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There are some very strange results from the EU legislation. For example, my Grandmother was born in a united Ireland, in what its now Northern Ireland. So, any of her Grandchildren can now claim an Eire passport. Which means, in the frankly hilarious post Brexit world, I can now be the proud holder of a British Blue passport, and an EU passport. My cousin has done just that. So has her kids.

Lets face it, EU Citizenship rules are as mad as a box of frogs.

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7 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

There are some very strange results from the EU legislation. For example, my Grandmother was born in a united Ireland, in what its now Northern Ireland. So, any of her Grandchildren can now claim an Eire passport. Which means, in the frankly hilarious post Brexit world, I can now be the proud holder of a British Blue passport, and an EU passport. My cousin has done just that. So has her kids.

Lets face it, EU Citizenship rules are as mad as a box of frogs.

There are no EU citizenship rules, unless you mean the national rules of EU members. Your example is actually a case in point, as the right of third-Generation descendants to Irish citizenship is by Irish law; and additionally the Good Friday Agreement recognized the right of the people of Northern Ireland to either or both British and Irish citizenship. As a result I think something like a third of the British population have that claim. Brexit only triggered the run on Irish passports because it suddenly made a difference to remain a EU citizen for traveling, working and living in the bloc. 

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I blame David Cameron. His pro - EU message was solely based on the economic potential of staying in the EU. But voters vote due to what's in their heart not GDP increases spaced over ten years.  

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On 11/26/2021 at 4:03 PM, seahawk said:

or how Brexit happened - the Brits not understanding reality.

You were cheerleading it as I recall. :)

On 11/26/2021 at 5:11 PM, TrustMe said:

I blame David Cameron. His pro - EU message was solely based on the economic potential of staying in the EU. But voters vote due to what's in their heart not GDP increases spaced over ten years.  

We didnt love the EU. Why would we? It just didnt seem to address any of the problems we were worried about. Even the free market arguably made it easier for jobs to hop the other side of the channel. I say that, and I was even in favour of staying in it.

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14 hours ago, seahawk said:

Yes, because I believe it makes no sense to have a member, that does not want to be a member

No, that isnt what you said. You said something like 'The EU is a means of enforcing Socialism on Europe'. Which to be honest, probably explains why my father was an enthusiast of it. :)

Im not criticising btw, Im just struggling to understand, like any post Brexiter.

 

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28 minutes ago, ex2cav said:

https://icds.ee/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/The-Belarusian-Armed-Forces.pdf

Some neat reading on the armed forces of Belarus. The short of it is they are too small to be able to defend the country and their equipment and manning are likely not up to par. They seem to be realigning to be a direct support to Russia's military.....

Much of their best kit is hand me downs from the Russians. For example their main air defence missile was the S300, which they got from Russia which was displacing it for the S400. They do in fairness have Su30 which is a nice aircraft, but not really a significant advance on the Su27's they allowed to self compost.

Its not a complete joke. They have a Spetsnaz Brigade which is regarded to be very good, and was experimenting with different delivery techniques including hang gliders when Belarus grabbed it in 1992. The Russian Army was hopping mad about that. I suspect they probably are as good as they were then. There isnt much else of note, other than some mechanized Brigades which include some T80's and T72's. If Ukraine as regarded as badly off, Belarus are even worse than that.

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1 hour ago, ex2cav said:

the armed forces of Belarus ... are too small to be able to defend the country and their equipment and manning are likely not up to par.

Defend the country against whom, Poland? Latvia?

The only country potentially threatening them is Russia, and they're inviting them for a bear hug.

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43 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

No, that isnt what you said. You said something like 'The EU is a means of enforcing Socialism on Europe'. Which to be honest, probably explains why my father was an enthusiast of it. :)

Im not criticising btw, Im just struggling to understand, like any post Brexiter.

 

In the end there is always a conflict between individual freedoms and the need to make common rules for a common market. This conflict happens every day within every democratic country in the World, it also does happen within the EU. With many EU countries being social democratic, it is logical that the EU is enforcing "socialist" policies. 

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15 hours ago, Ssnake said:

Defend the country against whom, Poland? Latvia?

The only country potentially threatening them is Russia, and they're inviting them for a bear hug.

The article discusses size, terrain, avenues of approach, and available forces. It does not delve deeply into the political realm. I think the presumption is that Belarus would be aligned against Nato. 

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On 11/28/2021 at 9:48 AM, seahawk said:

In the end there is always a conflict between individual freedoms and the need to make common rules for a common market. This conflict happens every day within every democratic country in the World, it also does happen within the EU. With many EU countries being social democratic, it is logical that the EU is enforcing "socialist" policies. 

And this is the fundamental detect. If you want a common market, have one. Don't then change it into a German-dominated superstate by the back door.

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On 11/28/2021 at 7:57 PM, Stuart Galbraith said:

No, that isnt what you said. You said something like 'The EU is a means of enforcing Socialism on Europe'. Which to be honest, probably explains why my father was an enthusiast of it. :)

Im not criticising btw, Im just struggling to understand, like any post Brexiter.

 

Quite the opposite. One aim of the EU was to bring neoliberalism to the countries of Europe where some Raegan/Thatcher play would not work - i.e. where social democracy was too strong to be defeated head on.

I.e. social democratic parties would be permitted to rule, unions could continue to exist etc, but they would just not have much room to move on economic policy.
 

Quote

 

Most neoliberals, including von Mises, Hayek and Robbins, accepted that the nation state was not just going to disappear. Instead they proposed a form of ‘double government’: there would be both national and supranational states. What they called ‘cultural’ issues could still be managed at the national level, but the running of the economy would be separated from the nation and pursued at a world level. This ‘double government’ system was seen as a way to institutionalise their ultimate aim: the separation of politics from economics.

Double government would detach the rule of nation states from the rule of capital and private property. This represented a division between what neoliberals called imperium (the rule of people) and dominium (the rule of things). They sought to depoliticise the economy permanently, freeing it from the interference of politics and people, and leaving it to be overseen by a non-political supranational state.

Neoliberal, early globalist ideas therefore also anticipated the subsequent depoliticisation of economic policy that has become so evident in recent decades. Indeed, since the 1980s, especially across Western countries, authority and policymaking has been outsourced to unaccountable bodies such as independent central banks and, most blatantly, to the EU. National politicians across Europe have deferred power, responsibility and, sometimes, convenient blame to the Brussels apparatus. Accountability for policy at home can be evaded when it is claimed ‘EU rules’ preclude doing what people want or need.

 

 
Quote

 

Feld describes the state as the ‘concentrated force’ of the system of liberty. Bonefeld therefore suggests that Ordoliberalismus is best characterised as an authoritarian liberalism, which has since been realised in the form of the EU (2). Postwar globalist Jan Tumlir, a lawyer and chief economist at GATT for nearly two decades from 1967 until 1985, also conceived of the EU in neoliberal terms. As he put it in 1983, ‘the protection of the private economy from the government was the eminent idea in forming the European enterprise’ (3).

Hayek pursued the same approach in arguing for global institutions to safeguard capitalism. For him, this meant protecting what he called the ‘negative right’ for foreign investments to have freedom from expropriation, and the right to move capital freely across borders.

Hence the welcome many neoliberals gave to the EU’s Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and an independent European Central Bank (ECB). This amounted to an ‘economic constitution’ for Europe. In a similar vein, some neoliberals also support the controversial Investor-State Dispute Settlement provisions in recent mega-trade arrangements, which give businesses operating in foreign territories legal rights over the host nation state.

 



https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/03/22/the-truth-about-neoliberalism/

Greg Palast is also quite good here:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jun/26/robert-mundell-evil-genius-euro







 

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Im not saying thats what I believe, im just saying, thats what he said. :)

Ill be honest, I dont think the EU knows what it is. It was a means to defend European trade from harmful competition, then a bunch of politicians turned it into a job creation scheme, and then it turned into a planned superstate, which nobody has the political authority, intelligence or leadership to turn it into. We see the same thing with Nichola Sturgeon in Scotland, plenty of ambition, but thankfully little of the talent to carry it to term.

Its kind of rather like one Derek Robinson novels, where Wing Commander 'Baggy' Bletchley gets his testicles caught under the toilet seat in the middle of an air raid. Stand up and its agony, sitting down is even worse.

 

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5 hours ago, DB said:

And this is the fundamental detect. If you want a common market, have one. Don't then change it into a German-dominated superstate by the back door.

This shows nothing but a lack of knowledge on how decisions are made in the EU.

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5 hours ago, seahawk said:

This shows nothing but a lack of knowledge on how decisions are made in the EU.

The creation of the Euro and the resulting subservience of all minor Euroland economies to Germany has very little to do with formal Eu rules, except in that they were bypassed by fiat to sucker them into never-ending debt.

But, you know, I might be exaggerating a little for effect. I wonder who in this conversation gives the impression that they spend about 90% of their time doing just that, to the point that the occasional burst of coherent thought stands out like a sore thumb?

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6 hours ago, DB said:

The creation of the Euro and the resulting subservience of all minor Euroland economies to Germany has very little to do with formal Eu rules, except in that they were bypassed by fiat to sucker them into never-ending debt.

But, you know, I might be exaggerating a little for effect. I wonder who in this conversation gives the impression that they spend about 90% of their time doing just that, to the point that the occasional burst of coherent thought stands out like a sore thumb?

But the Euro was not a requirement by the EU. And in the end all minor economies created their own problems, by adjusting the numbers to join the Euro, then go on a spending spree due to the lower interest rates they suddenly enjoyed until they went over the cliff. Granted it played into the hands of the Germans, that they got the Euro and did reform their economy at the same time. 

And as you said the person had a coherent thought, that can´t be me.

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