Right. The thing would work perfectly well if everyone behaved like the Germans.Originally Posted by Ash
According to the Germans anyway.
"Plenty of strikers can score goals," he said, gesturing to the famous old stands casting shadows around us.
"But a lot have found it difficult wearing the number 9 shirt for The Arsenal."
This is pretty basic stuff that pretty much everyone now accepts about the Euro and these were the reasons why Gordon Brown (a man I have little time for in other respects) did us all a huge favour by fighting that grinning idiot Blair tooth and nail to keep us out of the clusterfück.
What a dumb blinkered response. There are plenty of people who knew what it was like before joining the "common market" and the efforts needed to enter into trade deals. There are plenty of knowledgeable people who take interest in other countries, who are not in the "single market" to do their deals (Switzerland, Finland etc)....so to tar everyone with the same ignorant brush shows your lack of respect and understanding for your fellow man.But not one single leave voter had the first idea what the effects on the country would be, and so, in effect, didn't know what they were voting for.
Graduate of the School for Kids Who Can't Read Good and Want to Do Other Stuff Good Too
Well, I mean, social cohesion is not a very good argument. Basically if you can make the argument for social cohesion, you can persuade a people to do anything. All the disasters of the 20th century came about as a result of the social cohesion argument. Now, it's effective. Because people desire to submit themselves to the local strongman. And that tends to be, in every village, some loudmouth who's a bit bigger physically than his brethren. But, because there is no limit to what people would wish to grab on the basis of social cohesion, it rightly has a bad reputation.I would say, actually, that it was true. Remainers voted for the status quo, that was a reasonably informed judgement because we know what we've got. I remember saying at the time that, whilst I might be tempted instinctively, to vote to leave, no one was giving me an argument upon which I could make that judgement. No one told us what leaving would mean in terms of having a plan to replace the EU trade deals which govern how we do bsuiness. I sort of assumed that some genius had worked out such a plan, but that that they simply weren't prepared to share iot with us. This seemed to me to make it impossible to vote Leave, because I had no idea what the outcome of this decision would be for the country.
Obviously, the thick, fat, ignorant, benefits-stealing feckless northerners give not a single fúck what happens to the country as long as their giro arrives on a Tuesday, so they voted in swathes to send the w*gs home. Others voted to give the liberal elite a good kick in the gonads; others still to save our sovereignity, and so on. But not one single leave voter had the first idea what the effects on the country would be, and so, in effect, didn't know what they were voting for.
It may be true that not everyone who voted leave wanted exactly the same from leaving the EU, but the same could be said of those who voted to Remain. Many Tory Remainers like Theresa May would have wanted to get shot of the European Court of Human Rights; this would have been anathama to Lib Dems.
It was a referendum, and the majority in voting for Leave understood that this would probably involve leaving the Single Market. It was empahsised by leading figures on both sides at regular interviews during the campaign. To say that there is no mandate for a so-called "hard Brexit" is nonsense.
Agree with every word of that analysis. {Though as a committed Europhile who spent much of the '90s and noughties travelling around Europe teaching the continentals how to live in trucks, put up **** off sound systems in fields for free and get ****ered for weeks at at time, I was always gonna vote Remain no matter what.}I would say, actually, that it was true. Remainers voted for the status quo, that was a reasonably informed judgement because we know what we've got. I remember saying at the time that, whilst I might be tempted instinctively, to vote to leave, no one was giving me an argument upon which I could make that judgement. No one told us what leaving would mean in terms of having a plan to replace the EU trade deals which govern how we do bsuiness. I sort of assumed that some genius had worked out such a plan, but that that they simply weren't prepared to share iot with us. This seemed to me to make it impossible to vote Leave, because I had no idea what the outcome of this decision would be for the country.
Obviously, the thick, fat, ignorant, benefits-stealing feckless northerners give not a single fúck what happens to the country as long as their giro arrives on a Tuesday, so they voted in swathes to send the w*gs home. Others voted to give the liberal elite a good kick in the gonads; others still to save our sovereignity, and so on. But not one single leave voter had the first idea what the effects on the country would be, and so, in effect, didn't know what they were voting for.
No. I thought I voted for MPs who were members of parties who paid big-brained people to advise them on the best course of action. It's called representative democracy, and I kinda like it. It sits between direct democracy plebicites and autocracy.
It's worked rather well for us, certainly since the Glorious Revolution meant we had permanent parliaments.
But yet some things are more important than 'big brains'. Big brains have brought us endless regime-change wars, millions of death, chaos, Islamist barbarism and a new cold war. Brought to us by high-flying academic neo-cons and lib-hawks. Yet many ordinary people with their smaller brains don't buy this ****. They're actually smart enough to notice that after Iraq and Libya it doesn't work. Yet the 'big brains' try it again in Syria.
The Levellers and the Chartists wouldn't buy this 'big brain' elitist crap, Ganps, and neither should you. Liking Europe has *nothing* to do with supporting the ruling class technocracy of the EU machine. If you support the people of Europe, then support them, not the ****s in Brussels who keep overturning referendums they don't like - in Ireland, France, NL and Greece.
1. I'm just saying I prefer representative democracy to direct democracy, Ash. I don't know enough about most policy issues to make an informed decision, I'd rather just elect an MP to make those decisions for me.
2. I take your point about the Levellers, though. Though if I remember the Putney debates correctly, they wanted one man (but not woman) one vote and annual parliaments. Again, they wanted to elect MPs, not have plebiscites on everything.
3. The lifestyle I had between c.1994 and c.2007 was all because of the EU. The first GB free sound system (Spiral Tribe) left for France and Spain c.1992 because of the Criminal Justice Act and started a free party scene. They didn't have free festivals in Europe but the Spirals started them - Teknivals. More and more English rigs (sound systems) came out and more and more natives started joining in, getting their own rigs and starting to live in vehicles. Before long we had 40-50k people coming to Teknivals in France. We had free sound systems from all over Europe, many with a mix of nationalities. That was my adult life, mate.
And I'm afraid it was inseparable from Brussels. (A bit like I couldn't have been a squatter before that without a govt and the City of London to pay my giro.)
We felt European, we felt united. For the first time ever - because of the lack of lyrics in tekno music - we had a properly united pan-European youth counter-culture movement/lifestyle. And it wouldn't have happened without the EU.
I was a Euro-raver then. Yes, I was British (which gave you a certain kudos coming from the country which started it all, which was nice.) But I was European first and foremost. It would never have happened if we'd needed the visas that are being talked about. You needed to be able to jump on a bus/train/plane or drive to Dover or Calais at the drop of a hat.
I'm not saying I support the EU machine and the technocracy. And I know in the real world the EZ will never get the full fiscal and political union it needs to make it work.
But had you asked any of us Teknival Euro-ravers back then if we could unite Europe into one country, we'd have all said yes.
As I say, I know this could never happen in the real world, but I'm just trying to explain how we felt. We all felt me had far more in common with each other than with most people from our respective countries.
It was a beautiful feeling, Ash. I can't really describe it and we didn't think about the politics of it all, just out-witting the local fuzz. But I guess we saw no difference between a govt in Brussels and the one in GB which had criminalised our lifestyle and thrown us out of the country.
If you'd said to us that the EU machine was the price we had to pay - that it was the undemocratic EU or no more Tekkies and the end to our friendships - then we'd have chosen the teknivals and EU every day of the week.
If you wanna waste five mins watching a montage vid of what we were doing (set to Moby, not Tekno music), have a look here:
https://vimeo.com/35344156
As I say, we didn't think about the politics but felt we were all citizens of the same of the same country. While we'd talk about how the rave laws were changing in various countries, I don't think any of us ever mentioned Brussels/the EU once in 2 decades. As I say, we weren't political. We just wanted to find a field, put up the rigs and get munted for the next 1-3 weeks before moving on and doing it again.
I know we can never have a proper, single European country but if I could vote for one, I would. Because that's what my adult life, in it's pathetic, hedonistic way, was devoted to.
I, too, regard representative democracy as generally preferable. However, as I pointed out earlier, this referendum came about because our representatives wilfully refused to represent their constituents' feelings about the EU.
Voters were presented with no meaningful opportunity to express their feelings, since all the major parties were pro-EU. Where representative democracy fails to represent, the clamour for direct democracy will inevitably grow until it becomes deafening.
In the end, the referendum came about because voters were flocking to the one party who gave them a chance of saying no to the EU. That pressure forced Cameron against his will to offer a referendum. Inevitably, such was the frustration of a populace so long denied any say on the question of our country's place in the EU that 20 years of anger resolved itself into an outright rejection of those who had silenced them.
In that sense, the referendum was absolutely in the tradition of our democracy because it was forced by peaceful democratic pressure on a governing parliamentary party. This was a truly revolutionary and democratic moment where the people of England (and Wales, I guess) rose up and reminded their supposed betters who was boss.
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