Thanks for the figures.BjornP wrote: ↑Mon Dec 10, 2018 5:45 amOh, no doubt that it is the euroskeptics on the right who have the most political power in EU politics and the greater visibility. Leftist euroskeptics range from European Green parties represented in elected parliaments on the moderate side, and old school Communists and antifa anarchists smashing things in the streets on the radical side. The right-wing euroskeptics range from soft, reformist euroskeptic National Liberals on the moderate side to "Exiters" who can be anything from moderate, classical liberal Conservatives who just want a return to a time of more national sovereignty to Golden Dawn-type neo-Nazis on the radical side.heydaralon wrote: ↑Sun Dec 09, 2018 6:50 am
Good response. However, I have to point out that Euroscepticism is not solely confined to the left. Your point about the half bill consumer market is great for business is well taken. That's why they did it. I am generally a pro business guy, but I am also a strong believer in national sovereignty. When a nation's entire autonomy and individual civil liberties are nullified because it will be great for a business, that is a problem imo. Likewise, allowing entire economies of various countries to be ravaged in order to keep the Euro in place has created many problems. I have heard it compared to the interwar Gold Standard, which may or may be true, but its kind of a funny point.
Its very ironic to me. The EU wanted to make it impossible for war to break out in Europe again. Yet in former Yugoslavia, the sectarian conflict and massacres that followed were not prevented, or even so slightly stopped by the EU. Their response was pitiful.
Likewise, they always talk scary that xenophobia and extremist ideology will make a strong resurgence if the EU breaks apart. The rise and popularity of xenophobia and extremism is already taking place in much of Europe and among pluralities of its voters, and all of this has been caused and exacerbated by the EU through immigration, austerity, and binding treaties. The Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Poland, Austria, Hungary, and Germany have all dealt with this, and the elites (the ones that matter and who have a vision for unity) of the EU cannot make their citizens fully reject the arguments these "extremist" politicians bring up. The same way that Trump was fueled by SJWism and semen swallowing MSM ideology here in the states, the EU ideology of unity, peace, and prosperity has actually fanned the flames of division, economic uncertainty, and extremism. The EU is the disease not the cure. I also take your point that many of these extremist politicians do not want to leave the EU, they want to reform it. At what point will they and their voters give up when they attempt to gain more autonomy, but cannot? What then will they do? What actions will they take? This isn't purely hypothetical either.
I'm not against regional alliances or trading blocs between countries with similar living standards. But to pretend that Greece and Denmark have anything in common is ludicrous. To pretend that linking them together and creating a similar currency won't have drastic and unforseen consequences for the entire continent is like playing with fire. The 1930's may not come back, but things can and will get worse. The predecessors to the EU were quite modest in their ambitions, and I can't fault them. But the current project is not viable longterm.
You could come visit in Florida too. Our headlines make it sound worse than it is. I'm sure you would find that the tourist areas are quite safe, and there are nice hotels, like every place on Earth. But there are parts of Florida that are ethnic ghettos filled with crime and murder. There are some areas in my state where English is hardly spoken. And they are growing. You might not have to interact with immigrants much where you live, but they will bite your country in the ass in a major way. Take an Americans word for it.
Better to be a eurosceptic than to live in a euroseptic, a euro septic tank that is
And oh yeah, I absolutely agree with you on the bullshit EU myth of "EU prevents (will prevent) war!". I hated the EU transparently political Nobel prize. If any European organization should have gotten that, it should have been the Council of Europe (not to be confused with the European Council, which is an EU institution). CoE encompasses almost all countries with territory in the European part of Eurasia. Russia and Turkey is a member, for example. NATO also prevented war, but I don't think the Nobel committe don't like the idea that a military presence can deter war which in turn leads to peace. The federalists love to use the "member states need to integrate (give up more sovereignty) more and more into the EU... or else there will be war in Europe, again. It's funny how often they forget how much war there was before ethnic nationalism emerged as an idea. The federalists have tried for years to change the meaning of "European" to someone in favor of a federalized United States of Europe. Macron, for example, is referred to as a "Super-European" by some media. They say they want to cure Europe of nationalism... but they keep using nationalist language themselves - they just want to create a new, pan-European "national" identity, with EU as the nation state.
The motivations for staying in, and the nature of the policies within, the EU are not neccesarily uniform. There was a major survey done among EU citizens a few years ago, which for example pointed out that a majority of Polish voters actually support a more federated EU. That's not the policy of the current Polish government. Generally speaking, across the EU, voters are being persuaded that there is and can be only one direction the EU should move in, that that is the only way toward prosperity, peace and stability. The Nordic countries's voters generally stand out when it comes to the desired future of the EU:At what point will they and their voters give up when they attempt to gain more autonomy, but cannot? What then will they do? What actions will they take?
http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/pub ... ubl_en.pdf
(Note it's a large file. See page 126 onwards for European views on the future and goal of the EU).
As for the rest of your post, the observation that one cannot and shouldn't pretend that Greeks have something in common with Denmark: I absolutely agree with that. When the European Economic Community was turned into a political, rather than the economic union it had originally been via the Maastrict Treaty in the early 90's, there were already parties warning that things were moving in a wrong direction. And at the time, Denmark was only one of the few countries that actually voted to join that damned treaty- or rather we voted not to. Then the new EU negotiated an opt-out agreement on certain key issues where we refused to hand over sovereignty, put that to the vote and that agreement passed by 56% of voters. But only few on the fringes were talking about encroaching centralization, federalization and greater loss of sovereignty at the time. Voters heard "more jobs", "cheaper travel", they sold it to us by appealing to our trade sense.
And thanks for the "euroseptic" word.
As you can tell, I am not very well versed in your continent, but aren't many of the aspects of travel like Schengen slowly getting walked back? I heard that many borders now have checkpoints and that movement between countries is no longer as simple as it was. Even Merkel was for some of that right?
Here is my main thing. America borrowed a lot of ideas and culture from Europe, and in many ways we are similar. But I think the EU is taking some really bad ideas from America. I have watched a few EU debates where these Spinelli types discuss how the American experiment isn't over, and how they hope the EU will be like America. They revise history too, calling the World Wars, "The European Civil War" (which is just absurd).
This is such a mistake for you guys. One of the things I like about Europe is the different countries that all have their own thing going. Denmark isn't Italy which isn't Germany which isn't France. Each of these places is different and they can all run their societies in accordance to their own customs of what an ideal state should be for them. To try and centralize everything and pretend that these countries with different culture and different language and different work ethic/labor/economies are united is such a mistake imo.
America came about through a series of chances. We were far enough away from Europe that we weren't sucked into your conflicts and could grow into our own thing, and we could expand westward as a steam release valve etc. Your continent cannot replicate our circumstances historically, and even with that in mind, we fought a brutal civil war to stay as one nation. As differing as American cultures are and as much of a burden as DC is, I think there is even less cohesiveness in Europe. As Speaker pointed out, to be a truly successful entity, the EU would have to take away far more power from the national level. I doubt that many Europeans could stomach that loss of autonomy, nor should they want to.
