Brexit: The DT Poll

[photekq]

I wouldn't agree with that at all. I think it's a matter that deeply concerns all of us, whether we be English, Scottish or even Welsh.

After the 6th I'll have some time. Then I'm going to make an extremely lengthy attempt to convince you to screw the poll and firmly vote Leave!

[Muirium]

I await the dramatic Welsh intervention with curiosity!

[Halvar]

The UK is a net contributor to the EU budget, so everyone wants you to stay!

Ten years ago, I would have said: leave and good riddance, because the UK is keeping the EU from progressing again and again. Today, I say: stay, because the progress of the EU in recent years has been going in all the wrong directions, and we need a strong UK inside the EU to help steer it back on course.

[Muirium]

That's partly how I think, too.

If Scotland were independent (yes, yes, not likely any time soon but half of us really do want it!) we see ourselves as more like Ireland than England when it comes to the outside world. I suspect Edinburgh would be as popular around Europe as Dublin. Not necessarily universally loved! But, you know, not nearly as thorny an old queen as London, obsessed with her fading prestige.

Would the EU function better without Britain? Ten years ago: probably yes. But you're right about today. Europe's already got enough problems. There is no solid "pro European" case for Brexit, even among us Scots who'd fancy jumping ship when they parted!

[fohat]

I desperately want the EU to work, because I want it to serve as the model for a planetary government.

The human race has reached the point that we have to have some sort of unity or else we will destroy ourselves.

The US Constitution served as an excellent framework for emerging democracies during the last couple of centuries, but the example and model that we set is not very scalable. Our clumsy handling of small states vs large states has generally been tolerable but has also caused lots of problems for us. And, with the coming of the Industrial and Technological Revolutions, along with our generally more homogeneous society (immigration notwithstanding) as "states rights" should be fading to the background, the "angry ones" are dragging them out again to use as bludgeons for regressiveness.

The EU is a much more reflective representation of the planet as a whole, and for all of its foibles and shortcomings it has a better potential to develop and evolve itself and set a viable conceptual framework than any other organization so far. The UN, regardless of its original intent, has never penetrated very far inside the fringes of "peacekeeping" and charity. And it has always been crippled by vetos from the Security Council, so most of the "big" problems have remained unsolved.

[Muirium]

As much as right wing whackjobs would like you to believe, the UN was never setup as a single world government. It's there to be a forum for international relations, with the power to pass mandates on specific issues that its member states can carry out. It's always informative to look at any institution and identify who are the players it's built around. The UN has no place for citizens, it's entirely an inter-governmental affair where nation states are the actors. And five of them are elevated to a position well above all the rest. Five which, for decades, included Taiwan instead of China! It's all quite stale and arbitrary. As much an answer to the 1930s failings of its predecessor, poor Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations, as it a time capsule of the world circa 1945.

The EU has a pretence to be a state and a government beyond its members. As Europeans, we all have a vote in the European Parliament. In Scotland's case, that means a game of musical chairs between our many political parties (I voted Green, but they just missed out again…) while in England that means a fat slate of Ukippers who gladly sup on EU subsidies while trying to destroy the very institution they are elected to. Not that it matters. The European Parliament is a complete sham anyway.

Europe's underlying problem is that the national governments are the actual players. Just like at the UN. And they try to compete against eachother, more than they truly work together. The United States certainly has a bit of that, too, but in Europe the scope for discord is much worse. Remember: we're talking prime ministers and presidents of sovereign nations, not just US state governors. Integration isn't happening at every level like it must to work at all. Something needs to give.

And it might just be the entire union.

[adhoc]

And it might just be the entire union.

One can dream! Oh my, the standard of living would sky rocket for the inferior countries (not UK, DE, FR). It would be pre-EU all over again.

[Muirium]

Ah, the old days.



Smells like… Liberty.

[adhoc]

Now, now, your inner idiot is showing. I have a better opinion of you, please don't ruin it.

[Muirium]

Come on. Respect for Uncle Joe, warts and all!

[fohat]

the UN was never setup as a single world government.

Something needs to give.

And it might just be the entire union.

As a designer, I understand full well that it often takes several prototypes to get something right.

Perhaps I have read too many hundreds (thousands?) of science fiction books during my long life, but I find myself thinking about the future of the human race a lot more than is healthy. The simple fact is that the current relationship between the human race and the planet Earth is absurd and unsustainable, much less the relationships between various and sundry groupings of individual persons, even in the short term of decades and centuries, much less long-term!

We are well into the stage in our evolution as a race that the planet needs a single governing body, of some sort, to be the final arbiter of intractable conflicts between individual players.

[Muirium]

And what, dare I ask, is the bigger force to ensure that happens?

The trouble with scenarios like massive climate change etc. forcing us to cooperate is that they really don't. We will murder one another, as nuclear armed nations, instead.

[fohat]

to ensure

our evolution as a race

[adhoc]

Come on. Respect for Uncle Joe, warts and all!

But...the whole point of Yu was, that we weren't puppets to either US (like you) or the RU. We have literally nothing to do with it. You have mistaken us for a country 3000 km away. That's like...Angela Merkel level of geography knowledge.

Not that I was being nostalgic of Yu days anyway, more of our independence days...before the EU said we need to pay taxes on rain and stuff like that.

[Muirium]

Oh I have a passing knowledge of the Tito regime. Yugoslavia liked to think it was an oasis from the Cold War, but that schtick didn't exactly hold up so well once the Soviet Union was gone! You were a client state like the rest of them, and toppled in the same earthquake as the Berlin Wall.

Of course, you lucky Slovenes had Croatia between you and the beast Milosevic. Handy, that!

[adhoc]

Obviously, you don't. Besides, again, I was refering to our independent days, not Yu days.

[Muirium]

Yeah, that anxious little while Croatia saved your backsides from the Serbs. I remember it. Slovenia was the place BBC correspondents would file their nightly reports in cosy hotels away from the front line!

Next time we heard of you over here, you'd joined the club.

[adhoc]

Yeah, you're just forgetting Slovenia was preparing for an exit for years, so they disarmed all JNA forces in one single day, while Croatia had no idea and said "us too!".

But of course you know more, you saw it on BBC after all, I was just there to witness it.

[Muirium]

Precisely. It's Britain's world, and you're welcome to live in it! Such is the imperial hangover amongst our Eton educated overlords in London.

What gets me is why my countrymen didn't all vote to tell them to fuck off, when we had the chance. My sense is that it's the Beeb wot won it for "No thank you very much!" Not through anything as brazen as bias. But through ubiquity. There is no Britain, up here, beyond the Beeb. There were no new Union flags flying in Edinburgh after that victory of theirs. Indeed, the Nos made their campaign about everything but Britain. Fear, uncertainty, doubt, and business as usual. An imaginary business where the world gives a shit what England (and her accessories) thinks.

[adhoc]

Ah yes, the great Britain, home of the politicians who copulate with dead pigs. The untermensch of Europe can truly be happy to be led by the great leaders such as these, and also those from Germany, who mix up the location od Berlin and Moscow.

I am so proud, I could shed a tear of happiness.

[Muirium]

I know, you're making me patriotic. Perhaps we should just bung a Great at the beginning of Europe, too. That'll fuck around with the Americans!

[fohat]

That'll fuck around with the Americans!

Nah, everybody knows that we saved all your bacon from Hitler.

And Trump will make us Great, too, anyway.

[Muirium]

The Even Greater Hyper United States of God Bless America!

Also, you're confusing your rôle with Stalin. The war in Europe turned at Stalingrad. By comparison, you guys just rolled in for the victory lap, again.

[adhoc]

America produced more minutes of film on WW2 than the entire war actually went on. Somehow, during all those minutes of film, USA has convinced the world they did more than absolutely bare minimum to ensure their part of the after-war goodies.

USA weaseled ALMOST as much as Italy during and after WW2.

But yes, the God emperor Trump will make america ultra gear bestest of freedomesest ever. So all is good.

[Muirium]

Also: not a racist. That would be Obama, natch.

[zslane]

The war in Europe turned at Stalingrad. By comparison, you guys just rolled in for the victory lap, again.

Well, we do like trophies...

[Muirium]

Who doesn't?



Speaking of caps, we can all agree on Lenin.

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I can just picture the exact photo Webwit's going to post next…

[adhoc]

Also: not a racist. That would be Obama, natch.

Yeah, it's almost like...conflict of interest is forbidden in a court of law or something.

Crazy talk!

Clearly RACIST! EXECUTE HIM!!!

[Muirium]

Execute? No way. I'm not trusting a binary as dodgy as that!

[adhoc]

But honestly, as someone who does not share the historical burden of the anglo sphere, I find it pretty pathetic how you people beat yourself over this self indulged guilt and shit.

It's kind of sad, but also funny in a way.¸

EDIT: Also Germans. Holy shit, the Germans. Haha.