What happened to Europe?

[dutchfire]

Is that anecdote actually true? Professional football clubs seem to be able to regularly bring in out-of-EU players more quickly than the 4.5 months suggested here. I also have the impression that the place I work at manages to get non-EU-nationals hired within 4.5 months, so either this legislation* is different here and thus not EU based, or Mr. Dyson is just slow.

* or the speed of the Home Office

 

[Akka]

But it's easier to blame the EU. As video games routinely prove it, you can't defeat convenience.

 

[EnglishEdward]

We hear this argument a lot, but nobody in the Leave camp has ever been in favour of making it easier for non-EU people to migrate to the UK. A large proportion of non-EU migrants are, bear in mind, brown, Muslim and from non-Anglophone countries. Exactly the same people who normally want to pull up the drawbridge against those are trying to get out of the EU.

This is criticising the vote Leave people. rather than debating the arguments.

And it is not quite true.

(1) Many euro-sceptics report that their non white constituents complain
that it is exceedingly difficult to get their relatives visas for family visits.

(2) My wife is from the Philippines, and brown.

David Cameron can not do anything about EU migration but he can and
is making it harder for skilled nurses and doctors to immigrate.
She advises me that some of the most skilled who have no family
connections here have got fed up with the rules being changed,
and have decided not to stay here but go to Canada or the USA instead.

There's nothing about the EU that makes it more difficult to liberalise those immigration laws. The argument sounds nice, but it really doesn't have anything to stand on.

However if we vote Remain, the rules for external admissions to the EU.
will likely all be harmonised.

As indicated before, Voting Remain is not a no change option; it will almost
certainly be interpreted by the EU federalists as active consent by the UK
population for further federalisation and harmonisation across the board.

After all if it is to be one EU super-state without internal frontiers,
there will not be any practical infrastructure to stop a non EU migrant
from applying to the member state with the most lenient admissions and
then moving to another member state with better work or welfare prospects.

 

[Agent327]

This is criticising the vote Leave people. rather than debating the arguments.

And it is not quite true.

(1) Many euro-sceptics report that their non white constituents complain
that it is exceedingly difficult to get their relatives visas for family visits.

And what have EU skeptics proposed to do about that?

(2) My wife is from the Philippines, and brown.

David Cameron can not do anything about EU migration but he can and
is making it harder for skilled nurses and doctors to immigrate.
She advises me that some of the most skilled who have no family
connections here have got fed up with the rules being changed,
and have decided not to stay here but go to Canada or the USA instead.

Interesting anecdote, which has exactly nothing to do with the EU, but everything with Britain.

However if we vote Remain, the rules for external admissions to the EU.
will likely all be harmonised.

Why? Harmonization has already completely collapsed in the face of the 'refugee crisis'. How would a Brexit suddenly turn that around?

As indicated before, Voting Remain is not a no change option; it will almost
certainly be interpreted by the EU federalists as active consent by the UK
population for further federalisation and harmonisation across the board.

Again, why? Margins. according to polls, seems to be extremely small either way. And further federalization and harmonization isn't even on the EU table, nor is it an issue in the Brexit campaign.

 

[Kyriakos]

Any news on the voting fraud in the Austrian elections? (149% voter turnout in one district? Seems the people there split up so as to vote more ).

 

[gangleri2001]

That's true my anti-EU comrade. In UK's case the Evil Union just may rig the elections... again.

 

[Tahuti]

Any news on the voting fraud in the Austrian elections? (149% voter turnout in one district? Seems the people there split up so as to vote more ).

Why didn't they just rig the ballots themselves, as opposed to the ballot boxes?

Spoiler :

 

[gangleri2001]

Are you implying the pro-EU are nazis? You fool. Everybody knows that the nazis here are those who oppose the EU even if they are jewish. If you didn't know such a basic PC fact, then you urgently need some reeducation in political correctness. Somebody send him to Stockholm, please.

 

[dutchfire]

Is that anecdote actually true? Professional football clubs seem to be able to regularly bring in out-of-EU players more quickly than the 4.5 months suggested here. I also have the impression that the place I work at manages to get non-EU-nationals hired within 4.5 months, so either this legislation* is different here and thus not EU based, or Mr. Dyson is just slow.

* or the speed of the Home Office

This point seems to have been dropped by the Brexiteers. Had some discussion at work today that involved people complaining that the British Home Office is extremely slow with visa applications (compared to, e.g., the USA), so I suspect this is just Westminster sucking, and not due to EU regulations.

 

[uppi]

This point seems to have been dropped by the Brexiteers. Had some discussion at work today that involved people complaining that the British Home Office is extremely slow with visa applications (compared to, e.g., the USA), so I suspect this is just Westminster sucking, and not due to EU regulations.

I wonder what they will do if they indeed get themselves out of the EU, lose the ability to blame the EU for everything that is going wrong and have to admit that they were the problem all along?

But I guess, they will just continue to blame the EU. Especially after they start paying the same rate to the EU as Norway does.

 

[Agent327]

That's true my anti-EU comrade. In UK's case the Evil Union just may rig the elections... again.

Tiny detail: national elections aren't organized, controlled, monitored or even remotely a matter of the EU.

 

[gangleri2001]

You don't need to organize an election in order to rig it.

 

[Traitorfish]

What, are the EU shaving off guys' beards and sending them back in for a second vote?

 

[El_Machinae]

Swimmers die due to alcohol and swimmers die due to sharks. It's a true statement, but the scales are vastly, vastly different.

Elections are affected by rigging and by voter fraud. True statement, but vastly different scales. Rigging, done by those with access and authority, so overwhelms voter fraud in effect that it's like comparing alcohol and sharks. Rigging can affect the actual outcome. Fraud can merely change the ratios of the win. The number of 'try to vote twice' people are super low. And the number of elections they've actually changed are lower still.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Maybe he is referring to the power the EU wields as the creditor it became in response to the Euro Crisis. There have been very clear endorsements of political candidates and opposition to other candidates, which could be even understood as out-right threats in instances. That's obviously not what "rigging an election" means, but it gives people the justified impression that the EU is not respecting national autonomy regarding people's choices in their national elections.

As you may know, creditors asserting strong pressure on nations is nothing new (nor without good reason). What's new is that they also control your currency and that the creditor is not a foreign exterior entity but rather a larger body you yourself are a part of, and who hence should also keep your interests in mind, rather than treating you like the world bank treats third-world-nations.

Of course the EU has its reasons and of course it can be justified. I am just laying out another point of view which also has its merit and relevance.

 

[Lexicus]

Maybe he is referring to the power the EU wields as the creditor it became in response to the Euro Crisis.

That...actually makes a lot of sense.

 

[Agent327]

With regards to the suggestion it doesn't really. Except adding a further suggestion.

Maybe he is referring to the power the EU wields as the creditor it became in response to the Euro Crisis. There have been very clear endorsements of political candidates and opposition to other candidates, which could be even understood as out-right threats in instances. That's obviously not what "rigging an election" means, but it gives people the justified impression that the EU is not respecting national autonomy regarding people's choices in their national elections.

As you may know, creditors asserting strong pressure on nations is nothing new (nor without good reason). What's new is that they also control your currency and that the creditor is not a foreign exterior entity but rather a larger body you yourself are a part of, and who hence should also keep your interests in mind, rather than treating you like the world bank treats third-world-nations.

Of course the EU has its reasons and of course it can be justified. I am just laying out another point of view which also has its merit and relevance.

Point of view it is. I'm not quite sure what, beyond suggesting an awful lot, the factual relevance is of "very clear endorsements of political candidates and opposition to other candidates"? Sources seem to be oddly missing in there. I've certainly never come across such instances. Mind you, we're not talking about individual EU politicians here, but about the EU as an institution. Perhaps you've confused the two? Because individual EU politicians are from individual EU member states, and therefore not without interest in their own national elections.

 

[metatron]

I was referring to the Irish vote on the EU constitution, a vote that was canceled when it was clear the citizenry would not support it.

As to education, the EU doesn't crack the top five in the OCED's rankings of tertiary education whereas the US is number four or five. The future prospect for most EU nations to catch up isn't promising either.

Fruit aisle logic, much?
You do get that... how do i best put it?
Your degrees are junk.

The problem with southern Europe is not social democracy, because that works pretty well in the north. The problem is a culture of corruption that's carried over from the time of military dictatorships. Spain, Portugal and Greece only started to become democratic in the seventies and didn't have much of a democratic tradition.

That may hold up for Greece, Cyprus and southern Italy.
Spain and Portugal though have real disadvantages that are not a matter of culture (you know, geography, Spain's population distribution for starters).

Europeans used to make Americans look dumb.

Let me be lazy and file this here:

Spoiler :

Sidenote:
I happen to have a new Federal President by chance who is outright refusing to congratulate your President. He's calling him a "hate preacher" instead.
That's a very specific term in our political culture, previously used virtually exclusively to label islamist preachers who condone violent jihad and terrorism.
This class has now been extended, by the weight of the Federal Presidency to include 1. islamist preachers who condone violent jihad and terrorism and 2. The President of the United States.

Any questions?
No? Ok, i think we're done here.

 

[Lexicus]

1. islamist preachers who condone violent jihad and terrorism and 2. The President of the United States.

The President of the United States is in fitting company, then. I don't see the problem. Trump's administration is far more dangerous to most Westerners than "Islamic terrorists" are.

 

[crabapple]

What happened to America?