14 ms·

Eh hard disagree there, the way I see it there is no more squabble between France and Poland than there is between Texas and California or between Spain and Rom

by nolok 1mo ago

Eh hard disagree there, the way I see it there is no more squabble between France and Poland than there is between Texas and California or between Spain and Romania compared to New york and Virginia. In fact, I would say we have LESS of it. The only thing we need is to actually stop ignoring the forest for the tree and see that the world moved on beyond our petty local borders and we're lucky enough to have found a system where we're stronger together, to the point where we matter in the world and can't be ignored or pushed aside, while also protecting the core of each of our own cultural societies (langugage, history, ...), and only fools would let that go because they're too close minded to see it.

3938848484 1mo ago
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- frikskit 1mo ago
  That was not a useful metaphor, but by all means try again (if you want) and teach us something interesting (and concrete) based on your unique experience.
- embedding-shape 1mo ago
  Must be incredibly humbling experience to not realize EU is a union of independent countries and the US is a federation of states until you work for one of the delegations, wasn't it? Most of us pick up on that even without professional experience about it.
  - 3938848484 1mo ago
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    - embedding-shape 1mo ago
      > See the thing is when we studied law in Europe a long time ago we were sold on this dream that Europe would become like the United States Eeh, what school was this? I think most public schools (at least those me and people near me) attended, it was taught that EU is nothing like the US, as we're all individual countries and everyone wants to remain as such, but we still want to collaborate although we're somewhat different from each other, and been killing each other since forever. I guess that's why second world war and similar things are such a big part of our history lessons, rather than diving deep into the history of US or Australia or whatever. > It really takes the soul out of you. The way people work in the US and China is completely different. They DO things. Europeans just talk about doing things, and then talk behind each others backs. For me the difference is between politicians and people actually doing the work. And my personally experience points towards this split existing equally everywhere, in China, in the US, in Europe and everywhere else I've been. The higher up the political ranks you get, the more people like to talk, the less they like doing. I feel like this is very evident in the US too, looking at how productive and efficient companies are vs research labs living on grants vs federal government vs local governments, the scale is completely different, and same goes in Europe as well, at least from what I can tell. Evidentially, in the high ranks of the European Parliament, things are exactly the same as higher ranking politicians everywhere, they just like to talk and grandstand and pretend to know what they're talking about. But I think this is true in the US too, or in China, these sort of people just like talking and discussing things forever, for better or worse.
      - mike_hearn 1mo ago
        > it was taught that EU is nothing like the US, as we're all individual countries and everyone wants to remain as such It's written into the treaties that this will not be so. The goal of the EU is "ever closer union" and the people at the top of it routinely talk about a federal Europe in which the individual states disappear.
        dgellow 1mo ago
        Individual states do not disappear in a more federal Europe. Otherwise that wouldn’t be a confederation… It’s about delegating some authority and decision making to a common entity, but each nation state stays sovereign. I don’t understand how people are confused about that concept, there are lots of federated entities in the world, with various level of delegation to the federal level. And that works well. The distinctions between states aren’t erased, the culture between states isn’t erased.
        mike_hearn 1mo ago
        You can't be sovereign and also subservient to another power. That's a contradiction! Texas is not sovereign, for example. The people who call themselves federalists don't actually want a federation. They just use the name because it sounds more acceptable. Read Spinelli's Draft Treaty from 1984 or his Ventotene Manifesto. These documents don't describe the creation of a federation but rather the creation of a unitary state.
        embedding-shape 1mo ago
        > It's written into the treaties that this will not be so. What exact treaty are you talking about, and what does it verbatim say? I've heard this so many times before, yet no one is able to link to concretely what they refer to. No texts I've seen has called for the dissolution of nation states in the EU or any of the other political structures.
        mike_hearn 1mo ago
        The goal of ever closer union appears in both the Maastricht Treaty and the Treaty of Rome. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:11992M/TXT https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL... >RESOLVED to continue the process of creating an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe, in which decisions are taken as closely as possible to the citizen in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, Now you might say, ah! This text also says that decisions must be taken as closely as possible to the citizens. Yes, the treaties do say that, the EU just doesn't do it. Of course it makes no sense, the claim about subsidiarity is in direct contradiction to the first part of the sentence, you can't be both in an ever-tightening political union and also have decisions made by local governments. In practice the first part is chased and the second part is ignored. EU decisions are taken in Brussels - far away from the average citizen - even about many issues that don't need to be decided there. If you want to understand the real origins of the EU and where it's going, you need to read the Ventotene Manifesto. Written during WW2 by a group of imprisoned Italian communists led by Altiero Spinelli, it calls explicitly for a communist revolution that would unite all of Europe. Spinelli's document can be found here: https://federalists.eu/federalist-library/the-ventotene-manifesto/ https://federalists.eu/federalist-library/the-ventotene-mani... It says things like, "In order to respond to our needs, the European revolution must be socialist" and "By this dictatorship of the revolutionary party a new State will be formed, and around this State new, genuine democracy will grow". It goes on like that in quite some detail. Although the document is insane Spinelli went on to be one of the founding architects of the EU. He is officially credited as a "pioneer of the EU": https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-history/history-eu/eu-pioneers_en https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-histor... and a "founding father of the EU": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_fathers_of_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_fathers_of_the_Europe... He became one of the first members of the European Commission and was a member of the European Parliament. He was also one of the primary authors of the "Draft Treaty for establishment of the European Union" in 1984 that directly led to the creation of the modern EU itself via the Maastricht Treaty, which imported a lot of its ideas. The Draft Treaty can be found here: https://federalists.eu/federalist-library/draft-treaty-establishing-the-european-union-14-february-1984/ https://federalists.eu/federalist-library/draft-treaty-estab... It not only mentions the goal of ever closer union (with no mention of subsidiarity), but mandates it legally in Article 11, which defines "cooperation" to mean control by member states and "common action" to mean things directly controlled by the EU institutions. It then states in plain English that a topic may be moved from cooperation to common action, but never in reverse. It also states that powers go through this one way transfer to the EU based only on a vote of the EU Parliament, with member state parliaments themselves getting no say in it. So the idea of abolishing national states has always been very visible among the EU's "founding fathers".
    - 2III7 1mo ago
      > Then you get there all bright eyed and it's just a bunch of boomers squabbling to fuck each other over to get 0.03% tax advantages on peach liquor exports for their region. Congratulations, you summed up how politics work in all regions of the world.
    - flohofwoe 1mo ago
      > we were sold on this dream that Europe would become like the United States Sorry but that's just made up bullshit. The EU is not a "United States of Europe", and thinking along that line will ineviatably lead to tons of misconceptions.
- nolok 1mo ago
  The European parliament and US congress are both just as united and fragmented. We disagree internally until we find a common posture that we adopt. I'm not sure why you talk California public sector instead of something involving multiple states that have differing views, that makes your comparison useless, that's why I say US congress. Note that your misunderstanding of the situation and lack of knowledge about it is not rare per se, to give an exemple that's why a fair amount of brexiter politician were surprised the EU didn't break itself in internal fight over the UK deal (while they were used to the inside squabble when they were a member, and they failed to notice the similarity with their own parliament compared to their country).
  - inglor_cz 1mo ago
    The EU-related structures in Brussels are about as united/fragmented as the US Congress, indeed. But the national governments are nothing like US state governments. A lot more political fragmentation, plus they still consider themselves executives of sovereign nations with various vital interests and also historic resentments. Few Californian politicians will base their programs on suspicions towards New Mexico. In Poland, "don't kowtow to the Germans" is still a living idea and current PM Tusk is regularly accused of doing precisely that.
    - 3938848484 1mo ago
      [dead]
      - nolok 1mo ago
        What is even your point in all those messages ? If we were to take all of your comments in this thread, and we all agree with no exception to them, it doesn't change anything to the conversation, it doesn't make any point, it does't provide anything interesting, you're just dead set on commenting in a loop that the sky is green Think about it, what are you saying that adds to a German company successfully launching into space from Norway ?
        1mo ago
mytailorisrich 1mo ago
We are not mere states of a federal country but sovereign countries despite the narrative some would like you to believe.

by nolok 1mo ago

3938848484 1mo ago

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frikskit 1mo ago
That was not a useful metaphor, but by all means try again (if you want) and teach us something interesting (and concrete) based on your unique experience.
embedding-shape 1mo ago
Must be incredibly humbling experience to not realize EU is a union of independent countries and the US is a federation of states until you work for one of the delegations, wasn't it? Most of us pick up on that even without professional experience about it.
- 3938848484 1mo ago
  [dead]
  - embedding-shape 1mo ago
    > See the thing is when we studied law in Europe a long time ago we were sold on this dream that Europe would become like the United States Eeh, what school was this? I think most public schools (at least those me and people near me) attended, it was taught that EU is nothing like the US, as we're all individual countries and everyone wants to remain as such, but we still want to collaborate although we're somewhat different from each other, and been killing each other since forever. I guess that's why second world war and similar things are such a big part of our history lessons, rather than diving deep into the history of US or Australia or whatever. > It really takes the soul out of you. The way people work in the US and China is completely different. They DO things. Europeans just talk about doing things, and then talk behind each others backs. For me the difference is between politicians and people actually doing the work. And my personally experience points towards this split existing equally everywhere, in China, in the US, in Europe and everywhere else I've been. The higher up the political ranks you get, the more people like to talk, the less they like doing. I feel like this is very evident in the US too, looking at how productive and efficient companies are vs research labs living on grants vs federal government vs local governments, the scale is completely different, and same goes in Europe as well, at least from what I can tell. Evidentially, in the high ranks of the European Parliament, things are exactly the same as higher ranking politicians everywhere, they just like to talk and grandstand and pretend to know what they're talking about. But I think this is true in the US too, or in China, these sort of people just like talking and discussing things forever, for better or worse.
    - mike_hearn 1mo ago
      > it was taught that EU is nothing like the US, as we're all individual countries and everyone wants to remain as such It's written into the treaties that this will not be so. The goal of the EU is "ever closer union" and the people at the top of it routinely talk about a federal Europe in which the individual states disappear.
      - dgellow 1mo ago
        Individual states do not disappear in a more federal Europe. Otherwise that wouldn’t be a confederation… It’s about delegating some authority and decision making to a common entity, but each nation state stays sovereign. I don’t understand how people are confused about that concept, there are lots of federated entities in the world, with various level of delegation to the federal level. And that works well. The distinctions between states aren’t erased, the culture between states isn’t erased.
        mike_hearn 1mo ago
        You can't be sovereign and also subservient to another power. That's a contradiction! Texas is not sovereign, for example. The people who call themselves federalists don't actually want a federation. They just use the name because it sounds more acceptable. Read Spinelli's Draft Treaty from 1984 or his Ventotene Manifesto. These documents don't describe the creation of a federation but rather the creation of a unitary state.
      - embedding-shape 1mo ago
        > It's written into the treaties that this will not be so. What exact treaty are you talking about, and what does it verbatim say? I've heard this so many times before, yet no one is able to link to concretely what they refer to. No texts I've seen has called for the dissolution of nation states in the EU or any of the other political structures.
        mike_hearn 1mo ago
        The goal of ever closer union appears in both the Maastricht Treaty and the Treaty of Rome. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:11992M/TXT https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL... >RESOLVED to continue the process of creating an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe, in which decisions are taken as closely as possible to the citizen in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, Now you might say, ah! This text also says that decisions must be taken as closely as possible to the citizens. Yes, the treaties do say that, the EU just doesn't do it. Of course it makes no sense, the claim about subsidiarity is in direct contradiction to the first part of the sentence, you can't be both in an ever-tightening political union and also have decisions made by local governments. In practice the first part is chased and the second part is ignored. EU decisions are taken in Brussels - far away from the average citizen - even about many issues that don't need to be decided there. If you want to understand the real origins of the EU and where it's going, you need to read the Ventotene Manifesto. Written during WW2 by a group of imprisoned Italian communists led by Altiero Spinelli, it calls explicitly for a communist revolution that would unite all of Europe. Spinelli's document can be found here: https://federalists.eu/federalist-library/the-ventotene-manifesto/ https://federalists.eu/federalist-library/the-ventotene-mani... It says things like, "In order to respond to our needs, the European revolution must be socialist" and "By this dictatorship of the revolutionary party a new State will be formed, and around this State new, genuine democracy will grow". It goes on like that in quite some detail. Although the document is insane Spinelli went on to be one of the founding architects of the EU. He is officially credited as a "pioneer of the EU": https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-history/history-eu/eu-pioneers_en https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-histor... and a "founding father of the EU": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_fathers_of_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_fathers_of_the_Europe... He became one of the first members of the European Commission and was a member of the European Parliament. He was also one of the primary authors of the "Draft Treaty for establishment of the European Union" in 1984 that directly led to the creation of the modern EU itself via the Maastricht Treaty, which imported a lot of its ideas. The Draft Treaty can be found here: https://federalists.eu/federalist-library/draft-treaty-establishing-the-european-union-14-february-1984/ https://federalists.eu/federalist-library/draft-treaty-estab... It not only mentions the goal of ever closer union (with no mention of subsidiarity), but mandates it legally in Article 11, which defines "cooperation" to mean control by member states and "common action" to mean things directly controlled by the EU institutions. It then states in plain English that a topic may be moved from cooperation to common action, but never in reverse. It also states that powers go through this one way transfer to the EU based only on a vote of the EU Parliament, with member state parliaments themselves getting no say in it. So the idea of abolishing national states has always been very visible among the EU's "founding fathers".
  - 2III7 1mo ago
    > Then you get there all bright eyed and it's just a bunch of boomers squabbling to fuck each other over to get 0.03% tax advantages on peach liquor exports for their region. Congratulations, you summed up how politics work in all regions of the world.
  - flohofwoe 1mo ago
    > we were sold on this dream that Europe would become like the United States Sorry but that's just made up bullshit. The EU is not a "United States of Europe", and thinking along that line will ineviatably lead to tons of misconceptions.
nolok 1mo ago
The European parliament and US congress are both just as united and fragmented. We disagree internally until we find a common posture that we adopt. I'm not sure why you talk California public sector instead of something involving multiple states that have differing views, that makes your comparison useless, that's why I say US congress. Note that your misunderstanding of the situation and lack of knowledge about it is not rare per se, to give an exemple that's why a fair amount of brexiter politician were surprised the EU didn't break itself in internal fight over the UK deal (while they were used to the inside squabble when they were a member, and they failed to notice the similarity with their own parliament compared to their country).
- inglor_cz 1mo ago
  The EU-related structures in Brussels are about as united/fragmented as the US Congress, indeed. But the national governments are nothing like US state governments. A lot more political fragmentation, plus they still consider themselves executives of sovereign nations with various vital interests and also historic resentments. Few Californian politicians will base their programs on suspicions towards New Mexico. In Poland, "don't kowtow to the Germans" is still a living idea and current PM Tusk is regularly accused of doing precisely that.
  - 3938848484 1mo ago
    [dead]
    - nolok 1mo ago
      What is even your point in all those messages ? If we were to take all of your comments in this thread, and we all agree with no exception to them, it doesn't change anything to the conversation, it doesn't make any point, it does't provide anything interesting, you're just dead set on commenting in a loop that the sky is green Think about it, what are you saying that adds to a German company successfully launching into space from Norway ?
      - 1mo ago

mytailorisrich 1mo ago

We are not mere states of a federal country but sovereign countries despite the narrative some would like you to believe.