6 ms·

Forget the far right. The kids want a 'United States of Europe.'

26 points by saubeidl 11mo ago

nephihaha 11mo ago
Well, this is the idea at the heart of it which has been pushed for many decades in some form or another. The EU/EEC etc started like the Zollverein which helped Germany unite. Personally I wish the EU had modelled itself more around Switzerland than the USA which is fast turning into its primary model. (By the way, some far rightists have pushed a united Europe for some time. The two ideas are not necessarily contradictory. Oswald Mosley was such a person.)
- saubeidl 11mo ago
  Personally, I think the SFRJ would be a nicer model - but I'll take what I can get at this point.
  - derelicta 11mo ago
    I don't think central planning will be genuinely practiced any time soon in Europe unfortunately...
    - jack_tripper 11mo ago
      Everyone wants central planning until the appointed central planners do something that disadvantages them specifically. Then they suddenly remember they want national sovereignty to protect their interests from the central planners. That's how you have massive pro an anti EU splits in the same country. Because central planning tends to produce massive economic gaps between the winners and losers of the planning policies.
      - derelicta 11mo ago
        That's a problem a much bigger country like China doesn't really face surprisingly, despite having central planners, and despite having plenty of different nationalities! Maybe Euros could learn a bit from them and democratic centralism too
        nephihaha 11mo ago
        China is only interested in its minorities as a means to promote tourism. Horrible example. Children are put into boarding schools in many places where they are forced to use Mandarin. It is currently bussing in lots of Mandarin speakers into Hong Kong to undermine Cantonese. It has done a good job of undermining Tibetan as well.
        vee-kay 11mo ago
        China (whose Maoists control the Nepal government) has mandated Mandarin Chinese to be taught in Nepal's schools as well. https://thehimalayantimes.com/nepal/mandarin-made-mandatory-in-many-schools/ https://thehimalayantimes.com/nepal/mandarin-made-mandatory-... https://www.regentschool.edu.np/chinese-language-classes/ https://www.regentschool.edu.np/chinese-language-classes/ China will destroy or subsume all native culture in every nation/land it gains control of. China is following the Colonial model of divide, conquer/conquest and containment, except this is all happening in the modern era.
        saubeidl 11mo ago
        What's bad about Mandarin being mandatory in schools? English is mandatory in most European schools, is that colonialism as well or just pragmatism?
        computerthings 11mo ago
        [dead]
        nephihaha 11mo ago
        What's bad? They're being punished if they speak their native language and are taken away from their home communities. No better than the stupid boarding schools minorities were sent to in the west.
  - igilism 11mo ago
    [flagged]
    - saubeidl 11mo ago
      Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - computerthings 11mo ago
        [dead]
      - igilism 11mo ago
        [flagged]
- jack_tripper 11mo ago
  >Personally I wish the EU had modelled itself more around Switzerland than the USA which is fast turning into its primary model. The EU has not modeled itself around the USA, what are you on about? >(By the way, some far rightists have pushed a united Europe for some time. The two ideas are not necessarily contradictory. Oswald Mosley was such a person.) Had no idea who Oswald Mosley even was, but looking him up, he's been dead for 30+ years now. It's disingenuous to paint such long deceased people as still representative for their original cause today. People change, organisations change and countries change over the decades. What was a democratic/left-wing point 30 years ago (strict immigration controls) is now considered far right extremism. The EU, in its form back then from 30 years ago is different than the EU beast of today which swallowed the previously separate EU, EEC and EC post 2009. The US of 30 years ago is different than the US of today because society has changed a lot since then both demographically and economically. You can't dig up people from 70 years ago as representative for the same ideologies because both the ideologies and the people are different now. That's like driving forward while only looking in the rearview mirror. Right wing people have and will be Eurosceptics (Euro here meaning the EU org in Brussels, not Europe the continent) since they don't want to be led by a foreign org that's not directly accountable to them.
  - coldtea 11mo ago
    >The EU has not modeled itself around the USA, what are you on about? He explicitly said what they mean: "which is fast turning into its primary model". What it WAS (emphasis in past tense) modeled itself around is not the point here.
  - nephihaha 11mo ago
    I think you missed my point. The idea is not new at all. Winston Churchill supported the idea of a United States of Europe, and so did certain figures way back in the EEC days. If an idea is promoted over the course of decades, of course some kids will promote it later. I heard ideas being promoted in the early to mid nineties that are only coming about now. In fact the 1980s, "Star Trek the Next Generation" does that in several instances (such as AI assistants and tracking everyone's location electronically.) "Had no idea who Oswald Mosley even was, but looking him up, he's been dead for 30+ years now." Erm, that was my point. It's not a new idea and has long been promoted across the political spectrum including the far right. "The EU, in its form back then from 30 years ago is different than the EU beast of today which swallowed the previously separate EU, EEC and EC post 2009. The US of 30 years ago is different than the US of today because society has changed a lot since then both demographically and economically." I see it largely developing to plan. It started as a kind of customs union in Benelux and has been on that road ever since. The absorption of the Iron Curtain countries has been its biggest challenge, and if it expands outside Europe that won't be some great shock either. There has been talk of adding Turkey and even Morocco to the EU for decades. "You can't dig up people from 70 years ago as representative for the same ideologies because both the ideologies and the people are different now. That's like driving forward while only looking in the rearview mirror." Yes, you can. It's historical progression. There was a roadmap for EU development that was being discussed as far back as the seventies and even the fifties. "Right wing people have and will be Eurosceptics (Euro here meaning the EU org in Brussels, not Europe the continent) since they don't want to be led by a foreign org that's not directly accountable to them." That isn't true. Plenty of right wing people have been Europhiles, even the far right. On the flipside, there have also been plenty of left and far left Eurosceptics. Left wing Brexiteers in the UK are/were a thing. They called their movement "Lexit" but have been mostly written out of accounts, which tend to focus more on Farage and the right wing ones. Their arguments are not usually based around migration, but local democracy and also their notion that the EU was capitalist and neoliberal, and revolved around trade and money.
mytailorisrich 11mo ago
This has been the official line and "correct thought" for decades so it is unsurprising that it should yield results. It has gone into over-drive with, or thanks to, the war in Ulkraine, and renewed push for the EU to involved itself in military matters. Similarly, anyone who does not agree with further political integration, or objects that it is already too much, is depicted as wrong and, gasp, obviously "far right", as very well examplified in this article. Manufacturing consent works. > "No one is putting into question the existence of the EU anymore, but they fundamentally disagree [on] what they should do,*" This is a little misleading because this has actually been the main contention, not the very existence of the EU/EC even since the days of Margaret Thatcher. The debate has always mostly been about political integration, and that's what is being suppressed more and more. The far right may have been, in general, opposed to the EU but the fallacy, again, is the current use of the term "far right". Taking France as an example, the National Rally is now the largest party by votes and number of MPs, it is the main party of the right and not "far right", which is FUD. It has embraced the general euroscepticism of the traditional French right, including from the Gaullists (De Gaulle's political movement) but not the outright dismantling of the EU. Edit: Really the HN crowd has become very obtuse and narrow-minded... What's the point of posting these articles if commenters are only allowed to agree, or disagree, depending on what is the expected correct reaction?
- coldtea 11mo ago
  Such notions were also shot down when people had a chance to vote again and again (against the expansion of EU powers), but the bureucrats kept pushing and advertising (with public money) for it, and blackmailing countries with withdrawal of funds if they don't consent to them.
  - throw-the-towel 11mo ago
    The voting will continue until morale improves!
- saubeidl 11mo ago
  I'm curious - how do you see Europe surviving if not through further integration? How do you envision, say Lithuania standing up to Russia, China or the US? What is your preferred model? All of us staying in little insignificant countries, kowtowing to larger powers? Also, the National Rally is clearly far-right. It was founded by former Waffen SS-members, for chrissake.
coldtea 11mo ago
[flagged]
- jack_tripper 11mo ago
  Kids are definitely not stupid. They just are more malleable to picking up the current trendy group-think pushed onto them by the media and education systems, while they just haven't dealt with taxes, labor, housing markets, debt and crushing CoL to bring them to reality yet.
  - croon 11mo ago
    I'm curious what "reality" would deliver them in terms of clarity/truth/policy leanings, and how it differs from whatever they're pushed currently. If I've learned anything from my 40+ years on this earth it's that there are no guarantees that adults/grownups are more reality-based than late teens, but they are usually more convinced they are.
    - meheleventyone 11mo ago
      > If I've learned anything from my 40+ years on this earth it's that there are no guarantees that adults/grownups are more reality-based than late teens, but they are usually more convinced they are. Yes exactly, we're just seeing the usual tired tropes making the rounds to dismiss this rather than trying to engage with the ideas.
      - jack_tripper 11mo ago
        What is the trope being dismissed and what is the idea you feel isn't discussed?
        croon 11mo ago
        The trope is youth being uninformed, and it's not the trope being dismissed, but their viewpoints as if they're less valid, but rarely discussed on merit. And as for specific ideas, the root level parent simply stated > The kids are idiots. which I feel captures the trope perfectly. You then half refuted it, but later restated it not as an intelligence issue but an experience one, which is where I was curious what the basis for the assertion was.
coldtea 11mo ago
> A futuristic EU soldier stands guard, laser blaster at the ready. European fighter jets zoom through the sky over thumping Eurodance beats. An imaginary map shows a vastly enlarged EU, swallowing everything from Greenland to the Caucasus. Welcome to the wild world of pro-Europe online propaganda, where the EU isn’t a fractious club of 27 countries but a juiced-up superpower on par with China or the United States, only wiser and more cultured. Yay, a millitaristic EU bureaucracy, after decades of dismal economic and social outcomes, with the typical bureucratic disdain for European peoples, and Germany at the helm. What could possiby go wrong?
- DivingForGold 11mo ago
  Seems more like the EU has descended into a "paper tiger", it's now reported the Russians are mapping out all the EU military bases in advance with drones from cargo ships near EU shores. Will be a real sh*t show to see the results when the Russians attack NATO across multiple fronts, and the EU is forced to place rifles in the hands of all these EU kids sending them to the front lines . . . as you have admitted: "decades of dismal economic and social outcomes . . ."
  - 0dayz 11mo ago
    So nukes don't exist?
    - jack_tripper 11mo ago
      Nukes are always the absolute last resort. Do you think the EU wants to kickstart the global nuclear holocaust just because Russia keeps flying drones in their airspace? If nukes were such an obvious cheat code to victory, Moscow would have just nuked Kiev instead of struggling in embarrassment for 4 years.
      - 0dayz 11mo ago
        Do you think that Russia wants to Kickstart a nuclear war considering they would start the war? The reason why Russia hasn't used nukes against Ukraine is simple: it would cause Russia to be isolated completely from China and even seen as a unhinged potential enemy and it would most likely be seen as an attack on nato and if nothing else would normalize nuke proliferation as now countries who don't have nukes sees that a new precedent.
NotGMan 11mo ago
EU was supposed to be an economic union, but it morphed into a politicaly cancerous union. Now it's evocing emergency acts to bypass union member states when it sees fit. On using Russian frozen assets: >> The vote put forward by von der Leyen reframed the issue of frozen Russian assets as an economic emergency rather than a sanctions policy. This allowed the Commission to invoke Article 122 of the EU treaties, an emergency clause that permits decisions to be adopted by a qualified majority vote instead of unanimity, effectively bypassing veto threats from countries opposed to the move.
- saubeidl 11mo ago
  > EU was supposed to be an economic union, but it morphed into a politicaly cancerous union. That's not true. To quote its founding document: > lay the foundations of an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe https://www.cvce.eu/content/publication/1999/1/1/cca6ba28-0bf3-4ce6-8a76-6b0b3252696e/publishable_en.pdf#page=2 https://www.cvce.eu/content/publication/1999/1/1/cca6ba28-0b...
  - mytailorisrich 11mo ago
    This is not what the people asked for, wanted, or were told, though. The issue is the insiduous nature of the "ever closer union" that advances by stealth, deception, manufacturing consent over time, and sometimes by just ignoring what the people have said. And then, now and then the people suddenly realise, too late, that on an ever growing range of issues their country has become powerless because a change of policy is either no longer within the country's power and is banned under EU law and treaties... and the web is being woven tighter and tigher little by little. There is no support in member states for leaving the EU or dismantling the EU. "Eurosceptimism" is by and large only wanting to loosen and restrict EU oversight of member states(which again has been the main debate for decades) but even that is anathema and "far right", which should really raise red flags in people's minds even without going full conspirationist.
    - saubeidl 11mo ago
      > "the people" You are not the people and you do not speak for them. You are one person, just as I am. I want this, and I was told this - clearly, it's in the founding charta! Right wing populists always pull this parlor trick of framing their views as the views of the people. The people have many different views, you do not speak for us.
DivingForGold 11mo ago
https://archive.ph/QIXO0 https://archive.ph/QIXO0
general1465 11mo ago
It is logical development. During our history we went from tribes, to villages, to city states, all the way to national states. Merging several smaller states into one block to counter influence of other large blocks follows all the past trends and it is inevitable to happen. Only thing which stands in the way is jingoistic nationalism, luckily thanks to internet and social networks kids does not really develop sense of nationalism to their country as they can tell no difference between somebody from Albania, France or Niger. And they can see that all the people have more less the same problems and more less the same desires and only thing which separates them is language and few obscure traditions of their ancestors. This also runs contrary to dismantling EU - European states weren't merged from outside by some Godlike power, but from inside by European themselves. It was a logical thing to do, to increase trade and to make Europe more competitive. If you would erase EU today with a magic rubber, something like EU would exist again within 30 years.
- mytailorisrich 11mo ago
  Wait until jingoistic EU nationalism emerges... we're there. > luckily thanks to internet and social networks kids does not really develop sense of nationalism to their country as they can tell no difference between somebody from Albania, France or Niger... That's both incorrect, younger generations do develop a strong sense of patriotism, it is even actually on the rise in Europe, and a ludicrous and very sinister rejection of culture ("few obscure traditions of their ancestors"... sounds like New China or the USSR...) In fact, in the current international context what the article describes is the rise of a pan-European nationalism.
  - saubeidl 11mo ago
    As long as Europe isn't a nation, it can't be nationalism. Maybe intrantionalism?
    - square_usual 11mo ago
      India is a lot like Europe (many traditionally separate cultures which were historically separate) and yet managed to have a nationalist movement. Part of that is attributable to colonialism, but I think that shows it's entirely possible to create a nation when there was none.

26 points by saubeidl 11mo ago

Well, this is the idea at the heart of it which has been pushed for many decades in some form or another. The EU/EEC etc started like the Zollverein which helped Germany unite. Personally I wish the EU had modelled itself more around Switzerland than the USA which is fast turning into its primary model. (By the way, some far rightists have pushed a united Europe for some time. The two ideas are not necessarily contradictory. Oswald Mosley was such a person.)

saubeidl 11mo ago
Personally, I think the SFRJ would be a nicer model - but I'll take what I can get at this point.
- derelicta 11mo ago
  I don't think central planning will be genuinely practiced any time soon in Europe unfortunately...
  - jack_tripper 11mo ago
    Everyone wants central planning until the appointed central planners do something that disadvantages them specifically. Then they suddenly remember they want national sovereignty to protect their interests from the central planners. That's how you have massive pro an anti EU splits in the same country. Because central planning tends to produce massive economic gaps between the winners and losers of the planning policies.
    - derelicta 11mo ago
      That's a problem a much bigger country like China doesn't really face surprisingly, despite having central planners, and despite having plenty of different nationalities! Maybe Euros could learn a bit from them and democratic centralism too
      - nephihaha 11mo ago
        China is only interested in its minorities as a means to promote tourism. Horrible example. Children are put into boarding schools in many places where they are forced to use Mandarin. It is currently bussing in lots of Mandarin speakers into Hong Kong to undermine Cantonese. It has done a good job of undermining Tibetan as well.
        vee-kay 11mo ago
        China (whose Maoists control the Nepal government) has mandated Mandarin Chinese to be taught in Nepal's schools as well. https://thehimalayantimes.com/nepal/mandarin-made-mandatory-in-many-schools/ https://thehimalayantimes.com/nepal/mandarin-made-mandatory-... https://www.regentschool.edu.np/chinese-language-classes/ https://www.regentschool.edu.np/chinese-language-classes/ China will destroy or subsume all native culture in every nation/land it gains control of. China is following the Colonial model of divide, conquer/conquest and containment, except this is all happening in the modern era.
        saubeidl 11mo ago
        What's bad about Mandarin being mandatory in schools? English is mandatory in most European schools, is that colonialism as well or just pragmatism?
        computerthings 11mo ago
        [dead]
        nephihaha 11mo ago
        What's bad? They're being punished if they speak their native language and are taken away from their home communities. No better than the stupid boarding schools minorities were sent to in the west.
- igilism 11mo ago
  [flagged]
  - saubeidl 11mo ago
    Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - computerthings 11mo ago
      [dead]
    - igilism 11mo ago
      [flagged]
jack_tripper 11mo ago
>Personally I wish the EU had modelled itself more around Switzerland than the USA which is fast turning into its primary model. The EU has not modeled itself around the USA, what are you on about? >(By the way, some far rightists have pushed a united Europe for some time. The two ideas are not necessarily contradictory. Oswald Mosley was such a person.) Had no idea who Oswald Mosley even was, but looking him up, he's been dead for 30+ years now. It's disingenuous to paint such long deceased people as still representative for their original cause today. People change, organisations change and countries change over the decades. What was a democratic/left-wing point 30 years ago (strict immigration controls) is now considered far right extremism. The EU, in its form back then from 30 years ago is different than the EU beast of today which swallowed the previously separate EU, EEC and EC post 2009. The US of 30 years ago is different than the US of today because society has changed a lot since then both demographically and economically. You can't dig up people from 70 years ago as representative for the same ideologies because both the ideologies and the people are different now. That's like driving forward while only looking in the rearview mirror. Right wing people have and will be Eurosceptics (Euro here meaning the EU org in Brussels, not Europe the continent) since they don't want to be led by a foreign org that's not directly accountable to them.
- coldtea 11mo ago
  >The EU has not modeled itself around the USA, what are you on about? He explicitly said what they mean: "which is fast turning into its primary model". What it WAS (emphasis in past tense) modeled itself around is not the point here.
- nephihaha 11mo ago
  I think you missed my point. The idea is not new at all. Winston Churchill supported the idea of a United States of Europe, and so did certain figures way back in the EEC days. If an idea is promoted over the course of decades, of course some kids will promote it later. I heard ideas being promoted in the early to mid nineties that are only coming about now. In fact the 1980s, "Star Trek the Next Generation" does that in several instances (such as AI assistants and tracking everyone's location electronically.) "Had no idea who Oswald Mosley even was, but looking him up, he's been dead for 30+ years now." Erm, that was my point. It's not a new idea and has long been promoted across the political spectrum including the far right. "The EU, in its form back then from 30 years ago is different than the EU beast of today which swallowed the previously separate EU, EEC and EC post 2009. The US of 30 years ago is different than the US of today because society has changed a lot since then both demographically and economically." I see it largely developing to plan. It started as a kind of customs union in Benelux and has been on that road ever since. The absorption of the Iron Curtain countries has been its biggest challenge, and if it expands outside Europe that won't be some great shock either. There has been talk of adding Turkey and even Morocco to the EU for decades. "You can't dig up people from 70 years ago as representative for the same ideologies because both the ideologies and the people are different now. That's like driving forward while only looking in the rearview mirror." Yes, you can. It's historical progression. There was a roadmap for EU development that was being discussed as far back as the seventies and even the fifties. "Right wing people have and will be Eurosceptics (Euro here meaning the EU org in Brussels, not Europe the continent) since they don't want to be led by a foreign org that's not directly accountable to them." That isn't true. Plenty of right wing people have been Europhiles, even the far right. On the flipside, there have also been plenty of left and far left Eurosceptics. Left wing Brexiteers in the UK are/were a thing. They called their movement "Lexit" but have been mostly written out of accounts, which tend to focus more on Farage and the right wing ones. Their arguments are not usually based around migration, but local democracy and also their notion that the EU was capitalist and neoliberal, and revolved around trade and money.

mytailorisrich 11mo ago

This has been the official line and "correct thought" for decades so it is unsurprising that it should yield results. It has gone into over-drive with, or thanks to, the war in Ulkraine, and renewed push for the EU to involved itself in military matters. Similarly, anyone who does not agree with further political integration, or objects that it is already too much, is depicted as wrong and, gasp, obviously "far right", as very well examplified in this article. Manufacturing consent works. > "No one is putting into question the existence of the EU anymore, but they fundamentally disagree [on] what they should do,*" This is a little misleading because this has actually been the main contention, not the very existence of the EU/EC even since the days of Margaret Thatcher. The debate has always mostly been about political integration, and that's what is being suppressed more and more. The far right may have been, in general, opposed to the EU but the fallacy, again, is the current use of the term "far right". Taking France as an example, the National Rally is now the largest party by votes and number of MPs, it is the main party of the right and not "far right", which is FUD. It has embraced the general euroscepticism of the traditional French right, including from the Gaullists (De Gaulle's political movement) but not the outright dismantling of the EU. Edit: Really the HN crowd has become very obtuse and narrow-minded... What's the point of posting these articles if commenters are only allowed to agree, or disagree, depending on what is the expected correct reaction?

coldtea 11mo ago
Such notions were also shot down when people had a chance to vote again and again (against the expansion of EU powers), but the bureucrats kept pushing and advertising (with public money) for it, and blackmailing countries with withdrawal of funds if they don't consent to them.
- throw-the-towel 11mo ago
  The voting will continue until morale improves!
saubeidl 11mo ago
I'm curious - how do you see Europe surviving if not through further integration? How do you envision, say Lithuania standing up to Russia, China or the US? What is your preferred model? All of us staying in little insignificant countries, kowtowing to larger powers? Also, the National Rally is clearly far-right. It was founded by former Waffen SS-members, for chrissake.

coldtea 11mo ago

[flagged]

jack_tripper 11mo ago
Kids are definitely not stupid. They just are more malleable to picking up the current trendy group-think pushed onto them by the media and education systems, while they just haven't dealt with taxes, labor, housing markets, debt and crushing CoL to bring them to reality yet.
- croon 11mo ago
  I'm curious what "reality" would deliver them in terms of clarity/truth/policy leanings, and how it differs from whatever they're pushed currently. If I've learned anything from my 40+ years on this earth it's that there are no guarantees that adults/grownups are more reality-based than late teens, but they are usually more convinced they are.
  - meheleventyone 11mo ago
    > If I've learned anything from my 40+ years on this earth it's that there are no guarantees that adults/grownups are more reality-based than late teens, but they are usually more convinced they are. Yes exactly, we're just seeing the usual tired tropes making the rounds to dismiss this rather than trying to engage with the ideas.
    - jack_tripper 11mo ago
      What is the trope being dismissed and what is the idea you feel isn't discussed?
      - croon 11mo ago
        The trope is youth being uninformed, and it's not the trope being dismissed, but their viewpoints as if they're less valid, but rarely discussed on merit. And as for specific ideas, the root level parent simply stated > The kids are idiots. which I feel captures the trope perfectly. You then half refuted it, but later restated it not as an intelligence issue but an experience one, which is where I was curious what the basis for the assertion was.

coldtea 11mo ago

> A futuristic EU soldier stands guard, laser blaster at the ready. European fighter jets zoom through the sky over thumping Eurodance beats. An imaginary map shows a vastly enlarged EU, swallowing everything from Greenland to the Caucasus. Welcome to the wild world of pro-Europe online propaganda, where the EU isn’t a fractious club of 27 countries but a juiced-up superpower on par with China or the United States, only wiser and more cultured. Yay, a millitaristic EU bureaucracy, after decades of dismal economic and social outcomes, with the typical bureucratic disdain for European peoples, and Germany at the helm. What could possiby go wrong?

DivingForGold 11mo ago
Seems more like the EU has descended into a "paper tiger", it's now reported the Russians are mapping out all the EU military bases in advance with drones from cargo ships near EU shores. Will be a real sh*t show to see the results when the Russians attack NATO across multiple fronts, and the EU is forced to place rifles in the hands of all these EU kids sending them to the front lines . . . as you have admitted: "decades of dismal economic and social outcomes . . ."
- 0dayz 11mo ago
  So nukes don't exist?
  - jack_tripper 11mo ago
    Nukes are always the absolute last resort. Do you think the EU wants to kickstart the global nuclear holocaust just because Russia keeps flying drones in their airspace? If nukes were such an obvious cheat code to victory, Moscow would have just nuked Kiev instead of struggling in embarrassment for 4 years.
    - 0dayz 11mo ago
      Do you think that Russia wants to Kickstart a nuclear war considering they would start the war? The reason why Russia hasn't used nukes against Ukraine is simple: it would cause Russia to be isolated completely from China and even seen as a unhinged potential enemy and it would most likely be seen as an attack on nato and if nothing else would normalize nuke proliferation as now countries who don't have nukes sees that a new precedent.

NotGMan 11mo ago

EU was supposed to be an economic union, but it morphed into a politicaly cancerous union. Now it's evocing emergency acts to bypass union member states when it sees fit. On using Russian frozen assets: >> The vote put forward by von der Leyen reframed the issue of frozen Russian assets as an economic emergency rather than a sanctions policy. This allowed the Commission to invoke Article 122 of the EU treaties, an emergency clause that permits decisions to be adopted by a qualified majority vote instead of unanimity, effectively bypassing veto threats from countries opposed to the move.

saubeidl 11mo ago
> EU was supposed to be an economic union, but it morphed into a politicaly cancerous union. That's not true. To quote its founding document: > lay the foundations of an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe https://www.cvce.eu/content/publication/1999/1/1/cca6ba28-0bf3-4ce6-8a76-6b0b3252696e/publishable_en.pdf#page=2 https://www.cvce.eu/content/publication/1999/1/1/cca6ba28-0b...
- mytailorisrich 11mo ago
  This is not what the people asked for, wanted, or were told, though. The issue is the insiduous nature of the "ever closer union" that advances by stealth, deception, manufacturing consent over time, and sometimes by just ignoring what the people have said. And then, now and then the people suddenly realise, too late, that on an ever growing range of issues their country has become powerless because a change of policy is either no longer within the country's power and is banned under EU law and treaties... and the web is being woven tighter and tigher little by little. There is no support in member states for leaving the EU or dismantling the EU. "Eurosceptimism" is by and large only wanting to loosen and restrict EU oversight of member states(which again has been the main debate for decades) but even that is anathema and "far right", which should really raise red flags in people's minds even without going full conspirationist.
  - saubeidl 11mo ago
    > "the people" You are not the people and you do not speak for them. You are one person, just as I am. I want this, and I was told this - clearly, it's in the founding charta! Right wing populists always pull this parlor trick of framing their views as the views of the people. The people have many different views, you do not speak for us.

DivingForGold 11mo ago

https://archive.ph/QIXO0 https://archive.ph/QIXO0

general1465 11mo ago

It is logical development. During our history we went from tribes, to villages, to city states, all the way to national states. Merging several smaller states into one block to counter influence of other large blocks follows all the past trends and it is inevitable to happen. Only thing which stands in the way is jingoistic nationalism, luckily thanks to internet and social networks kids does not really develop sense of nationalism to their country as they can tell no difference between somebody from Albania, France or Niger. And they can see that all the people have more less the same problems and more less the same desires and only thing which separates them is language and few obscure traditions of their ancestors. This also runs contrary to dismantling EU - European states weren't merged from outside by some Godlike power, but from inside by European themselves. It was a logical thing to do, to increase trade and to make Europe more competitive. If you would erase EU today with a magic rubber, something like EU would exist again within 30 years.

mytailorisrich 11mo ago
Wait until jingoistic EU nationalism emerges... we're there. > luckily thanks to internet and social networks kids does not really develop sense of nationalism to their country as they can tell no difference between somebody from Albania, France or Niger... That's both incorrect, younger generations do develop a strong sense of patriotism, it is even actually on the rise in Europe, and a ludicrous and very sinister rejection of culture ("few obscure traditions of their ancestors"... sounds like New China or the USSR...) In fact, in the current international context what the article describes is the rise of a pan-European nationalism.
- saubeidl 11mo ago
  As long as Europe isn't a nation, it can't be nationalism. Maybe intrantionalism?
  - square_usual 11mo ago
    India is a lot like Europe (many traditionally separate cultures which were historically separate) and yet managed to have a nationalist movement. Part of that is attributable to colonialism, but I think that shows it's entirely possible to create a nation when there was none.