11 ms·
I'm all for European unity, but if a country is only half-committed to joining the EU, it probably should not be allowed to join under the assumption that EU su
by danielfoster 2y ago
I'm all for European unity, but if a country is only half-committed to joining the EU, it probably should not be allowed to join under the assumption that EU support will continue to grow.
- bryanlarsen 2y agoThat rules out pretty much every member of the EU, then. Across the EU, support for EU membership is only 60%.
- kamaitachi 2y agoIt varies, as you’d expect but the number is about right Here are 2 recent reports https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/10/24/people-broadly-view-the-eu-favorably-both-in-member-states-and-elsewhere/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/10/24/people-br... https://encompass-europe.com/comment/clear-support-for-eu-membership-for-most-european-countries-but-emotional-attachment-to-the-nation-state-endures https://encompass-europe.com/comment/clear-support-for-eu-me...
- epolanski 2y ago60% is a very huge number, not understanding the "only" wording. Also, as an European I know virtually no people opposing EU membership, when there are, it's generally less educated people thinking that the economy or whatever would be better.
- kukkeliskuu 2y agoAs an European, I know many who oppose EU membership, but most educated people would not express it publicly because they are harrassed if they express their opinion -- supposedly only "less educated people" -- i.e. idiots -- support it. It appears that opposing EU membership is kind of a taboo, and many educated people are afraid to express their opinion on the subject. Which tells you all you need to know about the legitimacy of EU.
- epolanski 2y agoAnd what are their arguments?
- Jensson 2y agoThey don't want to become like USA, that is the easiest argument. We see how USA went the slippery slope of removing states rights and expanding federal power, people in the EU don't want that. To prevent that from happening there needs to be a resistance to EU expanding its power, and the most effective way countries can do that is to threaten to leave.
- epolanski 2y agoThe US seems like a success model if anything. Wonder how much better would be the lives of Californians or Louisianans if they were their own country.
- kukkeliskuu 2y agoWhy do you ask? One often encounters an argument that if I cannot make up a rationale that you consider as reasonable, then it means I am wrong. The problem is that the polarization means that neither side can rationally understand the argument of the opposing side. The fact that you don't consider the argument of these people as reasonable does not prove anything.
- kukkeliskuu 2y agoI have not reviewed all the arguments. One is simple. EU does not have a single language. There is are shared values, shared vision, shared culture, or shared identity among regular people. The cards are stacked against EU being succesful.
- kukkeliskuu 2y ago"is are" => "are no"
- RandomThoughts3 2y ago
- int_19h 2y ago> it's generally less educated people thinking that the economy or whatever would be better You should be very careful with these kinds of sentiments. Openly contemptuous elitism is how we ended up with Trump in US.
- dboreham 2y agoI'm not sure causation is proven. We have openly contemptuous elitism and we have Trump. Not necessarily cause and effect.
- kukkeliskuu 2y agoCould such causation be proven, if it existed? I don't think so. In addition to contemptuous elitism and Trump, there is also agreement that the US is very divided. Also, as the posts above suggest, people who oppose people who oppose the EU, do not meet these people with the same proportion they appear to exist according to polls. Which matches my experience that educated people are afraid to express their opposition to the EU. Still does not prove causality, because causality on such an issue cannot be proven. You need to look into second-order effects in order to get a clue what is happening. First second-order clue is that people are afraid to express their opinion. The second one is that opinion is very polarized and people are divided on the issue into "us" and "them", i.e. divided.
- chgs 2y agoEducated people in anonymous polls are afraid to express their opinion? https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2016-eu-referendum https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2016-eu-refere... And statistical correlation based on census data? https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/educational-attainment-brexit/ https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/educational-attain...
- kukkeliskuu 2y agoGP claims that he has not met anybody who is against EU but presented statistics that only 60% support EU.
- izacus 2y agoFor comparison, that's significantly larger approval than the US federal president most of the last decades. ;)
- Jensson 2y agoSo what is the approval of staying in USA for the states? Approval for a specific politician will of course usually be lower than approval for the union as a whole.
- izacus 2y agoCan't say, but there are plenty of people hating "the feds" in many regions. Any funny enough, they still want to keep the parts that the Eurosceptics are fighting tooth and nail from being enacted :)
- behnamoh 2y agoEU is not that big a deal anyway—its stupid AI regulations are keeping it back...
- sschueller 2y agoWe don't allow AIs to make healthcare decisions, how is that a bad thing? How many people die in the US because their care was denied by an AI? IMO the EU regulation doesn't go far enough as it excludes banning AI for "military use".
- af78 2y agoMost EU countries banned certain categories of weapons like cluster munitions and antipersonnel mines, and as a result were unable to provide them to Ukraine. russia had no such qualms. Fortunately non-EU countries were able to supply Ukraine with these useful weapons: the EU was dependent on non-EU countries for its security. Had russia attacked a NATO country of the EU directly, said country would have been at a disadvantage. There have been reports of experiments with autonomous drones in the russia-Ukraine war. If the EU bans AI for military uses and our adversaries do not, I am afraid someday we will regret our mistake. But it will be too late.
- dkjaudyeqooe 2y agoYou could say this for pretty much every important decision in every democracy ever. It's seldom things get settled with percentage support starting with anything other than a 5.
- sobellian 2y agoIt's a form of institutional hysteresis. If a major change can get implemented by a simple majority, it has zero noise margin. If it requires (say) two thirds, then it has a noise margin of 33 percentage points. I am still stunned that Brexit was left to a 50% + epsilon referendum.
- mppm 2y agoYes, there really needs to be some margin for really big and costly changes. One of the main reasons for Brexit being such a clusterfuck was that, once the going got tough, majority support evaporated and the exit was pushed through by what was effectively a minority government at that point, with parliament trying to make their lives as difficult as possible. It could have been less painful overall if there had been more robust agreement to go ahead with it, and therefore some degree of cooperation. Maybe 2/3 majority is overkill, but a 60-40 split should be a requirement for serious changes to the future of a country.
- n4r9 2y ago> once the going got tough, majority support evaporated It's likely that majority support would have evaporated as soon as any leave deal was reached. No deal would have satisfied all the different reasons people voted leave.
- ben_w 2y agoIndeed; no deal (including the "no deal" option of leaving with no deal, and also the option of having another referendum) was acceptable to Westminster, which was why May was forced to leave office. Only Johnson was able to cut that Gordion Knot, albeit by lying to people to their face.