As I said, it's a very Finnish trait from my experience. Perfectly understanding given the agglutinative language you guys use. I've noticed it's very common for Finns to deconstruct words to find their meaning, as opposed to asking or looking them up. So you're suggesting we should leave the small issues to the experts but let the uneducated masses decide the most important things? And in Finland you have that better education. In the UK many adults are barely literate.
Its worth noting that Switzerland and Norway are subject to much of the EU's regulation with zero say in it as the trade-off for the single market access.
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/373047/Now-EU-fines-Britain-250-000-each-day To add to what you said, This is how Europe Dictates. Daily Mail also carried the article with a little more detail. Anyone remember the "Get it right this time" Lisbon treaty? I'd prefer you to use Nationalist vs Unionist as Northern Ireland isn't a religious conflict, it's a political view point one. Yes the majority of Protestants would share Unionist view points and Catholics Nationalist but in reality the vast majority have barely stepped inside a Church in their life never mind could tell you what the bible is or who Jesus was and many from different religious backgrounds don't want to rock the Status Quo. Its simply not as black and white as that. Religion just happened to be one differences due to how the country was formed but the conflict itself is not actually about religion and by reducing it to a religious conflict creates tensions that shouldn't be dragged into an already complicated and muddy situation.
More like England/UK. An important part that gets mistaken for the latter. That probably depends on who's vision you're speaking of... it's certainly grown beyond what UK politicians envisioned when they joined, I wouldn't be so sure it's grown beyond what DeGaulle and Adenauer envisioned when they kicked it off to begin with. Correct, that possibility is always open.
I highly doubt that on DeGaulle's side. He was notably patriotic, disliked the British, and I believe he would not be the kind to desire France to join a sort of quasi-federal state.
True, his goal was one of strong national states, BUT with common policies, for example a common foreign policy. (If my remembrance of the Fouchet-Plans are correct.) Which is more than we have now really.
To address this one point it has been widely acknowledged that Francois Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl firmly believed in the vision of a united Europe and actively worked towards a federal European super state. The Euro was seen as one of the main tools of achieving this aim. The economists who worked on the Euro project expressly warned that with out a central bank directly controlling the economic policies of the member countries a financial crisis was inevitable. The response from the politicians was it was an respectable risk as a crisis would then force the member countries into forming a federal banking union to survive. The BBC documentary below speaks to the people involved and explains it better.
I grew up at a time where I live with everybody calling the "Bloody Tory Scum" for everything. I just didn't understand it to be honest as they were all f'n and blinding about them but I don't really think they knew why themselves. They just did it because everyone else did. However, Labour at the time were just absolutely useless at anything. Pretty much what they are like now but nowadays Labour seem to be holding back for some reason, almost as if they can't say too much since they stayed in power too long and worried that something is going to come back and bite them. Sorry to offend the good ol U S of A but the politics in the states is baffling. The personal attacks in the adverts are hilarious. No word of a lie, I saw one in florida that stated the other candidate approves of pornography on county offices computers o.0 However, there are a few positive things I like about the American political system. The maximum two term for Pres is a good thing. Like the quote from The Dark Knight says "You either die the Hero or live long enough to become the Villian!" So usually, when the 8 years is up, the party of the outgoing president doesn't always get back in with a new face at the helm. Everybody loved Blair when he turned up but by the 3rd term, his whiter than white term of office had gone a bad shade of grey. If he had stepped down before that 3rd election, Labour would not have gone on to win it. Anyway, the People's Front of Judea.......SPLITTERSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!
Sorry about my recent outburst related to a couple of awful things recently, been having to normalise myself since. Serious things scare me because it's scarily way over my head, I really try to ignore it leaving it for serious & good people who know what they are doing to sort things out which they were doing from the look of it, some of the online world seemed to be going nuts & it was spilling over to reality, I don't like serious, it scares me, I like normality & geekyness, that's why I come here. My serious side in reality would be jumping in the middle & yelling stop this madness, it might kill or seriously hurt me but I'd be trying to prevent something bad from happening, I know the sane thing is to ignore it unless myself or others are in immediate danger but if government doesn't tell us what is OK & what isn't how am I to know any better. Serious scares me & makes me ill, I do everything I can to stay well other than rarely commenting in serious because it's classed as serious for a reason. I'll never enter serious again, I need to keep to what I really know which is modding so I don't fall too ill to function or add to a problem. Politics, I think if I was PM, I would be silver in 2 days, bald in 5 & possibly dead from stress in a week. That's what I think of politics, you need a rock solid mind with awesome intelligence around them, not something I have got. I'm not subscribing, just saying since things had me very concerned, I don't like sheer madness.
I wish fewer people thought like that. The world needs more people who don't trust a) the government, b) the media, c) people telling them things. On the other hand, a nice world requires people to trust each other. Confusion.
I personally dont subscribe to any "-ism" but I do make an effort to understand them to understand the bigger picture. I only subscribe to policies that align with my values and interests. I think if more and more people moved beyond "-ism"s they would be less dogmatic and not taken for a ride, or for the very least understand what's really happening.
While I think Politics in general is a necessary evil, I make a point of not supporting any party. I'm sure there are lots of politicians that are honest, but there are many who are in it for personal gain at the expense of others. The people we appoint to run our country are so out of touch with real working class families, how the hell do we expect them to understand the difficulties we face when they live in Surrey in their massive houses and multiple cars, all paid for by our taxes? No matter who is elected, people change, money changes them. The promise of money, trying to keep hold of money, it turns good people into crooks... into politicians. Id quite like to wipe the smug smiles of most of our political party leaders. Cameron in particular, id quite like to wipe my arse with his face. The BNP and their Ilk can all go F**K themselves. I don't care where people come from, I care about how they contribute to society. How about we do a one in one out scheme? Deport some of our home-brewed scum, let them be persecuted instead?? Labour seemed to care about the average man, just had a very misguided way of showing it and a complete imbecile as their figurehead. Oh and they are worse with money than me... Conservative, well they keep the rich, rich. Margret thatcher.....Says it all. And wtf was john Major all about? never seen such a wet blanket in a position of power. Puppet for the faceless maybe? or maybe they were breaking us in gently for the complete pr**K that is Cameron. Liberal democrats? what exactly do they stand for? Just seems to me they copy the best policies of competing parties, promise the world and deliver sweet FA. How about a party for the poorer side of the uk (80% of the population). One which favours the people who actually run this country (the taxpayer, the real workers, nurses, firemen etc). You could remove half of parliament and still have a functioning country, however remove half of these people and everything goes to S**T. I have no faith whatsoever in our government, or any of the other choices we have too. I just try to make the lives of those around me better and refuse to vote. After all, if someone offered you a choice from three plates of poo, from three different breeds of dog... they are still plates of poo at the end of the day.! MAKE BORRIS JOHNSON PM AND CLARKSON DEPUTY. At least question time would be a laugh.
Although some other people said this, I'll chime in as well. As I've gotten older I've come to terms with the fact that I am a libertarian. No, not a member of the party, or the stupid Tea Party, or other BS parties, but I feel that it is the most fair execution of politics there could be. The easiest way I've come to explain libertarianism is this: 1. A person has the freedom to do whatever they want as long as it doesn't affect the freedom of others. 2. People are responsible for the consequences of their own actions, not the government. This is called accountability. 3. The first role of the government is to protect the commons, that is, our common resources and public land, including air, water, forests, oceans, etc. 4. The 2nd role of the government is to protect people from one another, not from themselves. Put another way, the government will protect the freedoms of individuals and make sure that people are accountable for their actions. Most of the restrictions in personal freedoms I see come from the fact that people want to abnegate the responsibility of their actions. People want the government to pay for their health care, then get angry when the government tries to restrict or tax the things that are making them unhealthy, like unhealthy foods or tobacco or alcohol. You can't expect to have both the freedom to choose and a lack of accountability! I would rather have the freedom to choose. The one issue that libertarians generally don't come to a consensus on is abortion. On the one side, you have women who say, "this is my body, you can't tell me what I can or can't do with it." On the other you have people who say, "that's the life of another person/human in your body. You don't have the right to take its life just because it's an inconvenience to you." My personal feelings on it are this. We don't know at what point it becomes a person, and scientific studies haven't been really useful, and the 'best' definitions of life that have been used by politicians and have been reflected in law are religious, which is really a horrible way to go. Based on that outlook, it's an issue that could be (and has been) debated for decades. For me, it gets back to point #2. People are responsible for the consequences of their own actions. If you had sex (which is necessary for conception) and got pregnant, then you are responsible to the consequences of that choice, which means that you will carry the child. Looking at it any closer than that and you get back into the debate described above. Conception by rape is another issue, and one that I would leave to individuals to decide for themselves. Again, it's about choice and accountability. If you were forced to do something, then you shouldn't be forced to be responsible for the consequences as well. All other issues are fairly simple to think about in terms of libertarianism when you look at it from the 4 tenets listed above, and is the easiest way for me to get to do what I want with no risk of me being able to restrict what you want to do. It's both freedom, and protection for everyone.
