "agenda" or why you find it "disturbing" but I find your revisionist attitude to history pretty damn disturbing, personally, and pretty bloody offensive. Are you trying to assert that I am ignorant of history that I lived through? We'd never heard of the bloody EU when I was growing up, and as I said, we would not have been a willing part of it. How old are you? Blimey! I return the question! I've been nothing but courteous while you accused me of spouting and such. You're sticking to a very specific version of the EU, that's what I call an agenda since it's not a reality : what we and you call EU has had several names and incarnations. It's like if you insisted that the 1992 X-Men have nothing to do with the ones of Stan and Jack. There's been quite a lot of stuff you said here I found offensive on that topic as well, especially how you repeatidly and intentionally change the meaning of my posts, but mostly how you diminish the role of the European institutions in the past 65 years. Yet, I don't know you and might have misunderstood things, so I don't judge. But really, where did I interchange Britain and UK in that post you quote? Where was I a revisionnist? I never asserted you were ignorant while you did do that about me. "We'd never heard of the bloody EU when I was growing up, and as I said, we would not have been a willing part of it." I'm the same age category you said you were part of, so I guess I lived through the same times, and I've always heard about the EU in its various iincarnations since I was a kid. What the heck are you talking about? And again with the "we"... |
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Post by tingramretro on Jun 27, 2016 14:30:41 GMT -5
Britain voted to become a part of the European Economic Community, not a part of something called tbe European Union. A trade partnership, not a political union. We were never asked to vote on that. I don't know how much simpler I can make this. I think I am speaking English, aren't I? You do see the difference between a free trade agreement and a United States of Europe, yes? You do acknowledge that the latter was not what the UK agreed to enter in the 70s? Or are you genuinely clueless? I am 46 years old. I don't recall ever hearing the phrase "European Union" until the 1990s. The EEC was not the EU, and we were never asked if we wanted to join the EU.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 27, 2016 14:33:59 GMT -5
Ting, to state that the EU has existed only since 1992 is dishonnest. It has had several incarnations, several names and several roosters, but it indeed was founded in 1950, it's common and accepted knowledge. I don't know what your agenda is with this, but it's a tad disturbing. And excuse me but my understanding was that indeed England was a parlemantary (& constitutional) monarchy, and that because of its history in the UK, it's always been its leading force. I don't see how this contradicts what you wrote about (which is unrelated to what I was refering to) If that understanding is that shaky, please correct me, but I'm glad you found my exemple as absurd as I did myself, since it was just to underline how unfair and absurd the argument about the EU having evolved since the UK joined is. Hey, it's a topic we disagree on, but at least we exchange points and exemples and feel passionate about it. that's always good. But if you really feel that the EU has nothing to do with the peace we currently enjoy in Europe amongst other things, well, I did give exemples on why I feel like it does, I hoped for more than mere "it has nothing to do with it"... If I misread you or something sliped my reading, please forgive me. No, you're being disingenuous. The EEC was founded in 1957 as a common market and customs grouping. When the UK joined in 1975, it was clearly known over here as the Common Market, and was not expected or understood to be about political integration and union, which is not something which is or was ever popular in the UK. And no, I don't agree that the EU is the source of peace in Europe, either. There was a massive revulsion against war after WW2 - I don't believe that we would have seen any of the northern European states involved in armed conflict with each other, regardless of the existence of the EEC/EU/EC - that has everything to do with political realities and specifically with NATO (founded nearly a decade before the EEC) than any membership of an economic block preceeding the current political integrated federal superstate. If anything, the current state of the EU is actually now a cause of inter-state friction - Russia's adventurism beyond its borders is in no little extent due to its former client states joining or wanting to join the EU |
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Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Jun 27, 2016 14:51:17 GMT -5
Ting, to state that the EU has existed only since 1992 is dishonnest. It has had several incarnations, several names and several roosters, but it indeed was founded in 1950, it's common and accepted knowledge. I don't know what your agenda is with this, but it's a tad disturbing. And excuse me but my understanding was that indeed England was a parlemantary (& constitutional) monarchy, and that because of its history in the UK, it's always been its leading force. I don't see how this contradicts what you wrote about (which is unrelated to what I was refering to) If that understanding is that shaky, please correct me, but I'm glad you found my exemple as absurd as I did myself, since it was just to underline how unfair and absurd the argument about the EU having evolved since the UK joined is. Hey, it's a topic we disagree on, but at least we exchange points and exemples and feel passionate about it. that's always good. But if you really feel that the EU has nothing to do with the peace we currently enjoy in Europe amongst other things, well, I did give exemples on why I feel like it does, I hoped for more than mere "it has nothing to do with it"... If I misread you or something sliped my reading, please forgive me. No, you're being disingenuous. The EEC was founded in 1957 as a common market and customs grouping. When the UK joined in 1975, it was clearly known over here as the Common Market, and was not expected or understood to be about political integration and union, which is not something which is or was ever popular in the UK. And no, I don't agree that the EU is the source of peace in Europe, either. There was a massive revulsion against war after WW2 - I don't believe that we would have seen any of the northern European states involved in armed conflict with each other, regardless of the existence of the EEC/EU/EC - that has everything to do with political realities and specifically with NATO (founded nearly a decade before the EEC) than any membership of an economic block preceeding the current political integrated federal superstate. If anything, the current state of the EU is actually now a cause of inter-state friction - Russia's adventurism beyond its borders is in no little extent due to its former client states joining or wanting to join the EU I'm being nothing of the sort! I really don't understand where you're coming from. The EU started in 1950, it's common knowledge. Its call was lauched with the speach I quoted from in 1950 and signed in April 1951, building the first incarnation of the EU as the ECSC. And as I wrote, by 1950, fear of revenge from Germany was very much a reality in its neighbour countries, that's just facts and the aknowledged reasoning behind the creation of the ECSC. I might have some aproximation in my understanding of the various componants of the UK structure (understandbly so), but again, there's nothing disingenous in what I'm here writing. And about NATO, many european countries were strongly against NATO, including France's strange relation with it (even if founding member), and Sweden only semi-forced joined in 2016, so it's much more complicated then that. Does anything in that last post I just wrote sand as inacurate? Edit : oh, and the UK joined in 1973, not in 75 |
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Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Jun 27, 2016 15:12:43 GMT -5
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Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Jun 27, 2016 15:57:03 GMT -5
Second Brexit in less then a week!!!!
(sketchy early video quality...)
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Post by Deleted on Jun 27, 2016 16:32:08 GMT -5
And about NATO, many european countries were strongly against NATO, including France's strange relation with it (even if founding member), and Sweden only semi-forced joined in 2016, so it's much more complicated then that. It doesn't matter whether they're pro or anti - the existence of NATO with the USA as the guarantor superpower enforces the peace. Germany was utterly broken and partitioned by WW2 - there was no realistic prospect of rearmament or retaliation. |
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Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Jun 27, 2016 16:53:10 GMT -5
Many would argue that the fact that NATO was a US tool was the very source of danger. At this point, we seem to have agreed on facts, right? I wasn't disingenous at all about that whole affair, quite the contrary. Now it's just a matter of personnal opinion on hte specifics, and I strongly believe that the various incarnations of the EU since 1950 have led us to live in peace, despite the often CIA/NATO induced friction wiht the Soviet imperlialists Whether the fear of regaining Germany was legit, it still existed and prompted the reunification of Europe with the ECSC in a fraternal fashion that NATO had no ways of achieving. Anyways, I wish the UK the best, be assured of that, but the best will now include Iceland jokes |
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