E.U: Leave or Stay? Your thoughts.

Certain mods are nothing like impartial - the saying is , power corrupts and ultimate power corrupts ultimately.

 

What were your brothers points?

 

The most compelling reason i heard for leaving the EU was not having EU courts interpreting laws, for me though whether it be UK or EU courts interpreting laws seemed of little consequence when compared to the down sides.

 

Well, first he said that it is not guaranteed that it will be a good thing, because he doubts politicians on both sides to have the wisdom to come to a sensible arrangement. But his points were:

- People have good reasons to feel marginalised and disgruntled by the political and economical process. Politicians in European countries and in the EU have been ignoring that. Although the EU is not the cause of many of their problems, and leaving the EU won't solve them, Brexit has certainly woken politicians up to the fact that you ignore people at your peril. This is a problem of Europe's (including the UK) own making.

- Just because people are dumb doesn't mean you can just dismiss them, or their concerns as basically valid, even if they can't articulate them or have a piss-poor understanding of the causes. Educate and debate, don't denigrate. Politicians fail to do that; they just treat the electorate as children. The media is just as bad --it caters to the public's worst emotions by pursuing emotive simplistic narratives and soundbites. So people are not only dumb; their dumbness is fostered and fed. This is bound to blow up in the government's face sooner or later, and in that of the media, which is finding that the demand for articulate newspapers is dying. If you dumb down your electorate you don't end up with compliant children, but with a ravenous zombie horde. (My counterargument is that the electorate also has a responsibility to educate and think for itself, and it has a historically unprecedented access to information that allows it to do so.)

- The EU is failing to deal coherently with the economic crisis and with refugees. This has allowed right-wing sentiments to take hold and fester. If the EU does not pay attention now, many more countries will turn far more right-wing, xenophobic and fascist than the UK did. Either European politicians learn now, or the EU will fall apart and sooner or later we are back to 1930's Europe with fascist regimes everywhere acting out. Brexit may be the least bad outcome in the long term; a swing of the pendulum of history that will prevent a more extreme reprise of the 1930's further down the line. A pendulum that swings slower, does so with a greater amplitude and more devastating force. Better to have a smaller swing now.

- The EU is hugely inefficient and as above suggests, ineffectual. It has become lazy and complacent. Brexit may force the EU to face its problems and start pulling its act together. My brother thinks that the EU is probably going to ditch free movement, probably roll back on Schengen and think harder about what it brings to the party that countries might want to stay in. It will also have to address the Euro.

He also drew some parallels with Trump's election in the US. Again, politicians were too complacent and dismissive of the disadvantaged poor because they don't have any power, articulate voice or frankly the brains to understand how to effectively challenge the status quo. But they can basically smash things and that is what they did with their vote. So now we have an idiot in the White House who is a puppet for right-wing politicians. Again, his feeling is that if this hadn't happened now, something far worse would have happened later down the line. This may be the wake-up call that politicians and the electorate needs.

He also thinks that Geert Wilders is an idiot and that despite what the polls suggest, he will never win the election, because of Trump. Indeed, every time Trump engages in some new antic, the PVV drops in the polls a bit.

That is sort of the gist of it. My brother looks less at the economic and legalistic complications and more at the possible long-term historical consequences. He is thinking purely in damage limitation terms; he also thinks that economically we are only just at the beginning of a long decline back to pre-Victorian conditions.

 

That's a good summary of why Brexit won but the only positive thing about it in his arguments seems to be that other countries have woken up a bit. Still nothing beneficial for the UK itself, more like an example to avoid.

 

He doesn't think that this is going to make things better for the UK; just that it may stop things from getting a lot worse for all European countries, including the UK. Basically this is the least worst scenario in terms of where things are inevitably going.

He doesn't see Brexit as a solution to anything; he believes that in the end not much will change between the UK and the EU in terms of trade and immigration because things are the way they are for reasons not really connected much to the EU. He just sees Brexit as the least worse version of the inevitable political change that is coming.

 

You just can't help yourself Nexxo. If the majority had voted to remain, would you be calling them the same? You've done nothing but cast dispersions on those less well off than yourself, berating and mocking. As a clinical psychologist, take a look at yourself and see what you would say about that!

I do think that the less well off don't have a voice, our MP's aren't bothered about truly representing them/us. I also think that they/we have become a target for scorn with the press, the elitist centre, right and left, a real lack of understanding of the issues they/we face and attitudes like yours do absolutely nothing to improve any of those difficulties.

You seem to hold academic ability in very high regard, why not come and try a different job, see how long you last and how much of a pigs ear you make, you know honest work such as the trades, or semi skilled work. Academic ability doesn't count for much when you are concentrating on providing for your family in the real world. Short version, you really are nothing more than a snob, in the purest sense.

 

I never went to University, I'm currently on ESA, and yet I think you're full of it too. You can't use those logically falacious ad hominem attacks on me, so what else you got?

 

No I'm not a victim at all and I wouldn't be happy being called one either, I am however sick of the attitudes shown towards the people Nexxo chooses to berate frequently. Don't like that then you can either ignore it, move along or deal with it because you aren't going to change my mind on it. He is an utter snob and so are quite a few more here too!

 

This is probably why you got a temporary ban.

We've been over this kind of thing before, you have ~300 pages to catch up on.

If you don't have anything worthwhile to contribute then stop trotting out the same tired old ********. You use ad-hominems and straw man arguments left right and centre instead of presenting a coherent well-supported argument; that's why people think you're full of it. There is a difference between criticising your arguments and criticising you the person; if you can't make that distinction in "Serious Discussion" then just don't bother with this part of the forum.

 

With good reason...Brexit is an absolute cluster**** that has left the nation in a precarious position. There was no plan and those who fought for it scurried away from the mess they made, leaving it to others to clean up.

If you have a cogent argument as to why you think Brexit was a good idea I'd love to hear it. But throwing a hissy fit because you don't know how it all works, leaving many habitual residents' future in peril is simply not a good reason.

You teach people how to treat you, and as long as you continue to act like an emotionally stunted child you'll be justifiably dismissed as one.

 

Yeah you know what, I should stay away because snobbery and elitism grates my gears and Me being me, I never could resist a good scrap, even if it's just to speak up against that. So that's what I'll do, stay away. Good luck with brexit, we may all need it, some more than others judging by opinions aired here

 

EDIT: Srsly. You're not adding anything new to the discussion.

 

This thread is a sad example - just because someone has a different position in this debate than yourself , does that give you the right to `bash the fash` , no it does not ; give your argument in a well constructed manner , responding to points raised by others with excellent sources.

Stuartpb - in regards to Nexxo , he is a Netherlands national , and thus , is very passionate about both the EU, as many are, and `what happens next` now the UK have voted leave. Being an NHS employee , he has a vested interest to actually know what will happen to EU nationals - the government know who he is and where he works , and if a there is no deal regarding staying here , its not as if he lives in a garage somewhere in east London. So on that ground alone you will understand his own anger and bitterness at the very remote possibility of being told `thanks - theres the door , see ya` and this disbelief that 17 million people want to move away from the dystopian politics of the EU.

 

Using a straw man argument doesn't help get your point across, it also seems you're misinterpreting things as in my reading of what Nexxo said he didn't berate or mock people for their choices.

If anything he berated the press, the elitist centre, right and left for not educating the electorate on the causes of their problems and treating them like children.

It seems to me you're conflating academic ability and education, if a child runs out into the road does that mean they lack academic ability or that their parents never educated them about the reasons for not doing that?

 

You raise a valid point about MPs not representing poorer backgrounds, which raises the further question why is that the eu's fault and not the conservative govt people keep voting in?

"Honest work" always make me laugh, quite why skilled jobs that require a few years apprenticeship are considered more honest than highly skilled jobs that require years of education and training is beyond me.

Most trades people I meet aren't exactly honest either unless you watch them like a hawk.

 

The problem is not with it being a different position. The problem is that there's no supported position stuart represents, aside from confrontational stance backed with claims that other members deride his background

 

- It's "cast aspersions".

- The average IQ (which is not a brilliant measure of intelligence, but will do for this argument) of the population is 100. We do not start to think of people as 'bright' until they hit 115. Only 15.9% of the population scores this or higher. So yes, from a clinical psychological point of view, people are dumb. Luckily intelligence has quite a bit of flex in it, and most people have the potential to be brighter than they are.

- At no point did I judge people's worth by their intelligence (although I may judge the worth of their decision on a complex matter by it). I did not mock them. That's all your projection. What does that say about you?

I grew up in a broken home on an estate. I have been a poor student. I have been homeless. I have worked on sink estates in community mental health. I think that I have a pretty good understanding of "the issues" poor people face; more so than stockbroker's son Nigel Farage or millionaire Aaron Banks or upper-class Jacob Rees-Mogg (or, by the way, foreign billionaires like Rupert Murdoch and Robert Mercer) or all these other elitist Brexiteers. I understand in particularly how being in the EU was never a cause of "the issues" that poor people face (but possibly of benefit to them), and how Brexit will not be a solution to those issues but likely make them worse.

Aw, I feel properly chastised sitting in my leather and mahogany office in my university ivory tower-- oh, wait, hang on; I'm am NHS clinician: I just have a tatty 1970's desk in the corner of a shared office in the basement of an old hospital building. I'm the guy who has been looking after your mentally ill, your trauma victims, your brain injured. I'm the guy who supports people with complex, chronic, debilitating or life threatening/foreshortening diseases, who holds the hand of palliative patients as they realise that oh, ****, I am going to die!. Who helps a guy change his stoma bag just to prove to him that he is not a repulsive being now. Who supports a guy in A&E as he processes the news that he will now be paralysed from the neck down for the rest of his life.

And then I support other NHS staff as they try to deal with the relentless flow of human suffering and trauma in a high stress environment the resources of which are continually being chipped away (yes, the NHS is shrinking). I'm one of those slacking NHS professionals who puts in 10 hours unpaid overtime a week. All in a day's work.

Yup, never done a day's honest work in my life. Never seen the real world. Seriously, who is being snobbish here?

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee."

--John Donne

 

Not entirely. My brother for instance is a Euroskeptic (the difference is that he actually bases that on some solid arguments, although I do not agree with some of them).

What I feel angry and bitter about is that after 25 years making what I think of as a positive contribution to this country and its NHS, paying my 40% taxes, embracing its culture and language (to the extent that I am the resident office thesaurus and spell checker for my British colleagues), marrying a Brit, supporting my local park Trust and local shops; basically integrating as much as it is possible to integrate, I am suddenly a "bargaining chip" and my continued residence is not guaranteed.

For the last year I have been listening to rhetoric about how EU immigrants are a drain on this nation's resources and a cultural threat, who just won't integrate. How we are the reason locals can't find jobs (my first post was unfilled for two years; none of the British psychologists wanted to work in Hull), or why the NHS is struggling while we're 8% of its workforce keeping it going in the face of government cuts that over the last decade have reduced acute hospital beds by 20% and mental hospital beds by 45% (stop and dwell on that for a second).

So yeah, when most Leave voters show an absolute ignorance of the facts and the most spurious double-think reasoning and allow themselves to be blatantly manipulated by not only British but foreign billionaires through xenophobic rhetoric to vote for something that will make them poorer and worse off, and against something that protected them from globalising forces supported by these self-same millionaires, then I feel annoyed about that, and think that they are being dumb.

 

Its kind of weird that you helped someone change an ostomy.