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In what sense? I'm not American, by the way. UK took part in the Iraq war. France took part in the Libya campaign. These are the only two European countries wi

In what sense? I'm not American, by the way. UK took part in the Iraq war. France took part in the Libya campaign. These are the only two European countries with any sort of military. The rest just let the rest of the world act as their defence force. Europe of course has the unfortunate distinction of being the starting point of both world wars. Large parts of it didn't just support communist dictatorships but actually were communist dictatorships throughout the 20th century. Now you have the modern era. Spain is doing bulk arrests of political dissidents who organised a referendum on Catalonian independence. The leader of the so-called "rebellion" is currently under arrest in Germany pending extradition back to Spain on charges of corruption (i.e. due to the spending required to organise the referendum). The EU has collectively refused to comment on the China-esque behaviour being engaged in right inside its own territory. Oh, and the EU just passed one of its first extra-territorial laws, the GDPR, which claims jurisdiction over every country and company in the world. And let's not get onto the behaviour towards to the UK ... threatening to ground flights, revoke driving licenses, revoke domain names, trade sanctions designed to force companies to leave the country and so on. Telling the UK to surrender its own territory, and pay nearly a hundred billion euros in return for nothing. Far more aggressive behaviour between supposed allies than can be seen anywhere else in the world right now. So - what moral high ground?

mbroncano 9y ago
Allow me to recommended getting yourself properly informed about the Catalonian issue. The issue is certainly not about a referendum being organized, but rather recurrently ignoring both the law and judicial resolutions for years incl. the refusal to allow parents to choose the language in which their kids are taught in school, or fining stores for writing its name in Spanish. Add in the open white supremacist theme and you've got Catalonian nationalism. But hey, up until a few years ago, countries like France and U.K. were hosts of the bask terrorists and could have sworn for their lives those gentlemen were also freedom fighters. I'm old enough to remember how IRA had a positive image in some parts of the US too.
- peoplewindow 9y ago
  Whether you like the Catalonian politicians or not is irrelevant to my point. There are really only three questions that matter: 1) Are they violent? 2) Are they supported by the local population? 3) Are they willing to work with the national government? The answer is clearly yes to all three. That means Spain needs to deal with them politically, by winning votes, not by calling them rebels and traitors and tossing them all in jail as if it were the 1600's. Go look at the UK for an example of how to do it. Scottish nationalists had their own problematic attributes from the perspective of many English, but the resolution was peaceful, democratic and accepted by both sides. Spain has utterly failed at this, and the rest of the EU has simply nodded their heads, let them get on with it and indeed is helping them by arresting the Catalonian leaders in preparation for extradition. In an article on China grabbing political dissidents to bring them back to China for incarceration this is highly relevant to any claim that Europe has a moral high ground.
tziki 9y ago
EU is the largest contributor of foreign aid by far. EU is the only significant entity taking global warming seriously and acting on it. EU takes in far more refugees than USA, China, Japan or Australia... combined. So - that moral high ground.

mbroncano 9y ago

Allow me to recommended getting yourself properly informed about the Catalonian issue. The issue is certainly not about a referendum being organized, but rather recurrently ignoring both the law and judicial resolutions for years incl. the refusal to allow parents to choose the language in which their kids are taught in school, or fining stores for writing its name in Spanish. Add in the open white supremacist theme and you've got Catalonian nationalism. But hey, up until a few years ago, countries like France and U.K. were hosts of the bask terrorists and could have sworn for their lives those gentlemen were also freedom fighters. I'm old enough to remember how IRA had a positive image in some parts of the US too.

peoplewindow 9y ago
Whether you like the Catalonian politicians or not is irrelevant to my point. There are really only three questions that matter: 1) Are they violent? 2) Are they supported by the local population? 3) Are they willing to work with the national government? The answer is clearly yes to all three. That means Spain needs to deal with them politically, by winning votes, not by calling them rebels and traitors and tossing them all in jail as if it were the 1600's. Go look at the UK for an example of how to do it. Scottish nationalists had their own problematic attributes from the perspective of many English, but the resolution was peaceful, democratic and accepted by both sides. Spain has utterly failed at this, and the rest of the EU has simply nodded their heads, let them get on with it and indeed is helping them by arresting the Catalonian leaders in preparation for extradition. In an article on China grabbing political dissidents to bring them back to China for incarceration this is highly relevant to any claim that Europe has a moral high ground.

tziki 9y ago

EU is the largest contributor of foreign aid by far. EU is the only significant entity taking global warming seriously and acting on it. EU takes in far more refugees than USA, China, Japan or Australia... combined. So - that moral high ground.