Rue, Britannia <<Moderator's Warning Issued>>

If the leavers made one mistake, it was underestimating the arrogance and the vindictiveness of the EU bureaucracy.

We speak the same language. That alone gives us more in common with each other.

Canada doesn't fight in all our stupid wars...

 

I don't feel the need to identify as anything in particular. I am a person who happens to be somewhere as an accident of birth.

 

The UK is politically independent, and the EU bureaucracy does not demand submission.
A bureaucracy is the operating system, not the decision making one.

 

Do you have some evidence of this. While during the referendum if anyone voiced concerns about our economic relationship with the EU the Leavers would tell the public the EU would be bending over backwards to do what they wanted as the EU needed the UK more than the UK needed the EU. Once they won the vote they started on 'No deal is better than a Bad deal'. In reality it was the UK who began the arrogance. I do not understand why you expect the UK to get as good or better a deal with the EU being out of it than being in. What would be the point in joining if people got a better deal leaving? Then there would be no EU.

 

So you don't feel as if you belong to any sort of cultural group?

 

I'm not sure I see the difference between the two.

 

You mean aside from the relentless vilification of the Brexit movement?

Perhaps they exaggerated the willingness of the EU to negotiate, I don't really know, but they were certainly right when they said the EU needed the UK more than the UK needed the EU.

In what way?

Because maintaining good relations with the UK also benefits the EU.

Now you're talking!

 

so it should not be hard for you to find an example

The EU does not need the UK more than the UK needs the EU. No one should have fallen for such an obvious untruth. There are 27 other countries in the EU who the UK has trade with. Clearly the UK one country is far less that the UK losing trade with 27 countries as well as the world deals the EU has made which all Eu countries have access to. On that alone it ought to be obvious who needs who more.

As I described

The EU has always said it wants to maintain good relations with the UK.

and that I think is the nub of American interest in the UK leaving the EU - the desire for the EU to end. In this you are supporting the EU moving its alignment more to Russia. Both Russia and some sections of the US want the EU destroyed. For Russia it is to get people into the Eurasian Union and to move alliances their way. They want to see the US isolated. Like yourselves they expect the UK also to be.

 

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. If I feel like anything it is complex, proud of being a Londoner, rooting for my football team, empathetic with fellow vegetarians, that kind of thing.
In terms of technical compliance with the demands of life I comply, pay taxes, have a passport that kind of thing. I would not call myself English because of the assumptions others would make about that, I am not patriotic in the sense I would mindlessly fight and die for Boris Johnson or the Queen, but I feel loyalty towards this people and institutions that I feel I have established a connection and work collaboratively with.
If I had been born in America my first port of call would be to realise it is a big place with a history. I would not see it as 'my' country.

 

Bureaucrats follow the instructions of politicians, and (hopefully) stick to the rules of procedure.

 

WHAT? What are you talking about? Britain is the land of hope and glory and the mother of the free and we Irish Unionists ARE the British. Irish Nationalists supported the Nazis. The IRA's 'struggle' was a campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing against Unionists to have a fascist state where everyone was the same, they were never oppressed. .

 

Of course you did, this is what Germany wanted, didn't you read my links? All Britain wanted was to stop the coast of the German military dictatorship from being visible from Dover.

 

Is this serious or an obvious ironic joke? It is so subtle I can't tell.

 

So UK can keep all positive club privilidge without being a club member? You do realize we could dissolve the club the very same day?

 

Life expectency is lower, higher child death rate...

 

So you say we murdered the serbian crown prince and forced russia declaring war against Austria.

Tell me, do you have documents where Germany ordered Russia to declare war against Austria?

And no, what Britain wanted, was ro hold its position. The economic might of Germany pushed UK and France and more asside. It needed 2 WW for UK to accept its place as Nr. 3 in Europe...behind France an Germany as Nr. 1.

 

I share the reaction of @philosophical. But maybe this will be an opportunity for Americans to learn about the joys of multiculturalism -- when I mention Third Wold countries where the tribes kill each other they probably think, "Well, they're not white, what do you expect?." But Ulster may show America its future.

Don't you know the history of Ireland? Partition was bungled, they should have cut Ulster out with a finer granularity, so the Catholics got Derry, etc, and should have encouraged, with financial inducements, mass population transfer. They didn't, and so Ulster experienced the joys of multiculturalism. You were able to hold the Catholics down for fifty years via the B-Specials -- and what could you do, where they were a majority, they refused to operate the state -- then Catholic nationalism was awakened and we had decades of The Troubles all over again. I think thoughtful Unionists should start looking at another Partition, because you will soon be a minority in Ulster, and the British will be more than happy to see you go.

So if you don't want to be a minority in an expanded Republic, look at the map and start drawing up new boundaries. (I'll bet the UDA/UVF have a team doing this already.)

I would go for complete separation and independence. The EU might take you -- the right wing forces in the EU would welcome another vote.



As for the IRA supporting the Nazis.... are you talking about Irish neutrality during WWII, and DeValera's famous condolences on hearing of Hitler's death? Or do you mean Duffy's Blueshirts fighting for Franco? There were IRA men on the other side as well, and there is a wonderful song in their memory, sung by Christie Moore, which if I have time I will find and add here:



The words, for those who wish to sing along:

Ten years before I saw the light of morning
A comradeship of heroes was laid
From every corner of the world came sailing
The Fifteenth International Brigade.

They came to stand beside the Spanish people
To try and stem the rising fascist tide
Franco's allies were the powerful and wealthy
Frank Ryan's men came from the other side.

Even the olives were bleeding
As the battle for Madrid it thundered on
Truth and love against the force of evil
Brotherhood against the fascist clan.

Chorus:
Viva la Quince Brigada,
No Pasaran, the pledge that made them fight
Adelante was the cry around the hillside
Let us all remember them tonight.

Bob Hilliard was a Church of Ireland pastor
From Killarney across the Pyrenees he came
From Derry came a brave young Christian Brother
And side by side they fought and died in Spain.

Tommy Woods age seventeen died in Cordoba
With Na Fianna he learned to hold his gun
From Dublin to the Villa del Rio
He fought and died beneath the Spanish sun.

(Chorus)

Many Irishmen heard the call of Franco
Joined Hitler and Mussolini too
Propaganda from the pulpit and newspapers
Helped O'Duffy to gather up his crew.

The call came from Maynooth, "support the facists"
The men of cloth had failed yet again
When the Bishops blessed the Blueshirts in Dun Laoghaire
As they sailed beneath the swastika to Spain.

(Chorus)

This song is a tribute to Frank Ryan
Kit Conway and Dinny Coady too
Peter Daly, Charlie Regan and Hugh Bonar
Though many died I can but name a few.

Danny Boyle, Blaser-Brown and Charlie Donnelly
Liam Tumilson and Jim Straney from the Falls ????
Jack Nalty, Tommy Patton and Frank Conroy
Jim Foley, Tony Fox and Dick O'Neill.
(Chorus repeated)

 

It ain't subtle, you didn't really believe what you posted did you?

 

Just add a U.

Don't worry, nearly everyone here gets that wrong.

 

Yes, it's a big Russian conspiracy! Putin has me working overtime to achieve it...

 

Yes, poor, innocent Britain, just minding her own business, tending to her global empire founded in fire and blood, when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, those mean old Germans started bullying her!

 

Why can't countries trade with each other liberally while also protecting the integrity of their borders and territory? I don't see why there has to be a conflict between those two practices.

 

By like 1.5 years - not exactly a radical difference. And the US is three times more populous than either the UK or Germany, so there is a great deal of State and local variation across the US that average life expectancy does not reflect.

The US counts infant mortality differently than European countries, so it's not an apples to apples comparison.

The US has its problems, but American society is as highly developed and cultivated as any in the world.

 

That is not the point. (Whether you sincerely do not realize the point, or you are just tap-dancing around it, I cannot say.)

I am simply saying that it is not a good idea for a country to be a part of a larger body; that, effectively, nullifies its national sovereignty (which I would define precisely as I would have defined it in 1919--or even in 1819).

Besides, the Parliament (or, in America's case, the Congress) would likely just rubber-stamp any legislation (and, in the latter case, especially if the Democrats were in control).

But I simply cannot imagine that the US might ever agree to becoming a part of some "North American Union"...

 

I was responding to the poster that said the British hate the Irish. Thanks for correcting him. As for Irish history, I know nothing other than what I have heard from the Irish.

I was told that the landowners in all of Ireland were Protestants - or at least before they got their independence, and I assumed this is why tons of food were being shipped to Britain during the famine and why the Irish were left to starve. Also that in Northern Ireland only land owners had the right to vote, and they were Protestant. This of course would insure that the Catholics would never have the votes to unite with the South. If it's not so, then what was the war about?

My only concern about Brexit is Germany's dictatorial attitude and enslavement of the other EU nations, not that Britain doesn't deserve it considering their hypocritical and inhumane foreign policy. That though doesn't excuse Germany's hard handed methods. Other than that, I could care less - really.

Do I really care?

NO!​

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