Vivian on 15/6/2016 at 10:53
Quote Posted by Gryzemuis
It's a matter of principle.
People should be ruled by the people themselves. The larger the scale of an organization, the further away the decision process will be. Democracy starts around the corner. Not 1000 kilometers away. It's hard enough to convince your local Town Hall to do something, even if you have a large group in your town that wants something. Trying to convince your local government is almost impossible these day. Trying to achieve something on european scale will be impossible. Governments are autonomous bodies that, once in power, kinda don't have to explain or justify why they do things. Nobody is ever accountable. When the scale of governement grows, that becomes even larger. Corruption will become worse. Cronyism will become worse. Large corporations will pay huge sums of money to lobby for their cause. But a simple civilian will have no say in any matter any more.
Small scale is always better. More honest. More fair. More efficient. More accessible. More accountable. More human.
Fuck the EU.
Try building a road, sewerage, water, power and communications network with your town hall model. I mean people kinda (kinda) manage to do that in favela-type setups in places with extreme poverty and massively corrupt governments, but I imagine they'd much prefer a large, well-funded system to do it properly for them...
Also - science funding. Who's going to pay for the kind of hugely expensive and complicated research that's actually likely to improve things for us all as a species - your human genome projects, your large hadron colliders, your fusion research, etc etc. Going back to small, autonomous local governments is regressive.
faetal on 15/6/2016 at 11:08
It's all a lot of very abstract concepts. Globalisation has certainly made a lot of things shit, but it has happened now - the horse has bolted. The UK leaving the EU in protest of big government is just shitting the bed for no gain.
Gryzemuis on 15/6/2016 at 11:56
Quote Posted by Vivian
Try building a road, sewerage, water, power and communications network with your town hall model.
We had roads in my country before 2002, before 1992 and before the fifties. We don't need no EU for that, thank you very much.
Vivian on 15/6/2016 at 11:57
Yeah fine, but were they built by a centralised government or not?
faetal on 15/6/2016 at 12:00
(Not to mention that the EU isn't a government)
Gryzemuis on 15/6/2016 at 12:18
The EU has only eyes and ears for big interests. Regular folks don't matter. Look at the US. Corporations own politicians. Politicians in the US only care about the interests of big corporations, lobby groups, other politicians and international factors. Media are now big corporations too, so they won't make any disruptive sounds.
Do you like TTIP ? Do you think it is in the interest of the common man ? The EU and US overlords want TTIP. Nobody else wants it. BTW, do you enjoy the political process of how we're gonna get TTIP. Full secrecy until TTIP is done.
I'll give you a small example. In my country we are slowly trying to ban what we call "the bio-industry". It seems there is no english translation for that. It's intensive animal farming, battery cages, etc. We've almost got rid of chickens farmed in super-efficient, but animal-unfriendly ways. It took years to convince supermarkets to stop selling that kind of meat.
Now we suddenly have a trade agreement with Ukraine. (Note, 62% of Dutch voters have voted against such agreements. But EU says: "go" so we can all go fuck ourselves). In the Ukraine they got more important things to care about than animal-welfare. So now we're getting important chickens from the Ukraine, who were grown in ways we don't want. We can not forbid import of such products, because EU. If we would try to ban products made by slave labor, I bet the EU would forbid us to do that too.
With the EU, the bottom-line is profits for large corporations. And nothing else. The EU is an ultra-conservative economically ultra-right wing organization. We'll be following the US model. It might take a few decades, but we'll get there. It'll be the end of the middle-class.
What do you think the common man in Greece thinks about the EU ? Do you think they enjoy their new world peace and their new economic prosperity ?
Did you vote for Jean-Claude Juncker or Donald Tusk ? I sure as hell didn't. And neither did any of you. Can we vote to get rid of them ? Nope. Are they accountable to anyone ? Nope. How can such an important organization like the EU have no democracy inside itself ? It's a farce.
Another example of a farce. Let's talk about the decisiveness of the EU. And self-criticism and self-reflection. The EU has 2 head-quarters. Brussels and Strasbourg. This circus costs us somewhere between 120M and 300M euros per year. And nobody cares. They had over 30 years to fix this. But they didn't. And they won't. Because it's not their money, so they don't care. If the EU can't take this serious, if they can't fix such a simple issue, I am convinced they can not fix any important issue either. It's a useless importent extra layer of government.
I could go on and on, if you'd like.
The EU has brought absolutely nothing positive to my life. Nothing, nada.
Gryzemuis on 15/6/2016 at 12:23
Quote Posted by Vivian
Yeah fine, but were they built by a centralised government or not?
There's a difference between decision-making, financing and the actual building. We have 3 layers of authority. Nation-wide (17 million people), provence-wide (1-2 million people) and community-wide (town or village, 20k-100k to conglomerates of small villages to a few 100k people in larger cities). Decisions about roads are made on all 3 levels. Who pays for it, and who builds it, are much less important matters.
Yes, sometimes it took years or decades before a road was built. That's democracy. But I don't see how the EU could do this better. Do you mean they can just push their decision on us, without us having any say in the matter ? Nice fucking improvement that is.
Gryzemuis on 15/6/2016 at 12:28
Quote Posted by faetal
(Not to mention that the EU isn't a government)
That's a matter of language.
You're english. Government is an english word.
That does not mean we all use it the same way. For different people in different countries it means something else.
In Dutch we use the word "overheid". It means any official public organization that is chosen via democracy, paid with tax money, and works in the public's interest. It includes community, town, village, city, provence and nation-wide organizations.
It seems there is no proper english translation for this concept. At least not one I can find quickly. Online translations says "overheid == government". But it's not the same.
Does the fact that I can not express my thoughts as clearly in your language as I could in my own language, mean that your thoughts are better ? I'd be happy to continue in Dutch. :)
faetal on 15/6/2016 at 12:38
Quote Posted by Gryzemuis
The EU has only eyes and ears for big interests. Regular folks don't matter.
A large amount of my working rights come directly from EU regulation. The UK is continually trying to erode worker rights in the UK and coming up against EU pressure to stop. Leaders in general don't ultimately care about the little people, you're right, but in this case, the UK government cares a lot less than the EU, which if you think about it, is terrifying.
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Look at the US. Corporations own politicians. Politicians in the US only care about the interests of big corporations, lobby groups, other politicians and international factors. Media are now big corporations too, so they won't make any disruptive sounds.
Same in the UK, except for the bits which don't make it past EU regulation.
Quote:
Do you like TTIP ? Do you think it is in the interest of the common man ? The EU and US overlords want TTIP. Nobody else wants it. BTW, do you enjoy the political process of how we're gonna get TTIP. Full secrecy until TTIP is done.
The UK government is fully in favour of TTIP. However the negotiation process is halted due to French objections. Without the EU, the UK would enter into a trade deal with far fewer concessions, I've no doubt.
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I'll give you a small example. In my country we are slowly trying to ban what we call "the bio-industry". It seems there is no english translation for that. It's intensive animal farming, battery cages, etc. We've almost got rid of chickens farmed in super-efficient, but animal-unfriendly ways. It took years to convince supermarkets to stop selling that kind of meat.
Now we suddenly have a trade agreement with Ukraine. (Note, 62% of Dutch voters have voted against such agreements. But EU says: "go" so we can all go fuck ourselves). In the Ukraine they got more important things to care about than animal-welfare. So now we're getting important chickens from the Ukraine, who were grown in ways we don't want. We can not forbid import of such products, because EU. If we would try to ban products made by slave labor, I bet the EU would forbid us to do that too.
What does this have to do with the UK? The title of the topic is Brexit.
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With the EU, the bottom-line is profits for large corporations. And nothing else. The EU is an ultra-conservative economically ultra-right wing organization. We'll be following the US model. It might take a few decades, but we'll get there. It'll be the end of the middle-class.
With the UK, it is worse. It would be closer to the US model if it were not for the EU. Don't forget that the UK has a Gini coefficient far higher than the European average, so it's not like the EU caused this.
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What do you think the common man in Greece thinks about the EU ? Do you think they enjoy their new world peace and their new economic prosperity ?
This is related to the UK. Greece voted in a relatively socialist government, so got a raw deal compared with what they expected. The UK has a nasty neo-lib right wing government, so the EU is the lesser of two evils.
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Did you vote for Jean-Claude Juncker or Donald Tusk ? I sure as hell didn't. And neither did any of you. Can we vote to get rid of them ? Nope. Are they accountable to anyone ? Nope. How can such an important organization like the EU have no democracy inside itself ? It's a farce.
The UK has an entire unelected chamber with some posts being hereditary - over 800 people with a direct say in government. Also the UK has over 4x as many bureaucrats as the EU. So again, lesser of two evils.
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Another example of a farce. Let's talk about the decisiveness of the EU. And self-criticism and self-reflection. The EU has 2 head-quarters. Brussels and Strasbourg. This circus costs us somewhere between 120M and 300M euros per year. And nobody cares. They had over 30 years to fix this. But they didn't. And they won't. Because it's not their money, so they don't care. If the EU can't take this serious, if they can't fix such a simple issue, I am convinced they can not fix any important issue either. It's a useless importent extra layer of government.
What on earth are you talking about? One is the seat of the European council the other is the seat of the European parliament. Do you get just as upset by there being more than one government building in your country?
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I could go on and on, if you'd like.
The EU has brought absolutely nothing positive to my life. Nothing, nada.
Which has what to do with the UK referendum exactly?