Brexit

[BillB]

If leaving the EU did indeed destroy the Football Premier league, even I might tempted towards Brexit. It appeals to the anarchist in me.

Have to give you that one mate, altho I'd file it under "pest control" rather than "anarchic".

 

BillB

[BillB]

 

 

All of this is very interesting, but it seems that one of the "EU is bad" tropes is actually a long standing myth originating in the US.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35962999

 

Chinese whispers, or is this cultural appropriation? There cannot be a cabbage regulation gap!

Well to be fair mate, and I may have missed it, but I haven't seen anything about cabbages at all in the current "EU is bad" tropes or anywhere else.

 

I have however seen "EU is good" tropes claiming that leaving the EU will destroy the NHS, the football premier league, will undermine UK security, cause mortgage rates to rise and make petrol more expensive. And let's not forget Call Me Dave's stunning success in forcing reform on the EU which, despite initially promising all manner of wonderful stuff, amounted to an unratified "agreement" to reduce VAT on women's sanitary products.

 

BillB

 

 

The article does provide a couple of examples where the cabbages thing has been trotted out a few times (in several variants) by UKIP, someone from the Adam Smith Institute and by some airhead at the Daily Heil.

 

Note, however, that I refer the honorable curmudgeon to the answer I gave some moments ago - that both sides have no real interest in "the truth", whatever it may be.

I suspect that the majority of those who bother to vote will do so based on falsehoods, vaguely expressed opinions and "gut feelings" rather than via a measured evaluation of objective criteria.

Just like most voting, then.

 

Fair one, altho I'll thank you to capitalise and UK spell "Honourable Curmudgeon".

 

Ref the rest, fair one again but there's no disputing the fact that the UK was taken into the EEC and remained there via a referendum based on deliberate lying by Heath's Conservative and Wilson's Labour governments. Which is primarily (but not solely) why I'll be voting out.

 

BillB

[Stuart Galbraith]

Bojan, I dont know if you are implying there was some parallel universe in which we made a mistake taking on Nazi Germany, but other than the masturbatory fantasies of exceptionally right wing historians like David Irving, I think most of us regard that as rightly a fantasy not worth exploring. Hitler broke his word at every turn, and added to his property portfolio at every turn. If there another position worth exploring other than the one Britain and France determined its somewhat irrelevant, simply because nobody else at the time standing up to do something about it. Or was the Soviet position one to be emulated, because Im not seeing anything in it to be commended even with 70 years hindsight.

 

Yes I know, we ended up being fucked up as a result, ive lived 43 years in the wreckage of the result. Both my grandfathers has their lives extensively shortened as a result. As the alternative would have been a life under Nazi dominated Europe, so I still remain content it was the right decision, imperfect though the result clearly was. The point that eludes you is that Britain, when its not dominated by effete minded austerity obsessed tossers as we now have, are quite capable of standing up and doing things that are manifestly not in our national interest for the greater good. If you want a primary example of that, look at Afghanistan and Iraq. Hardly fashionable, hardly something we will ever be commended for, but arguably also somebody else's problem until we stood up and made it our own. Thats the point you see. We choose difficult paths, whilst others look for an easy way out and bitch about what we do. Which is about the best reason for staying in Europe that I can think of.

Edited April 6, 2016 by Stuart Galbraith

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

If leaving the EU did indeed destroy the Football Premier league, even I might tempted towards Brexit. It appeals to the anarchist in me.

Have to give you that one mate, altho I'd file it under "pest control" rather than "anarchic".

 

BillB

 

If we can make Cricket compulsory in all European schools under an EU directive then It would clearly be for their own good by turning the Continent into Gentlemen.

[urbanoid]

Memorizing the rules might be problematic though, as there aren't any apparently.

[Stuart Galbraith]

You see? You clearly grasp the first step towards becoming British. The EU clearly does have hope after all.

[DB]

Cricket does not have rules. It has Laws.

[Stuart Galbraith]

It sure as hell doesnt have logic.

[BillB]

 

 

If leaving the EU did indeed destroy the Football Premier league, even I might tempted towards Brexit. It appeals to the anarchist in me.

Have to give you that one mate, altho I'd file it under "pest control" rather than "anarchic".

 

BillB

 

If we can make Cricket compulsory in all European schools under an EU directive then It would clearly be for their own good by turning the Continent into Gentlemen.

 

Nope, you've lost my support there. Wendyball is bad enough with all the homoerotic congratulatory contact and other histrionics, but I'd rather watch paint dry than watch cricket. I don't like tea either so I suppose I'm debarred from being a Real Brit...

 

BillB

[Yama]

All of this is very interesting, but it seems that one of the "EU is bad" tropes is actually a long standing myth originating in the US.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35962999

 

Chinese whispers, or is this cultural appropriation? There cannot be a cabbage regulation gap!

One doesn't have to make up dumb EU shit, there is plenty of real stuff around. One of the latest strokes of genius is 'Learning EU at School': political education about EU in classes. Its goals include 'help to overcome Euroscepticism' and 'development of a sense of European citizenship and a positive attitude towards Europe'.

[Panzermann]

 

All of this is very interesting, but it seems that one of the "EU is bad" tropes is actually a long standing myth originating in the US.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35962999

 

Chinese whispers, or is this cultural appropriation? There cannot be a cabbage regulation gap!

One doesn't have to make up dumb EU shit, there is plenty of real stuff around. One of the latest strokes of genius is 'Learning EU at School': political education about EU in classes. Its goals include 'help to overcome Euroscepticism' and 'development of a sense of European citizenship and a positive attitude towards Europe'.

Ahhh, defaulting to indoctrination, when it is too much work to convince with actual well done work and results. I left school in 99, but we already learned structure and processes of the EU. I doubt this was stricken from the education plans?

 

 

My personal favourite is still the laughing swiss parliamentarian when he reads a change proposal to swiss regulations in regards to food production to comply with some EU rulings:

 

 

Switzerland is not member, but they export mostly into the EU and thus have effectively comply to EU rules.

 

edit: the uploader put a translation in the description:

"Referring to addition 6a in capter 2 of the KN, the customs administration has additionally published the so called Swiss explanations about the customs tariff.

 

According to that, certain products, that have spices added during the production, are added to chapter 2, if the character of a product of this chapter ist not changed (for example "Bündnerfleisch"). Meat, that has spices on the whole surface of the product and that is noticable with the eyes, is excluded by the chapter."

Edited April 6, 2016 by Panzermann

[Yama]

 

 

All of this is very interesting, but it seems that one of the "EU is bad" tropes is actually a long standing myth originating in the US.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35962999

 

Chinese whispers, or is this cultural appropriation? There cannot be a cabbage regulation gap!

One doesn't have to make up dumb EU shit, there is plenty of real stuff around. One of the latest strokes of genius is 'Learning EU at School': political education about EU in classes. Its goals include 'help to overcome Euroscepticism' and 'development of a sense of European citizenship and a positive attitude towards Europe'.

 

Ahhh, defaulting to indoctrination, when it is too much work to convince with actual well done work and results. I left school in 99, but we already learned structure and processes of the EU. I doubt this was stricken from the education plans?

 

Apparently the Parliament is unhappy with both quality and quantity of present EU education, and plans for EU explicit material and teaching. I guess it basically means that curriculum is going to involve lengthy EU course. Here's the draft report.

 

I think it will work brilliantly in raising whole new generation of Euroskeptics as kids learn at young age to equate EU with boring.

[Marek Tucan]

yeah. I cringed in the "humanities" class on basic and high school, was boring as hell and i cannot see how this might be in any way exciting. Well, maybe I am wrong and teachers will go with practical exercises such as "How to break up EU within one year" or "Who paints the ebst Countryball strip with Reichtangle?"

[Yama]

That is actually more or less the plan, the plan is to use simulating and role-playing games to educate the youth about EU.

[Roman Alymov]

Bojan, I dont know if you are implying there was some parallel universe in which we made a mistake taking on Nazi Germany, but other than the masturbatory fantasies of exceptionally right wing historians like David Irving, I think most of us regard that as rightly a fantasy not worth exploring. Hitler broke his word at every turn, and added to his property portfolio at every turn. If there another position worth exploring other than the one Britain and France determined its somewhat irrelevant, simply because nobody else at the time standing up to do something about it. Or was the Soviet position one to be emulated, because Im not seeing anything in it to be commended even with 70 years hindsight.

 

Yes I know, we ended up being fucked up as a result, ive lived 43 years in the wreckage of the result. Both my grandfathers has their lives extensively shortened as a result. As the alternative would have been a life under Nazi dominated Europe, so I still remain content it was the right decision, imperfect though the result clearly was. The point that eludes you is that Britain, when its not dominated by effete minded austerity obsessed tossers as we now have, are quite capable of standing up and doing things that are manifestly not in our national interest for the greater good. If you want a primary example of that, look at Afghanistan and Iraq. Hardly fashionable, hardly something we will ever be commended for, but arguably also somebody else's problem until we stood up and made it our own. Thats the point you see. We choose difficult paths, whilst others look for an easy way out and bitch about what we do. Which is about the best reason for staying in Europe that I can think of.

Good speech, but is Brexit about exiting Europe? I think it is about UK leaving (or not leaving) bureaucratic trade organization, with own positive and negative sides. Europe existed long before EU.

Edited April 6, 2016 by Roman Alymov

[Corinthian]

 

One doesn't have to make up dumb EU shit, there is plenty of real stuff around. One of the latest strokes of genius is 'Learning EU at School': political education about EU in classes. Its goals include 'help to overcome Euroscepticism' and 'development of a sense of European citizenship and a positive attitude towards Europe'.

 

 

 

[Corinthian]

Good speech, but is Brexit about exiting Europe? I think it is about UK leaving (or not leaving) bureaucratic trade organization, with own positive and negative sides. Europe existed long before EU.

 

 

 

Well, if the UK used its entire nuclear arsenal to open up a new Atlantic rift, this time where the English Channel all the way to the North Sea through Dogger Bank, and somehow take Gibraltar along as well, the UK will well and truly have left the geological feature known as continental Europe.

 

Of course the thread is about the UK leaving the EU.

[Marek Tucan]

That is actually more or less the plan, the plan is to use simulating and role-playing games to educate the youth about EU.

Well yeah, but there is simulating and simulating I doubt they would simulate things like Grexit with Reichtangle going for anschluss of few suitable vacation spots or 1st Guards Shock Army rolling massing in Kaliningrad to storm through Poland... Or disavowing a referendum result in one member country and pushing for a re-run. IR the scenarios will for sure have to be centrally approved and dull

[Ssnake]

I got to play Ghaddafi's role in a powerplay about oil markets back in 1986 or so.

I opened the negotiations by refusing to talk to any non-Islamic nation. Hilarity ensued. So, it doesn't have to be dull even if it's officially approved. It's what you make of it.

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

Bojan, I dont know if you are implying there was some parallel universe in which we made a mistake taking on Nazi Germany, but other than the masturbatory fantasies of exceptionally right wing historians like David Irving, I think most of us regard that as rightly a fantasy not worth exploring. Hitler broke his word at every turn, and added to his property portfolio at every turn. If there another position worth exploring other than the one Britain and France determined its somewhat irrelevant, simply because nobody else at the time standing up to do something about it. Or was the Soviet position one to be emulated, because Im not seeing anything in it to be commended even with 70 years hindsight.

 

Yes I know, we ended up being fucked up as a result, ive lived 43 years in the wreckage of the result. Both my grandfathers has their lives extensively shortened as a result. As the alternative would have been a life under Nazi dominated Europe, so I still remain content it was the right decision, imperfect though the result clearly was. The point that eludes you is that Britain, when its not dominated by effete minded austerity obsessed tossers as we now have, are quite capable of standing up and doing things that are manifestly not in our national interest for the greater good. If you want a primary example of that, look at Afghanistan and Iraq. Hardly fashionable, hardly something we will ever be commended for, but arguably also somebody else's problem until we stood up and made it our own. Thats the point you see. We choose difficult paths, whilst others look for an easy way out and bitch about what we do. Which is about the best reason for staying in Europe that I can think of.

Good speech, but is Brexit about exiting Europe? I think it is about UK leaving (or not leaving) bureaucratic trade organization, with own positive and negative sides. Europe existed long before EU.

 

On the face of it, no it isn't. But its the slippery slope. The next step will be 'well do we really need all this other stuff as well', ie European court of human rights, which, IIRC, is separate from the EU and something we helped set up in 1945. If Jeremy Corbyn wins, I strongly suspect the 'Well do we really need to be in NATO as well' will come up as some point.

 

My own view, and im sure the Brexiters will argue this, if we start down the part of de integration, there will be an impetus to keep going. My own fear, we end up like Eire in the 1950s, removed from most association with everyone around us, and happy clapping its all wonderful as the economy goes down the shitter. And there are few people who happily embrace a bad idea as an ideology as the British.

 

If we do Brexit, I strongly hope we will start a new trade organisation on our terms. Scandinavian Economic Community?

[Yama]

Well yeah, but there is simulating and simulating I doubt they would simulate things like Grexit with Reichtangle going for anschluss of few suitable vacation spots or 1st Guards Shock Army rolling massing in Kaliningrad to storm through Poland... Or disavowing a referendum result in one member country and pushing for a re-run. IR the scenarios will for sure have to be centrally approved and dull

No, and that's why it will fail. Their study material - like everything which comes from EU - comes through so many committees and analysts and think tanks that if there was any even remotely interesting aspects in it originally it was long since filtered out and processed to tasteless, odourless, colourless drab and kids will be bored senseless.

Two years ago I had to clean out small library which had tons of EU handouts, reports, pamflets, books and booklets meant for public consumption. Everything was printed in colour on multiple languages to high-quality, expensive paper. By looks of it, none of the material was ever read by anyone. I threw thousands of euros worth of publications into recycling, and this was just one tiny library in one town. Now multiply that over the entirety of EU... wastage is mind-boggling.

[Stuart Galbraith]

I quite believe that. What I have the problem with is that when we pull our money out the EU, we will spend it on something worthwhile in the country. UK politicians are entirely capable of misspending it ourselves (Groundnut springs to mind, Nimrod AWAC is another, millennium dome yet another again)

 

I think I read somewhere we spent something like 15 billion in foreign aid a couple of years back, and had to borrow a similar amount from abroad to make it happen. Now I believe in charity, but I was always brought up to believe its supposed to start at home.

 

So I dont disagree the EU misspends. But at worst all its doing is stymieing the creativity of British politicians doing the same thing, and they will. We wont see any real return from it, I dont think anyway.

[Panzermann]

I got to play Ghaddafi's role in a powerplay about oil markets back in 1986 or so.

I opened the negotiations by refusing to talk to any non-Islamic nation. Hilarity ensued. So, it doesn't have to be dull even if it's officially approved. It's what you make of it.

Perfectly in character. Did you add some speeches about the setting the med sea on fire or some other flowery descriptions?

[Ssnake]

It was mostly a negotiations game and not so much about political grandstanding.

The fun part was that the other players didn't "get it" that Libya wasn't so much interested in economic development and "win-win" scenarios.

[Stuart Galbraith]

The greatest problem in gaming conflict scenarios (or at least so ive read) is reverse imaging of your enemy, ie assuming because you behave in one way that your enemy will do the same thing. I gather this was a real problem gaming the Soviet Union at the Pentagon back in the day.