While We Wait: Part 5
- Thread starter North King
- Start date
One word: gloire.
Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
Don't mind that. I meant that some games are good, some games are all graphics, no enjoyment.
I can't help but say that this is not my idea. All high schools and above tells us the benefits of EU.
The problem in Denmark is a) the extreme nationalism with the pensionists, who pretty much rule our nation due to bad population growth and b) the lower class who think Denmark has actual power equal to our formal. The analysis is longer, but fact is that EU is a benefit for Denmark, and at least all of the small countries in Europe. It's mainly because of those 60-year-old arses who vote Danish People's Party, who ruins our economy by increasing pensions and sends away immigrants who could actually work, maintaining the upkeep. And do those old voters work? No, they go for early pensions and sit lazily in their couch, roaring about what phail the young Danes are, completely ignoring our political points and causing chaos in our nation while sitting drinking tea. I don't want to work until I'm 80, and with the current pace, I will.
Woah, that came out longer than I thought.
Still, I think that when the younger&educated people grow older, we will have
[Awaiting for you to shoot me down, I known you can.. Remember that the rant is not aimed at you]
Ever played Mario Kart Wii online? It beats anything.
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Regarding the 'aliens meet us when we are united', a human has to have a picture of an enemy, which is why we probably will be united whenever we meet an enemy race. But not before.
It sucks that they don't temper that with the disadvantages.
As has been told to me previously, Denmark was/is really just an appendage of Germany when it comes to trade. It's your largest trade partner by a mile, and it provides a huge amount of your goods. So a customs union is probably more useful to Denmark than the corresponding regulatory burden of the EU. I still haven't figured out why in the world you [Europe] would want a Union when you could have just got away with a bunch of regular trade and synchronization treaties. Switzerland provides the necessary example. But the Union does overwhelming favor Denmark, highly specialized as it is in things like Pork for instance [Apparently your Bacon is still bad compared to Australia according to the Dane's I've met].
I still suspect the Union is going to die stillborn, probably because of France and Germany fighting about the Euro, and about this and that. I still don't understand why Britain even bothered to join... way to go and thanks for nearly bankrupting your former dominions, Australia and New Zealand in particular. Not to late to come onto the winning team, of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and India we might still have you back
Heh as to the rest, poor Joakim, Australia has a steady stream of immigrants and similar though far less pronounced problems.
As has been told to me previously, Denmark was/is really just an appendage of Germany when it comes to trade. It's your largest trade partner by a mile, and it provides a huge amount of your goods. So a customs union is probably more useful to Denmark than the corresponding regulatory burden of the EU. I still haven't figured out why in the world you [Europe] would want a Union when you could have just got away with a bunch of regular trade and synchronization treaties. Switzerland provides the necessary example. But the Union does overwhelming favor Denmark, highly specialized as it is in things like Pork for instance [Apparently your Bacon is still bad compared to Australia according to the Dane's I've met].
I still suspect the Union is going to die stillborn, probably because of France and Germany fighting about the Euro, and about this and that. I still don't understand why Britain even bothered to join... way to go and thanks for nearly bankrupting your former dominions, Australia and New Zealand in particular. Not to late to come onto the winning team, of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and India we might still have you back
Heh as to the rest, poor Joakim, Australia has a steady stream of immigrants and similar though far less pronounced problems.
Disenfrancised
Beep Beep
I prefer to call them 'Enlightenment Values' as it a) sounds classier and b) lets you ditch some crappy parts of the extant western culture during your propagandising.
@Masada: despite the overly Bueraucratic nature of its currently impliementation, the EU as a way to generate the Four Freedoms is a good idea (superstate...less so). How much effort would it be to do bilateral trade deals with every other member? Or implement a common zone of movement? Or create a common currency of sufficent size that we can change things without seeing capital flight (not everyone has the advantage of an empty continent crust over a bedrock of tasty minerals like Oz does)? Or raise the living and governmental standards of crummy countries enough so that they are worth trading with and stop sending criminals and illegals (Something America might want to note re: Mexico).
The EU is a ramshackle mess, but any of the alternatives yet proposed would be worse
. Plus not everyone would be happy to do what Switzerland did, and essential cede enormous amount of power to institutions you don't even nominally influence (HF had to do it as they were surrounded by the EU anyway). As to the commonwealth, as much as we'd like closer links the fact of the matter is that Europe is right across the ditch, and is going to be our biggest trade partner anyway (also you guys ran off with the US so
)
I echo Dis statements, I mean there are some clear economic incentives for the EU to exist, and I'm not sure bilateral agreements could ever be as good, and most of the disadvantages seem to be nationalistic in flavour (although I know of a few economic disadvantages, maybe you could present more?).
As a Political leader, yes the EU is a joke, and from what I seem to recall Italy and Germany were both united from the top rather than from the bottom, I feel its going to be similar for the EU if it ever wants to be a serious political entity, and as of yet, theres no reason for that to happen (the US has similar enough values to the EU, not entirely unsuprising really).
As for the Commonwealth, the ability to do anything intresting with it passed a long time ago, The UK joining the EU was simply the final nail in the coffin.
As a Political leader, yes the EU is a joke, and from what I seem to recall Italy and Germany were both united from the top rather than from the bottom, I feel its going to be similar for the EU if it ever wants to be a serious political entity, and as of yet, theres no reason for that to happen (the US has similar enough values to the EU, not entirely unsuprising really).
As for the Commonwealth, the ability to do anything intresting with it passed a long time ago, The UK joining the EU was simply the final nail in the coffin.
flyingchicken
Deity
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2007
- Messages
- 3,783
To doodz interested in a light game: I have my second ever NES up since after looking at this map I gave up on my last one as hopeless and cannot be revived.
Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
It sucks that they don't temper that with the disadvantages.
As has been told to me previously, Denmark was/is really just an appendage of Germany when it comes to trade. It's your largest trade partner by a mile, and it provides a huge amount of your goods. So a customs union is probably more useful to Denmark than the corresponding regulatory burden of the EU. I still haven't figured out why in the world you [Europe] would want a Union when you could have just got away with a bunch of regular trade and synchronization treaties. Switzerland provides the necessary example. But the Union does overwhelming favor Denmark, highly specialized as it is in things like Pork for instance [Apparently your Bacon is still bad compared to Australia according to the Dane's I've met].
I still suspect the Union is going to die stillborn, probably because of France and Germany fighting about the Euro, and about this and that. I still don't understand why Britain even bothered to join... way to go and thanks for nearly bankrupting your former dominions, Australia and New Zealand in particular. Not to late to come onto the winning team, of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and India we might still have you back
Heh as to the rest, poor Joakim, Australia has a steady stream of immigrants and similar though far less pronounced problems.
A political and 'cultural' European Union will protect us against Americanization and will help Europe to regain her previous power, and I have no idea about the pork.
Spoiler Spoiler alert. :
I didn't get this.
Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
AARGH THE CURIOUSITY AND WEIRD SMILEYNESS! xD
Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
I wish that any of you were able to read Danish so that you could help me translate a German text I'm working on right now. It has to be completed in one hour and fifteen minutes. Bother.
Meh, I still think the EU is un-democratic, compared to the Westminster system, and I still view it as a big mistake on Britain’s part to enter the thing fully… nevertheless its your choice, I still can’t understand why the Tories support the darn thing (Euroskeptics… pull the other one).
How much effort would it take to do bilateral trade deals with every other member, a lot. But arguably less than entering the EU, judicial reform, democratic reform and all the other jazz Brussels appears to like (all topping and no substance). Call me a cynic, but the Common Market was marketed as a Common Market not a superstate in its first incarnation. The common currency is problematic, the benefits don’t outweigh the disadvantages by much, if anything, importing inflation, importing an unresponsive currency and one which is much too high for all members except France and Germany, for instance Italy is being killed by it (the Italian problem is a little more complex but currency plays a large part). Capital flight is best controlled by regulations not currency sharing, if anything currency sharing facilitates capital flight, witness what happened when Ireland guaranteed deposits and the subsequent massive outflows of capital in Euro’s from everywhere on the continent to Ireland. I also like the fact that in countries like Hungary where the Euro is much too high to be of real use, they have denominated things like loans in foreign currencies, the Swiss Franc was popular as were a slew of other currencies. I love it when a large wack of the population learns to play currencies, sucks when a financial crisis screws the carry trade and raises the real price of servicing the loans, but whattcha going to do. As to the ascertain that you can raise the living standards in Poland, I doubt it, the EU is very good at investing its money in politically beneficial schemes, propping up Auto companies in Poland at the expense of companies in Britain is a recent example. It invests in the most politically expedient schemes, and really just manages to piss of people by doing silly stuff like banning Poles from making homemade cheese and selling it. Any nation state with a brain is going to use an EU investment as a “look we can work the system for your benefit and secure all our VAT back!” so the EU spends the money and gets none of the credit. It’s PR firm should be fired. I would have thought that illegal Poles were actually useful, you know being hardworking, and not being able to access welfare payments… they tend to fill up jobs nobody else cares for au-pairs and the like.
It would be well suited to Britain to re-negotiate and just adopt the Swiss system of interactions with the EU. The EU wouldn’t say no, you’re still a large economy taken just by yourself. You would be dodging VAT contributions, which you pay huge sums for, and get around a quarter back in direct funding, the rest disappears into beautiful things like the EU Rapid Reaction Force (I swear the funding for that is a political slush fund). Not to mention the fact you would be avoiding all the uncomfortable legal bits Common Law does not sit well inside a Code system.
I would also hesitate to guess, but the long term benefits of closer relationships with your Commonwealth would pay far and above the dividends that being a member of the EU would. If you could wrangle a Swiss style setup so you still have complete freedom of access then your future is bright and rosy. Europe is increasingly going to be irrelevant on the global stage.
I don’t think the EU is ever going to be popular with the majority of the population. Ireland was a good example, for a nation which has gained so much from membership to vote against it, because they didn’t understand what they were voting for (a Constitution, it was the same with some minor amendments as the previous Constitution). The EU has a horrible inability to relate to the people, it really works under the curtain to much, doesn’t have any common rapport with the people and doesn’t appear to do anything. Ask people who there EU politician is and you’ll find they won’t know. Ask people what the EU does, and you’ll get blank looks. Ask people what they think of the EU and you’ll get blank looks from the majority, virulent hate, and fawning adulation from a small number. Most people still deal with only national politics, there is literally nil reason for people to care what the EU does. Brussels is really unaccountable to the people, since nobody seems to want to allow an exit mechanism to the thing. The Eurocrats response to Ireland rejecting the treaty wasn’t healthy, “those Euro-skeptic nationalist thugs lied to the people”, to me it seemed more that the EU did not relate what was on offer and people voted against it correspondingly. It is the worst of continental politics, rolled into a Supernational unaccountable body which is really not all that interested in what the people think… dysfunctional is an understatement.
How much effort would it take to do bilateral trade deals with every other member, a lot. But arguably less than entering the EU, judicial reform, democratic reform and all the other jazz Brussels appears to like (all topping and no substance). Call me a cynic, but the Common Market was marketed as a Common Market not a superstate in its first incarnation. The common currency is problematic, the benefits don’t outweigh the disadvantages by much, if anything, importing inflation, importing an unresponsive currency and one which is much too high for all members except France and Germany, for instance Italy is being killed by it (the Italian problem is a little more complex but currency plays a large part). Capital flight is best controlled by regulations not currency sharing, if anything currency sharing facilitates capital flight, witness what happened when Ireland guaranteed deposits and the subsequent massive outflows of capital in Euro’s from everywhere on the continent to Ireland. I also like the fact that in countries like Hungary where the Euro is much too high to be of real use, they have denominated things like loans in foreign currencies, the Swiss Franc was popular as were a slew of other currencies. I love it when a large wack of the population learns to play currencies, sucks when a financial crisis screws the carry trade and raises the real price of servicing the loans, but whattcha going to do. As to the ascertain that you can raise the living standards in Poland, I doubt it, the EU is very good at investing its money in politically beneficial schemes, propping up Auto companies in Poland at the expense of companies in Britain is a recent example. It invests in the most politically expedient schemes, and really just manages to piss of people by doing silly stuff like banning Poles from making homemade cheese and selling it. Any nation state with a brain is going to use an EU investment as a “look we can work the system for your benefit and secure all our VAT back!” so the EU spends the money and gets none of the credit. It’s PR firm should be fired. I would have thought that illegal Poles were actually useful, you know being hardworking, and not being able to access welfare payments… they tend to fill up jobs nobody else cares for au-pairs and the like.
It would be well suited to Britain to re-negotiate and just adopt the Swiss system of interactions with the EU. The EU wouldn’t say no, you’re still a large economy taken just by yourself. You would be dodging VAT contributions, which you pay huge sums for, and get around a quarter back in direct funding, the rest disappears into beautiful things like the EU Rapid Reaction Force (I swear the funding for that is a political slush fund). Not to mention the fact you would be avoiding all the uncomfortable legal bits Common Law does not sit well inside a Code system.
I would also hesitate to guess, but the long term benefits of closer relationships with your Commonwealth would pay far and above the dividends that being a member of the EU would. If you could wrangle a Swiss style setup so you still have complete freedom of access then your future is bright and rosy. Europe is increasingly going to be irrelevant on the global stage.
I don’t think the EU is ever going to be popular with the majority of the population. Ireland was a good example, for a nation which has gained so much from membership to vote against it, because they didn’t understand what they were voting for (a Constitution, it was the same with some minor amendments as the previous Constitution). The EU has a horrible inability to relate to the people, it really works under the curtain to much, doesn’t have any common rapport with the people and doesn’t appear to do anything. Ask people who there EU politician is and you’ll find they won’t know. Ask people what the EU does, and you’ll get blank looks. Ask people what they think of the EU and you’ll get blank looks from the majority, virulent hate, and fawning adulation from a small number. Most people still deal with only national politics, there is literally nil reason for people to care what the EU does. Brussels is really unaccountable to the people, since nobody seems to want to allow an exit mechanism to the thing. The Eurocrats response to Ireland rejecting the treaty wasn’t healthy, “those Euro-skeptic nationalist thugs lied to the people”, to me it seemed more that the EU did not relate what was on offer and people voted against it correspondingly. It is the worst of continental politics, rolled into a Supernational unaccountable body which is really not all that interested in what the people think… dysfunctional is an understatement.
Watchmen. Read it. Good graphic novel. High quality. Hurm.
If the people who actually wrote the Tenth Amendment heard about the Emancipation Proclamation, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Roe v. Wade, Korematsu v. US, Prohibition, or any other of a host of political decisions that have been enshrined in American government since their time, they would collectively have shat themselves in sheer outrage. The US Constitution is designed to be a living document, here. I doubt that the Founding Fathers had any inkling of what would occur further down the line in American history, and by gum they didn't think they would either. That's why they wrote it the way they did.
That seems to be a statement that would be rather difficult to back up at best, but it doesn't matter what they want. What matters is that the United States would have economically, geopolitically, and militarily have been forced to recognize the existence of such an entity had that been the case. And since the United States government is empowered to do so, said action would have taken precedence over any legal irregularity. Was it written down in the code of law of the Ottoman Empire that regions under their control had the right to secede? Certainly not. Did the Ottoman Empire recognize the independence of the Kingdom of Greece after it broke away anyway? Yes, therefore such an action takes precedence over the legal authority to do such a thing. If the Confederate States had managed to secure diplomatic backing, the Federals would have been forced to acknowledge the existence of a separate state. Until that time, they were criminals and no more in the right than John Dillinger or Alferd G. Packer.Neverwonagame3 said:
Legislation and law aren't the same thing either.Neverwonagame3 said:
That doesn't sound like an argument for the legality of the seizure of federal government property to me.Neverwonagame3 said:
Nah, because the United Nations administered Kosovo starting in 1999 as per the Kumanovo agreement. What Serbian government property? Serbia has evacuated by their own connivance (if not volition) for the last nine years. The Federal government of the United States signed no Kumanovo agreement.Neverwonagame3 said:
How are you going to logically prove the existence of an inherent right to freedom?Neverwonagame3 said:
Jefferson Davis: Private Letters (1823-1889), collected by one Hudson Strode, examples on pages 81, 122, 214, 268, 483, and several others. Window dressing: the leading sentences to the Georgian State Declaration of Secession. As for Lincoln: well, does the Gettysburg Address count?Neverwonagame3 said:
I don't think Davis was 'betraying his own cause' by using a certain form of parlance in his correspondence. The only cause he destroyed thereby was yours.
I have argued with some of them. The World History forum is a treacherous place.Neverwonagame3 said:
That has been variously defined as an alliance and a series of puppetry arrangements. I would tend to say that the states under Athenian control, save Attika itself, were, since they generally had their own self-government save for the tax assessments and military contributions levied by the central Athenian authorities, not part of a country, in the same fashion that the puppetry arrangement the Roman Republic and its Italian allies maintained cannot be referred to as a single state.Neverwonagame3 said:
To differentiate it from the subsequent Irish Civil War, probably.Neverwonagame3 said:
The American Revolution wasn't carried out within the Kingdom of Great Britain; colonial administration was a subordinate, but somewhat separate, entity. It has been noted before that 'Revolution' is a misnomer, however, so I'm not prepared to defend that title, unlike that of the American Civil War.Neverwonagame3 said:
The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation’s challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps. Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start.
http://change.gov/americaserves/
Obama just failed.
http://change.gov/americaserves/
Obama just failed.
Daftpanzer
canonically ambiguous
The above sounds like a good idea to me.
Thlayli
Le Pétit Prince
The above screws with SO MUCH judicial precedent that it boggles the mind. Apparently private colleges aren't sovereign entities now, and state universities take directives from Washington. Awesome. I'm all for community service, but the federal government forcing (presumably) both public AND private universities to compel such a thing seems...odd, to say the least.
Of course, I hope all of these new Corps get to wear nifty armbands with the Obama logo on them. Then they can be properly paramilitary.
I'm all for community service, but the federal government forcing (presumably) both public AND private universities to compel such a thing seems...odd, to say the least.Of course, I hope all of these new Corps get to wear nifty armbands with the Obama logo on them. Then they can be properly paramilitary.
foolish icarus
Shipwreck
Either they changed what was on that thar website since you posted the "quote" or you very selectively edited it.
Note the difference? Ah, details.
Note the difference? Ah, details.
Doesn't change my emphasis... got that directly from the site this morning.
Conscripts still got paid, doesn't change the fact that your being forced to do the work. If volunteering was popular or at all desirable then there would be none. So meh.
And yes I'm a touch freaked out... I'm not in the habit of editing offensive content to be more offensive.
Conscripts still got paid, doesn't change the fact that your being forced to do the work. If volunteering was popular or at all desirable then there would be none. So meh.
And yes I'm a touch freaked out... I'm not in the habit of editing offensive content to be more offensive.
