The future of the European Union

Discussion in 'Western Europe' started by LafayetteBis, Apr 4, 2017.

  1. Vlad Ivx

    Vlad Ivx Active Member Past Donor

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    Don't tell me about Muslims. My country, Romania, has been fighting them for 800 years.

    Forget ISIS. They are only a secondary threat. You seem unable to identify Islam's new weapon: its fertility rate - which is so high compared to that of the Europeans that within a generation they will simply replace us. Their women are good at producing kids. The western women are not. The western women are so strong and independent and so allergic to family life that most of them will simply fail to pass their genes.

    Islam's tactics have changed, but their goals have remained the same as 500 years ago. Now they are going to take over Europe simply by their numbers and will use Europe's 'democracy' against it. Muslims are all about expanding and replacing - not integrating.

    During the middle ages, here in the East, whenever we lost a war against the Muslims, they would steal our babies and raise them as Islamic warriors to supplement their numbers. Now they are using your welfare system and child support to do the same, you fools. Erdogan's Turkey is already doing this in an organized manner, on an industrial scale:
     
  2. Vlad Ivx

    Vlad Ivx Active Member Past Donor

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    The last thing that Russia wants is war with Europe. The world economy would suffer greatly. All that Russia wants is to maintain its sphere of influence - the one it had since the fall of communism.
     
  3. Vlad Ivx

    Vlad Ivx Active Member Past Donor

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    I didn't forget Turkey. Turkey has decided that it does not want to be part of the EU anymore.
     
    Last edited: Apr 6, 2017
  4. VietVet

    VietVet Well-Known Member

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    I do not believe you.
    Putin wants more.
     
  5. alexa

    alexa Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I am sure they do not want war either but what they do want is the end of the EU and Europe as part of the Eurasian Union. Putin is supporting Dugin's geopolitics. This is also why Russia supports the Western Far right as they are the people most likely to be able to cause disintegration in the EU. You can read about the plan here

    http://www.4pt.su/en/content/aleksandr-dugin’s-foundations-geopolitics
     
  6. DennisTate

    DennisTate Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I began a discussion today that I think you will like.....
    The writer that I quote is one of the most off the scale intellects that I have ran into in my entire life................
    What is so amazing is how many different fields he can comment on at such a high level.........

    Could ISIS have been stopped at the border of Iraq if.....
     
  7. DennisTate

    DennisTate Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I have to agree......
    George Soros is an opponent that should NOT be underestimated..........

    He was quite clear that he wanted to see the USA Dollar greatly devalued......
    there are ways to insure and back up the Dollar......
    so that it could not fall as far as he and his buddies may wish.........

    http://www.politicalforum.com/index...utah-state-dollar-save-the-usa-dollar.349935/

    Could a Utah State Dollar save the USA Dollar?

     
    Last edited: Apr 6, 2017
  8. DennisTate

    DennisTate Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    True.....
    I am a Theist and I would compare President Donald Trump to King Josiah or King Hezekiah who led their nations to major recoveries.........
     
  9. AGWisFAKEsillyBABYKILLERS

    AGWisFAKEsillyBABYKILLERS Well-Known Member

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    I am not so against the devaluing of the USD as long as we Americans are the ones to reap the benefit of the underlying cause..
     
    DennisTate likes this.
  10. DennisTate

    DennisTate Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Good point.....
    there are ways to make sure that you do reap the benefits......

    The USA film industry is the best in the world..... in the English language anyway......

    The USA film industry......
    at least parts of it are all set up to be a major driving force
    in the most off the scale miraculous economic boom ever seen in the history of the earth........

    Over these next four to eight years..... comedy can
    go off in a whole new direction........

    http://www.politicalforum.com/index...0-election-but-negates-global-dimming.351581/

    In alternate time line Mr. Gore wins the 2000 election but negates Global Dimming....
     
  11. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Preposterous. Trade is key to the formation of the EU - you seem to forget it was first called a "Common Market".

    Your visceral hatred is showing when you cannot debate evenly regarding the subject. Such loathing has no place in an open forum of decent exchange.

    Moving right along ...
     
    Last edited: Apr 7, 2017
    Ole Ole likes this.
  12. Baff

    Baff Well-Known Member

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    Yes, a trade deal was the legitimate part we joined to get.
    After that... the power mad tried to use trade as a lever for more powers. The trade deal wasn't enough for them so they changed it into the EU instead.

    Accept free movement of people or the trade goes.... and so on. Accept EU Laws primacy in your courts.. or lose the trade...

    Answer: Same as always. F U fascist. Don't need your trade.


    Same old story from those who would rule over us.
    Join us and you will be richer, and more peaceful.
    And enslaved.
     
    Last edited: Apr 7, 2017
  13. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    What a waste of time!

    Concern yourself with Romania's poor Productivity Rate that forces workers to go off to Central Europe to find jobs.

    I have employed them to do house renovation, and they are damn fine laborers ... !
     
  14. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Correction. The HAD quarrels with each other.

    The past is passed. Let's just get on to contending with the future. Peace is essential to economic development ...
     
  15. Otern

    Otern Active Member

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    What visceral hatred?

    I don't want the EU, for perfectly reasonable reasons. I simply don't want a huge union with minimal accountability to the people, and with massive democratic flaws running things around here.

    There are good things done in the name of the EU, but we could achieve these things through national democracy. Like students having an easy time getting into foreign universities, or even industrial standardization, or cooperation between police forces in combating organized crime.

    It's those four freedoms, and the European state i object to, and they're the fundamental part of the EU. And this is also why I object to the whole European Union as a concept.
     
  16. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    None of the above is indicative of the current EU.

    It's drawbacks (namely high unemployment) were a "gift" from the Dubya Administration to the world. The EU took a long time to recover, as did the US.

    There is no fundamental hegemony in the EU, where most of its laws and regulations are of a common accord. That's how a nation gets built.

    In fact, the EU today is more of a modern Social Democracy than the US will ever be, and thereby it is a much fairer place in which to live and bring up a family ...
     
  17. Otern

    Otern Active Member

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    I totally agree living and bringing up a family in EUROPE can be better than the US. But the same is true for non EU European countries. In particular Norway, Iceland and Switzerland.

    I may not have been clear about this earlier, but I'm not criticizing Europe, but the EU. When I say the EU, I mean the commission, the EU parliament, the council of the EU and the EU council. Particularly the commission, where most of the democratic deficiencies lies.

    The EU is far from a social democracy. Norway is a social democracy. And don't get me wrong, I'm not a huge fan of the political system of the US either, even though I am a fan of their nation. Same goes for Europe. Not a fan of the system, but of the continent.

    Also, the western world haven't recovered from the 2007 crash. But the non EU members had a far better time after it, than the EU members. Iceland and Greece got hit in a very similar way, but while Iceland still had some control over their national economy, Greece had to sell out to business interests. Now, Iceland has pretty much recovered, while it looks pretty grim for the Greeks.
     
  18. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    This I can agree with. It was necessary at first, but now is obsolete and infested with "functionaries" paid an untaxed salary.

    The EU needs a CEO, but language barriers prevent one from being elected.

    Unfortunately, because that position is dearly needed to even the keel ...
     
  19. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    No, you cannot.

    For what you want to happen requires an elected common parliament and a common Executive.

    Period ...
     
  20. Otern

    Otern Active Member

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    A huge problem with the EU lies within its executive power, which is the commission. Sure, there's the parliament, and they hold elections. (Even though this parliament is flawed because of the sheer size of Europe, which means a lot of smaller nations can't continue as they have been, even though their system works for them.)

    There's no other democratic system in the west where the executive power is so far removed from the public. The Americans can vote for their president, which although has a LOT of power compared to the judicial and the legislative branch, still can be influenced, and ousted by the public. The Brits have their parliamentary two FPTP system, which makes it harder for smaller voices to be heard, but even there, the public have the say in who gets the executive power, although it's by party to party, rather than person to person. Norway has a different parliamentary democracy, not FPTP, and like Britain can't decide the executive power from person to person, but rather parties.

    But the EU operates quite different from all of these "flawed" democracies, in that the public have absolutely no say, and no power at all in who gets to run the European commission, or who gets to join it. It's all taken a few steps further away from the public by delegating this power to the heads of states. And then it's further removed from these heads of states by the way the commission functions, they're not supposed to follow party, or national lines, but rather the ideal of the Federal Europe.

    Now, this turns into a really efficient bureaucracy, although many EU opponents call them inefficient. For example, if there's a right wing majority in the EU parliament, the EU commission can push through their policies, by not stepping on too many right wing toes. They may even come to some compromise with the right winger on some issues, if the directive is packed with a couple of things the right wingers like. And then they can keep the left wing issues at hand for when the parliament gets a left wing majority, and do the same things all over again, but never stepping back on the course the Commission is instructed to follow. They're playing the long game, and can take mouse steps towards a Federal Europe. Because a majority left wing/right wing parliament, can never make the Commission go back on any legislature passed in a previous parliament, since they have no chance of changing the executive power. The parliament can only postpone, obstruct and block legislation (and in many cases, the Commission can override even this, since they hold some judicial power and legislative power too).

    Of course, the legislative branch of government work a lot similarly in most democracies, but the MAJOR difference is, in the EU, the executive power is designed not to be reformed or otherwise changed by the electorate. Parliament has an important function in most democracies in preventing some goofball government in doing too much damage the usual four years they're in power. And if the government has really screwed up, they will not sit on the throne the next four years. The only real way to change the course of the Commission, from a European "citizen", is to make their respective countries leave the Union, as it's the only way to truly reject the proposals of the Commission in the long run.
     
  21. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    THE huge problem with the EU is the lack of an Executive. There is one, but it is fractioned between and amongst all the country leaders - which is why development goes so slowwwwwwwwwwly.

    The EU needs a real executive elected by the people. It must replicate the tripartite governance of the US - the Executive, the Legislative and the Judiciary. Each powers that check one another.

    I think most people understand this, but when you have Berlaymont full of "civil servants" (simple-serpents? ;^) on whopping good salaries and NO INCOME TAXATION. so all they care about is maintaining the Status Quo.

    Besides, language is a barrier that hinders at present the election of a single EU President. But, with the newer generation coming along, in another 10/15 years they will be speaking more English as a second language and that hindrance will slowly disappear ...
     
  22. Otern

    Otern Active Member

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    The EU council is not the executive power of the EU. The EUC can't propose laws, they can only propose candidates for the Commission. This institution is far from the worst EU institutions, but they should be replaced by the Council of Europe, which consists of ALL European states, not just the ones following the Brussels line. The Nordic Council works this way, and it's decent. It's to promote cooperation, without meddling in other countries way of life. The truly pan-European organizations are pretty great, but they all have in common that they're not answerable to the EU at all. Europe needs organizations like the OSCE, the Council of Europe, the UN, and Interpol. These are all great global organizations, and they all respect individual nations sovereignty.

    The true executive power of the EU, is the EU Commission. You don't have to be an EU opponent to realize this. A perhaps simplistic view on where the executive power lies, can be seen from looking at where the largest number of employees are, in each EU institution. The EU commission, while only having 27 commissioners, employs 30 000 people. No other political body in the EU comes close. This is where the work is done.

    I totally agree with you in that a democratic EU would need a proper tripartite division of powers. But even with this tripartite division of powers, I would object to EU membership, for the same reasons I would object to a Scandinavian Union/Kalmar Union 2.0; Smaller, well functioning nation states should be able to govern themselves without being steamrolled by larger, more populated nations with different values. The language barrier is pretty much a non issue. As long as they don't expect us to talk German or French, we'll communicate easily. The value barriers are far greater.

    This is also why I wish Norway had less focus on central government, and somewhat more power to the counties. Even local cultural differences matter in a nation. Of course I don't want this to go overboard, and have no central government in Norway at all, that would be truly divisive. A democratically elected EU executive branch of government, would still not be representative of my nation, as we'd never have any chance to get "our man" in. We're simply too small. Too small to influence Europe. Joining, or being annexed into a political union with the rest of Europe will only mean we'd have to assimilate with the German/French/British values, which works the best for German/French/British cultures. Our positive influence on the EU would drown in the negative influence the EU has on us. And no, not everything coming from Europe is bad, most of it's great, but if it's great, it'll eventually be a part of us anyway, but it needs to come here because we want it, rather than pushed down on us with a "deal with it" attitude.

    The democratic system I have the most respect for, is the Swiss. But I would rather live in Norway, as our system, while flawed compared to theirs, have managed to create laws and regulations more closely related to my values.
     
  23. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It IS the de facto executive body of the EU.

    Like it or not ...
     
  24. Otern

    Otern Active Member

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    No.

    The members of the EU council are the executive power of their respective states. They're NOT the executive power of the EU. They can propose legislation for their own individual respective states, but not for the EU.

    The executive power of the EU, is the EU Commission. These guys can propose legislation for the EU.

    So, the de facto executive body of the EU, is still the EU Commission.
     
  25. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Thanks for the correction.

    But, so what? The governance is still a matter of national conniving amongst EU states and their members on the Commission. In any "democracy", that's just not good enough ..
     

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