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What does the US government have to do with anything :/ I am a pro EU person but I feel you are being quite dismissive of an important issue. Namely that under

What does the US government have to do with anything :/ I am a pro EU person but I feel you are being quite dismissive of an important issue. Namely that understanding the EU governing structure is very impenetrable to a great number of people, much more so than their national government. The foundation of democracy is that citizens distribute power. How does democracy work if citizens have very little idea about how that works in the EU? Then you also have people from smaller coubtries who are quite concerned about centralization tendencies in the EU.

jacquesm 3y ago
> Namely that understanding the EU governing structure is very impenetrable to a great number of people, much more so than their national government. You can say a lot about the EU that needs fixing but their documentation is excellent. What it needs is for the national governments to get better at communicating how and when they interact with the EU and what the practical effects are. The bigger problem is that anti-EU forces within the EU (usually: populists) do their level best to take every problem in their own societies and spin it in such a way that the EU looks like the culprit. Which makes people believe that if the EU were to go away that everything will be unicorns and rainbows. > Then you also have people from smaller coubtried who are quite concerned about centralization tendencies in the EU. Yes, that's one of those peculiar cases: they somehow believe that as smaller countries in a much larger world that they would be able to do better than as a bloc. This makes no sense at all and despite many examples to the contrary quite a few people believe this. But common sense unfortunately isn't all that common and as Brexit proves beyond a doubt going it alone isn't better, it is far worse. To the tune of a trillion per decade for the UK, money that they badly needed. That there is no serious investigation of how the UK public was swindled surprises me, but then again, it probably shouldn't, after all, those that would be in charge of such an investigation all ended up making out like bandits and they certainly aren't going to risk killing their golden goose even if it dumps the rest of the population of the UK into poverty.
- medo-bear 3y ago
  > they somehow believe that as smaller countries in a much larger world that they would be able to do better than as a bloc Yeah colonies too would have been economically much better off today had they not experimented with national liberation, but thats not how people think. They dont want to be paying taxes to a place they see as foreign. Nor do they want foreigners telling them how to do things. You are aware we are talking about old Europe here, and not Canada, Australia, or the US? The one that fought two world wars with itself in just over a 100 years. Not to even mention the other 2000 years of its long and very bloody history. I am very happy that the EU exists, but for Europe slow and steady wins the race. Centralization is not the answer because then countries with smaller populations get dominated by bigger countries.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    I'd rather be dominated in a political arena than in a military one, which is pretty much the alternative. At least as it is the small countries can throw their weight behind the larger one that has their interests most at heart. As far as colonies are concerned, that's a very thorny issue and also even further off-topic, and for NL (where I'm from) it is a very much embarrassing issue.
    - medo-bear 3y ago
      I wonder if it is embarassing enough to return all the benefits of imperialist plunder to their original owners. Or pay restitution to all places where NL was involved in slave trading. Anyway, as far as EU is concerned it is not off topic. Many of the smaller countries (even some big ones) within the EU were once seen as rightful spheres of influence/dominance by the old European imperial powers. You dont have to go outside the continent to talk about national liberation. Do you remember how WWI started? Centralization is not without its dangers. Take for example Yugoslavia. This was a very decentralized federal republic in which constituent republics, nationalities, and autonomous regions, had a pretty big political autonomy. During late 80s Serbian politician Slobodan Milosevic led a movement that tried to centralize the government. He argued that it would make the country more efficient and better capable to address economic problems. Serbs were the numerically dominant nationality of Yugoslavia. Serbians supported centralization, non Serbs didnt. A very bloody war ensued and the country fell appart.
rtsil 3y ago
> How does democracy work if citizens have very little idea about how that works in the EU? Democracy doesn't work if the citizens do not care about the very entities that administer their lives on their behalf. The EU isn't impenetrable, or at least no more impenetrable than the national and local governments, but most people just do not care enough to learn how it works. Admittedly, that apathy has been reinforced by many national politicians who wanted the EU to remain abstract and obscure in order to better use it as scapegoat for their own failures.

jacquesm 3y ago

> Namely that understanding the EU governing structure is very impenetrable to a great number of people, much more so than their national government. You can say a lot about the EU that needs fixing but their documentation is excellent. What it needs is for the national governments to get better at communicating how and when they interact with the EU and what the practical effects are. The bigger problem is that anti-EU forces within the EU (usually: populists) do their level best to take every problem in their own societies and spin it in such a way that the EU looks like the culprit. Which makes people believe that if the EU were to go away that everything will be unicorns and rainbows. > Then you also have people from smaller coubtried who are quite concerned about centralization tendencies in the EU. Yes, that's one of those peculiar cases: they somehow believe that as smaller countries in a much larger world that they would be able to do better than as a bloc. This makes no sense at all and despite many examples to the contrary quite a few people believe this. But common sense unfortunately isn't all that common and as Brexit proves beyond a doubt going it alone isn't better, it is far worse. To the tune of a trillion per decade for the UK, money that they badly needed. That there is no serious investigation of how the UK public was swindled surprises me, but then again, it probably shouldn't, after all, those that would be in charge of such an investigation all ended up making out like bandits and they certainly aren't going to risk killing their golden goose even if it dumps the rest of the population of the UK into poverty.

medo-bear 3y ago
> they somehow believe that as smaller countries in a much larger world that they would be able to do better than as a bloc Yeah colonies too would have been economically much better off today had they not experimented with national liberation, but thats not how people think. They dont want to be paying taxes to a place they see as foreign. Nor do they want foreigners telling them how to do things. You are aware we are talking about old Europe here, and not Canada, Australia, or the US? The one that fought two world wars with itself in just over a 100 years. Not to even mention the other 2000 years of its long and very bloody history. I am very happy that the EU exists, but for Europe slow and steady wins the race. Centralization is not the answer because then countries with smaller populations get dominated by bigger countries.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  I'd rather be dominated in a political arena than in a military one, which is pretty much the alternative. At least as it is the small countries can throw their weight behind the larger one that has their interests most at heart. As far as colonies are concerned, that's a very thorny issue and also even further off-topic, and for NL (where I'm from) it is a very much embarrassing issue.
  - medo-bear 3y ago
    I wonder if it is embarassing enough to return all the benefits of imperialist plunder to their original owners. Or pay restitution to all places where NL was involved in slave trading. Anyway, as far as EU is concerned it is not off topic. Many of the smaller countries (even some big ones) within the EU were once seen as rightful spheres of influence/dominance by the old European imperial powers. You dont have to go outside the continent to talk about national liberation. Do you remember how WWI started? Centralization is not without its dangers. Take for example Yugoslavia. This was a very decentralized federal republic in which constituent republics, nationalities, and autonomous regions, had a pretty big political autonomy. During late 80s Serbian politician Slobodan Milosevic led a movement that tried to centralize the government. He argued that it would make the country more efficient and better capable to address economic problems. Serbs were the numerically dominant nationality of Yugoslavia. Serbians supported centralization, non Serbs didnt. A very bloody war ensued and the country fell appart.

rtsil 3y ago

> How does democracy work if citizens have very little idea about how that works in the EU? Democracy doesn't work if the citizens do not care about the very entities that administer their lives on their behalf. The EU isn't impenetrable, or at least no more impenetrable than the national and local governments, but most people just do not care enough to learn how it works. Admittedly, that apathy has been reinforced by many national politicians who wanted the EU to remain abstract and obscure in order to better use it as scapegoat for their own failures.