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#14994423
snapdragon wrote:I don't see the point in posting links to maundering opinions that aren't based on anything except the prejudices of whomever the author admires.


Indeed, Kaiser's blog article is further evidence of the hopelessness of the anti-EU crowd that after failing with their accusations that the EU is either the "soviet union" or the "nazi empire" it is now attempting to insult the EU because of its commitment to constitutionalism, private property and competition. :lol: which is hilarious because both the author and Kaiser are also liberal in the same sense:

Kaiser's blog article wrote:Streeck calls the EU a ‘liberal empire’ because it is explicitly committed to constitutionalism, private property, and competition.


That Kaiser is also explicitly committed to constitutionalism, private property and competition is of course "irrelevant", anything that puts anti-EU spin is clearly welcome.

I really though enjoyed the author's definition of "voluntary empire" just goes to show what kind of semantic extremes an author might be willing to go just to justify his or her absurdism. The levels of absurdity here are quite unique rendering the very definition of "empire" absurd, as empires are neither legally voluntary for the subjects nor politically and legally equitable and representational. :knife:

Kaiser's blog article wrote:If the EU is an empire then it is exceptional in being a legally voluntary empire.


:lol:

It should be noted that as already stated the EU is not simply a voluntary organisation but an institution that offers its members equal representation in all aspects of its governance, in the EU Council, the Commission, the ECJ, the Council of the EU. And that prior to this arrangement we had actual empires dictating terms to the nation-states who had no mechanism to participate in the decision-making policy of whatever Empire or nation was the Hegemon and in charge.

More was written here:

noemon

Why does sovereignty require a "mechanism of participation?"

I don't understand how those ideas are related. Perhaps you could explain?

I guess I need to see why such even matters.


If a state does not have the right to vote, propose, veto and amend something then it has no mechanism to express its sovereignty. It can and will be threatened into submission as history and international relations have proven beyond any reasonable doubt.

So? Why does a nation need to be part of a different union after leaving the European union? This argument seems to be saying that someone shouldn't leave the EU because their are no approximate alternatives out there, have you even considered that might be the point? :lol:


For your argument to make any sense you have to ignore reality, put blinders on your head and wish international relations away. A state is part of the globe whether you call it a union, or a coalition or merely an existence of states and these states share borders and cannot physically or practically exist in vacuums. They have to agree between them from simple things like whether their passports are valid or not to how much tax they will impose on each other to a whole list of things. There are only 2 extremes here on how to govern their relationships and everything falls either at or between these 2 extremes. Brute force or consensus. The EU is the one that offers states equal representation not only in its decision making but throughout every single one of its bodies, that aims to achieve equitability and justice among its members when managing their relationships.
#14994427
Steve_American wrote:@Atlantis,
Two points ---
1] IMHO your meme is way overstating the unity among the independent nations of Europe. They do not have a single foreign policy.


Firstly, politics is a dynamic process and the EU is a constant process of consensus finding. That is the essence of democracy and shows that the EU has reached the highest level of democracy in human history. The anti-EU populists that attack the alleged lack of democracy in the EU thus stand exposed as national populists who want to turn the clock back to authoritarian rule.

Secondly, the absence of central rule as in US federalism prevents the emergence of imperialism. The EU can arrive at a consensus when there is a clear common good as in the Brexit talks, but would never arrive at a consensus in an endeavor of foreign military adventurism as the Iraq invasion so typical of US and UK imperialism.

Thus, the EU, by its very design, defends democracy and anti-imperialism.

2] Your meme completely ignores the economic damage being done to the nations of Europe. Of course, the nations mostly have Gov. that believe in neo-liberal economic theories.


You completely ignore the reality of the EU, where economic convergence has raised the prosperity of poor EU members in relation to comparable non-EU countries.

But so does the US, and yet the Repuds a year ago passed a new tax law that increased the deficit big time. No nation in the EU or EZ can do that because of the EU rules. Now, it would have been better to cut the taxes the working poor pay like the FICA tax, but what they did will stimulate the economy some.


You are comparing apples with pears. The US can export its deficit since the dollar is an international currency that is held primarily held by non-US citizens. But even this won't shelter the US economy from the negative impacts of Trump's economic madness for very long.

Other countries cannot exceed certain debt levels without going bankrupt. Economic stimulus can have a positive effect with low debt levels but debt-spending a country into bankruptcy is lunacy. While there is nothing wrong with reasonable debt levels, excessive debt only benefits international financiers since much of a nation's wealth goes into servicing debts at high interest rates.
#14994429
Meanwhile the EU's copyright reform is going through which is a freaking disaster.

noemon wrote:That Kaiser is also explicitly committed to constitutionalism, private property and competition is of course "irrelevant", anything that puts anti-EU spin is clearly welcome.


Such a worthless argument.

One can approve of a particular policy but still oppose making it part of a constitution, especially one the sovereign didn't approve of.
#14994430
Rugoz wrote:One can approve of a particular policy but still oppose making it part of a constitution, especially one the sovereign didn't approve of.


Both yourself and Kaiser accuse the EU for things you agree with her, which is more than hilarious, it is actually ridiculous because under these terms there is absolutely nothing that it can do right as even the things that you agree with, you will use them against her. I was wondering whether to mention your name in my earlier post but decided not to, yet you realised it was also referring to yourself since you do this in here consistently. I guess only an entitled liberal could actually accuse a state of being liberal, simply because that state did not request his own personal permission even though it actually did as all EU members have been asked to approve and formulate the EU's terms and conditions.
#14994447
noemon wrote:Indeed, Kaiser's blog article is further evidence of the hopelessness of the anti-EU crowd that after failing with their accusations that the EU is either the "soviet union" or the "nazi empire" it is now attempting to insult the EU because of its commitment to constitutionalism, private property and competition. :lol: which is hilarious because both the author and Kaiser are also liberal in the same sense:

I really though enjoyed the author's definition of "voluntary empire" just goes to show what kind of semantic extremes an author might be willing to go just to justify his or her absurdism. The levels of absurdity here are quite unique rendering the very definition of "empire" absurd, as empires are neither legally voluntary for the subjects nor politically and legally equitable and representational. :knife:

It should be noted that as already stated the EU is not simply a voluntary organisation but an institution that offers its members equal representation in all aspects of its governance, in the EU Council, the Commission, the ECJ, the Council of the EU. And that prior to this arrangement we had actual empires dictating terms to the nation-states who had no mechanism to participate in the decision-making policy of whatever Empire or nation was the Hegemon and in charge.

If a state does not have the right to vote, propose, veto and amend something then it has no mechanism to express its sovereignty. It can and will be threatened into submission as history and international relations have proven beyond any reasonable doubt.

For your argument to make any sense you have to ignore reality, put blinders on your head and wish international relations away. A state is part of the globe whether you call it a union, or a coalition or merely an existence of states and these states share borders and cannot physically or practically exist in vacuums. They have to agree between them from simple things like whether their passports are valid or not to how much tax they will impose on each other to a whole list of things. There are only 2 extremes here on how to govern their relationships and everything falls either at or between these 2 extremes. Brute force or consensus. The EU is the one that offers states equal representation not only in its decision making but throughout every single one of its bodies, that aims to achieve equitability and justice among its members when managing their relationships.

All of this completely misses the point. The author is responding to a piece which calls the EU a liberal empire. He just summarises the arguments for using the term and adds some caveats. I don't much care for the word "empire" but this is written by a lefty, and they just love to call the stronger side imperialist wherever a power differential exists.

The author then observes, among other things, that the EU is the mechanism by which former empires hope to fulfill their imperial ambitions, or a bit less hyperbolic, maintain their historically disproportionate power and influence. I'm not going to repeat all of his points, as the article is quite short anyway. I suggest to re-read it if the above is what you took away from it.

noemon wrote:Both yourself and Kaiser accuse the EU for things you agree with her, which is more than hilarious, it is actually ridiculous because under these terms there is absolutely nothing that it can do right as even the things that you agree with, you will use them against her.

The word "liberal" is not used in a pejorative way.
#14994449
Kaiserschmarrn wrote:All of this completely misses the point. The author is responding to a piece which calls the EU a liberal empire. He just summarises the arguments for using the term and adds some caveats. I don't much care for the word "empire" but this is written by a lefty, and they just love to call the stronger side imperialist wherever a power differential exists.


It doesn't miss the point at all and in fact directly addresses "the point" which is to basically call the EU a "liberal empire" just because those 2 words have become pejorative and trigger a wide variety of people. The entire piece is a propaganda exercise as very clearly and aptly demonstrated since indeed the way liberal is being used in the article itself(committed to constitutionalism, private property and competition) is not pejorative at all, but in a social media environment of skimming through hardly anyone notices the nuance and all that one is left with are the trigger words. "Liberal = bad" and "Empire = even more bad". The identity or presumed identity of the authors is hardly my interest or even relevant to the fallacy of the arguments as presented, I had not heard of either people until you posted this article.

The author then observes, among other things, that the EU is the mechanism by which former empires hope to fulfill their imperial ambitions, or a bit less hyperbolic, maintain their historically disproportionate power and influence. I'm not going to repeat all of his points, as the article is quite short anyway. I suggest to re-read it if the above is what you took away from it.


If you* reduce the meaning of empire down to something absurd, then you can spin anything to abide by your accusation, you can make the same argument for the UN, for the World Bank, for the WTO, for the UK, for Mercosur and for the absence of any international organisation as such an absence would give advantage to the nation with the greatest military strength. Among all these organisations or lack of organisations, the EU is evidently the only one that provides equitability among its members and as such it is precisely what disadvantages former Empires from maintaining their historically disproportionate power by giving member nations an equal voice and representation as the bigger boys, of course it cannot claim to destroy that disproportionate power and influence altogether as such a thing is evidently impossible but that is hardly something that you can actually argue for with a straight face.



*By "you" I do not mean you personally but any one person, in this case the author of the article you quoted.
#14994508
Also 'liberal' doesn't mean left-wing' outside North America. It's more American supremacist and scaremongering garbage from a nobody blogger.
#14994534
noemon wrote:
It doesn't miss the point at all and in fact directly addresses "the point" which is to basically call the EU a "liberal empire" just because those 2 words have become pejorative and trigger a wide variety of people. The entire piece is a propaganda exercise as very clearly and aptly demonstrated since indeed the way liberal is being used in the article itself(committed to constitutionalism, private property and competition) is not pejorative at all, but in a social media environment of skimming through hardly anyone notices the nuance and all that one is left with are the trigger words. "Liberal = bad" and "Empire = even more bad". The identity or presumed identity of the authors is hardly my interest or even relevant to the fallacy of the arguments as presented, I had not heard of either people until you posted this article.

If you* reduce the meaning of empire down to something absurd, then you can spin anything to abide by your accusation, you can make the same argument for the UN, for the World Bank, for the WTO, for the UK, for Mercosur and for the absence of any international organisation as such an absence would give advantage to the nation with the greatest military strength. Among all these organisations or lack of organisations, the EU is evidently the only one that provides equitability among its members and as such it is precisely what disadvantages former Empires from maintaining their historically disproportionate power by giving member nations an equal voice and representation as the bigger boys, of course it cannot claim to destroy that disproportionate power and influence altogether as such a thing is evidently impossible but that is hardly something that you can actually argue for with a straight face.

The author's points don't depend on the use of the term empire, but he is talking about two power structures, one internally within the EU and one between EU-members and the rest of the world. The second paragraph you quoted refers to the latter: if anybody is nostalgic about and wants to preserve their past power and influence in the world, then its the EU-philes.

As for the internal power imbalance and German dominance, the more integrated the organisation, the more dependency exists, but the author points out that most elites - and certainly those in the UK - have few problems with this.

While, as Streeck argues, the German hegemon and its ally France have an interest in making the British people pay a high price for daring to defy the EU, their most effective ally in that endeavour has been the British elite itself.

The British ruling class finds in the EU an effective and attractive way of asserting its interests. And this is so even if Germany is the major gainer from the arrangement. The British elite’s repulsion from the claims of the nation is much stronger than any downsides it may experience from playing economic second fiddle to Germany. The EU is a voluntary empire made up of states that are in denial of their national character: in denial of the fact that the state’s authority derives from the political nation.


redcarpet wrote:Also 'liberal' doesn't mean left-wing' outside North America. It's more American supremacist and scaremongering garbage from a nobody blogger.

The blog is hosted by the London School of Economics and the author is Peter Ramsay, Professor of Law at the LSE. I'm pretty sure he's British.

There's no confusion about liberal meaning left-wing in the article or my use of it.
#14994541
Kaiserschmarrn wrote: The second paragraph you quoted refers to the latter: if anybody is nostalgic about and wants to preserve their past power and influence in the world, then its the EU-philes.


This is the most ridiculous thing a British person can say as the entire Brexit anti-EU hysteria is based on British Imperial nostalgia that is expressed openly and explicitly.


As for the internal power imbalance and German dominance, the more integrated the organisation, the more dependency exists, but the author points out that most elites - and certainly those in the UK - have few problems with this.


Are you seriously going to stick by this ridiculous absurdism? :roll: That the EU is the "Third Reich"? Economic dependency and integration currently exists in a global scale with or without the EU, Lehman happens, the entire world suffers, if you are supposedly "anti-Imperialist" your energy is certainly directed in the wrong direction and the wrong organisation. See Nato, WTO, World Bank, IMF, US interventionism, US dominance in global finance, the Rating Agencies and so on and forth. The EU is quite unique in the sense that among all the international inter-governmental organisations it the only one whose members are equal, regardless of size, military power and/or GDP.
#14994549
noemon wrote:This is the most ridiculous thing a British person can say as the entire Brexit anti-EU hysteria is based on British Imperial nostalgia that is expressed openly and explicitly.

Yeah, that's the usual narrative - and it's mostly wrong - together with the usual prescription of some collective therapy. Off you go, Brits, on the psych couch to do some "memory work". :lol: :roll:

noemon wrote:Are you seriously going to stick by this ridiculous absurdism? :roll: That the EU is the "Third Reich"? Economic dependency and integration currently exists in a global scale with or without the EU, Lehman happens, the entire world suffers, if you are supposedly "anti-Imperialist" your energy is certainly directed in the wrong direction and the wrong organisation. See Nato, WTO, World Bank, IMF, US interventionism, US dominance in global finance, the Rating Agencies and so on and forth. The EU is quite unique in the sense that among all the international inter-governmental organisations it the only one whose members are equal, regardless of size, military power and/or GDP.

Do you ever argue based on what the person you are debating is actually saying rather than what you imagine the person thinks? Where does "Third Reich" come from?

You've got to be supremely naive if you believe that EU members are equal in terms of power and influence within the EU.
#14994555
Kaiserschmarrn wrote:Yeah, that's the usual narrative - and it's mostly wrong - together with the usual prescription of some collective therapy. Off you go, Brits, on the psych couch to do some "memory work". :lol: :roll:


Brexiteer's Imperial Nostalgia is a matter of fact and not just that, but Brexiteers are proud and explicit on this point.

Snippet:

LSE Blogs wrote:Britain’s impending departure from the EU now sees it turning once again to the Commonwealth. It is no coincidence that Nigel Farage expressed a preference for migrants from India and Australia as compared with East Europeans, and has advocated stronger ties with the Commonwealth. Theresa May, in her speech on the government’s plans for Brexit, referred to the Commonwealth as being indicative of Britain’s ‘unique and proud global relationships’, and declared it was ‘time for Britain to get out into the world and rediscover its role as a great, global, trading nation.’ It is telling that the Old Dominions [Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and Canada] ‘were Britain abroad, what was called – in the jingoistic heyday of imperialism – “greater Britain”’. Economic policy is being oriented towards a revival of Commonwealth ties, in a manner that patently ignores the brutal reality of the British Empire. This ignorance was aptly captured in MP and Secretary of State for International Trade Liam Fox’s statement last year in the run-up to the referendum that ‘The United Kingdom is one of the few countries in the European Union that does not need to bury its 20th century history’. Paul Gilroy has observed that the tendency to romanticise colonial times – ‘this embarrassing sentiment’ – manifests itself today in ‘an unhealthy and destructive post-imperial hungering for renewed greatness’. The hankering after the halcyon days of empire was expressed in a tabloid headline following the referendum: ‘Now Let’s Make Britain Great Again’. This slogan, taken from Trump’s presidential election campaign, has since become popular among those who backed Brexit.


Your attempt to switch the Brexiteer Imperial Nostalgia and accuse the British Remainers of being German Imperial quislings is quite cute but it is basically very ridiculous too.

Do you ever argue based on what the person you are debating is actually saying rather than what you imagine the person thinks?


You are the one that ignored and bypassed this entire paragraph:

noemon wrote:Economic dependency and integration currently exists in a global scale with or without the EU, Lehman happens, the entire world suffers, if you are supposedly "anti-Imperialist" your energy is certainly directed in the wrong direction and the wrong organisation. See Nato, WTO, World Bank, IMF, US interventionism, US dominance in global finance, the Rating Agencies and so on and forth. The EU is quite unique in the sense that among all the international inter-governmental organisations it the only one whose members are equal, regardless of size, military power and/or GDP.


Kaiser wrote:Where does "Third Reich" come from?


You are the one defending the argument that the EU is merely a mechanism for German Imperial power(aka "Third Reich") and that British EU-philes are literally German quislings.

You've got to be supremely naive if you believe that EU members are equal in terms of power and influence within the EU.


Are you suggesting the EU should impose policies that result to equitability of outcome? The EU is already equitable in opportunity and political representation among all its members. For a professed pro-capitalist, anti-communist you must be supremely weird to be sitting here making this argument with a straight-face or to pretend that the EU's absence would supposedly make former EU members equal in terms of power and influence. :knife: That is how absurd your nonsense actually is and the entire argument hinges on this nonsense.

As I told you previously:

noemon wrote:If you* reduce the meaning of empire down to something absurd, then you can spin anything to abide by your accusation, you can make the same argument for the UN, for the World Bank, for the WTO, for the UK, for Mercosur and for the absence of any international organisation as such an absence would give advantage to the nation with the greatest military strength. Among all these organisations or lack of organisations, the EU is evidently the only one that provides equitability among its members and as such it is precisely what disadvantages former Empires from maintaining their historically disproportionate power by giving member nations an equal voice and representation as the bigger boys, of course it cannot claim to destroy that disproportionate power and influence altogether as such a thing is evidently impossible but that is hardly something that you can actually argue for with a straight face.
#14994557
noemon wrote:Brexiteers Imperial Nostalgia is a matter of fact and not just that but Brexiteers are proud and explicit on this point.

Most of the quotes in your article are just statements of fact - no nostalgia or "longing for past greatness" required.

noemon wrote:You are the one defending the argument that the EU is merely a mechanism for German Imperial power(aka Third Reich) and that British EU-philes are literally German quislings.

:lol: No, I'm not.

noemon wrote:Are you suggesting the EU should impose policies that result to equitability of outcome? The EU is already equitable in opportunity and political representation among all its members. For a professed pro-capitalist, anti-communist you must be supremely weird to be sitting here making this argument with a straight-face or to pretend that the EU's absence would make EU members equal in terms of power and influence.

One can acknowledge reality without putting it in moral terms (which you have a tendency to do).
#14994559
Kaiserschmarrn wrote:Most of the quotes in your article are just statements of fact - no nostalgia or "longing for past greatness" required.


You claimed:

Kaiserschmarrn wrote:if anybody is nostalgic about and wants to preserve their past power and influence in the world, then its the EU-philes.


As the factual quotes in the article clearly show that is something particularly specific to the Brexiteers not the EU-philes.

Kaiserschmarrn wrote:One can acknowledge reality without putting it in moral terms (which you have a tendency to do).


Kaiser, I'm not moralising anything just stating the obvious, you are the one trying to blame the EU because its members are not absolutely equal in terms of power and influence. As if they would be if the EU did not exist and as if there is any organisation out there that gives them more political power and access than the EU does. :roll:
#14994566
noemon wrote:You claimed:

As the factual quotes in the article clearly show that is something particularly specific to the Brexiteers not the EU-philes.

But it isn't, far from it. As mentioned, the EU is in large part a vehicle for its member states to preserve past power and influence.

noemon wrote:Kaiser, I'm not moralising anything just stating the obvious, you are the one trying to blame the EU because its members are not absolutely equal in terms of power and influence. As if they would be if the EU did not exist and as if there is any organisation out there that gives them more political power and access than the EU does.

I'm not blaming the EU for this - it's inevitable - but it's a factually correct observation. As I said earlier, I don't care for the term "empire" in the article, but I can't change the tendency of left-wingers to use the word excessively. The term "liberal" is used because the EU's values are constitutionalism, private property, and competition. It's descriptive and as such I'm not sure why I'm supposed to object to it.

What's more, the article doesn't blame the EU (or Germany for that matter) either. Here's the relevant bit:
If Germany has acquired the position of an imperial hegemon, it has not been by conquest or through an overweening sense of national destiny or racial superiority but rather by default, a result of the weakening of national loyalties within all of the EU’s member states.

The EU’s liberal empire is a type of government improvised by national governing elites that are reluctant or no longer able to rely on the political authority provided by democratic politics. Instead of the nation within, those governing elites look outwards to supranational intergovernmental arrangements for their authority.
#14994570
Kaiserschmarrn wrote:But it isn't, far from it. As mentioned, the EU is in large part a vehicle for its member states to preserve past power and influence.

I'm not blaming the EU for this - it's inevitable - but it's a factually correct observation. As I said earlier, I don't care for the term "empire" in the article, but I can't change the tendency of left-wingers to use the word excessively. The term "liberal" is used because the EU's values are constitutionalism, private property, and competition. It's descriptive and as such I'm not sure why I'm supposed to object to it.

What's more, the article doesn't blame the EU (or Germany for that matter) either. Here's the relevant bit:


As I told you already if your reduce everything into such levels of absurdity you can make the exact same argument to spin anything to abide by your accusation, you can make the same argument for the UN, for the World Bank, for the WTO, for the UK, for Mercosur and for the absence of any international organisation as such an absence would give advantage to the nation with the greatest military strength. Among all these organisations or lack of organisations, the EU is evidently the only one that provides equitability among its members and as such it is precisely what disadvantages former Empires from maintaining their historically disproportionate power by giving member nations an equal voice and representation as the bigger boys, of course it cannot claim to destroy that disproportionate power and influence altogether as such a thing is evidently impossible but that is hardly something that you can actually argue for with a straight face.

Instead of the nation within, those governing elites look outwards to supranational intergovernmental arrangements for their authority.


They do not look outwards for authority but for abdication of responsibility -which is indeed a form of authority- and as a means to wash their hands of it. The author is correct about this as national politicians being weak and pathetic as a general rule do indeed blame the EU for whatever decision they make because they lack the guts to assume responsibility and we witness this abdication of political responsibility on a daily basis and even more especially in Brexit Britain.
#14994572
noemon wrote:As I told you already if your reduce everything into such levels of absurdity you can make the exact same argument to spin anything to abide by your accusation, you can make the same argument for the UN, for the World Bank, for the WTO, for the UK, for Mercosur and for the absence of any international organisation as such an absence would give advantage to the nation with the greatest military strength. Among all these organisations or lack of organisations, the EU is evidently the only one that provides equitability among its members and as such it is precisely what disadvantages former Empires from maintaining their historically disproportionate power by giving member nations an equal voice and representation as the bigger boys, of course it cannot claim to destroy that disproportionate power and influence altogether as such a thing is evidently impossible but that is hardly something that you can actually argue for with a straight face.

None of the organisations you mention, with the exception of the UK, is anywhere near the level of integration of the EU. It is precisely my (and I believe the author's) point that the EU has gone from an institution that facilitated cooperation between nation states, which is also true for the UN or WTO, to becoming a threat to their existence. Again, from the article:

So far, only the populist right has really understood the distinctive aspect of the EU’s liberal empire – the denial of the nation by the imperial ruling classes of Europe. Democrats and internationalists urgently need to catch up. Against the claims of imperial cosmopolitanism, we need to reinvigorate the idea of the nation as the site of the authority of the people and of solidarity with the nationhood of others. Against the identity politics of both the populist right and the woke left, we need to popularise the idea of the people as a citizenry of self-determining persons.

As I mentioned, this is a left-wing argument against the EU and hence directed at left-wingers. Corbyn almost certainly agrees to a large extent with this.
#14994576
Kaiserschmarrn wrote:None of the organisations you mention, with the exception of the UK, is anywhere near the level of integration of the EU. It is precisely my (and I believe the author's) point that the EU has gone from an institution that facilitated cooperation between nation states, which is also true for the UN or WTO, to becoming a threat to their existence.


The lack of political representation within these organisations I mentioned makes them far more dangerous than the EU as their decisions can influence your country without your country even having a say in them. The total absence and lack of such inter-governmental organisations makes it even worse for nation-states to exercise national sovereignty as there is neither a right nor a platform to accommodate their national concerns. The EU providing them with both a platform and a right to veto, amend, propose and legislate at an EU level is the only organisation that enhances their national body and collective will. For nation-states to achieve such levels of influence without the EU it would be impossible.

The global economy is so integrated that the collapse of Lehman in the US sends massive shockwaves across the entire globe. The author as well as yourself are merely using the words "integration", "liberal", "empire", "threat to your existence" as empty moral platitudes to legitimise the propaganda that the EU is the "Third Reich" and EU-philes merely "German quislings". Your arguments have already been shown to be extremely absurd that can indeed be used for anything and as such they are completely devoid of any actual meaning while totally ignoring the fact that membership in the EU empowers the nation-state as it gains a national right to participate and formulate European and global policy pro-actively instead of just being a passive bystander looking from the outside.
#14994585
noemon wrote:
The lack of political representation within these organisations I mentioned makes them far more dangerous than the EU as their decisions can influence your country without your country even having a say in them. The total absence and lack of such inter-governmental organisations makes it even worse for nation-states to exercise national sovereignty as there is neither a right nor a platform to accommodate their national concerns. The EU providing them with both a platform and a right to veto, amend, propose and legislate at an EU level is the only organisation that enhances their national body and collective will. For nation-states to achieve such levels of influence without the EU it would be impossible.

The global economy is so integrated that the collapse of Lehman in the US sends massive shockwaves across the entire globe. The author as well as yourself are merely using the words "integration", "liberal", "empire", "threat to your existence" as empty moral platitudes to legitimise the propaganda that the EU is the "Third Reich" and EU-philes merely "German quislings". Your arguments have already been shown to be extremely absurd that can indeed be used for anything and as such they are completely devoid of any actual meaning while totally ignoring the fact that membership in the EU empowers the nation-state as it gains a national right to participate and formulate European and global policy pro-actively instead of just being a passive bystander looking from the outside.

Who would voluntarily sign up to an organisation that becomes ever more intrusive with respect to domestic policies and sovereignty if there weren't mechanisms to influence it? What you propose to be a laudable characteristic is a necessity precisely because of the extent of integration. And of course, for the same reason the decision making process will have to be ever more streamlined which reduces the influence of individual member states. We are already seeing this with QMV increasingly replacing vetos. Again, that's precisely the point and there's no blaming involved - it's pretty much inevitable considering what the EU was always meant to become.

I'm not going to respond to your silly accusations, and they are not conducive to making me want to continue this discussion.
#14994590
Kaiserschmarrn wrote:Who would voluntarily sign up to an organisation that becomes ever more intrusive with respect to domestic policies and sovereignty if there weren't mechanisms to influence it? What you propose to be a laudable characteristic is a necessity precisely because of the extent of integration. And of course, for the same reason the decision making process will have to be ever more streamlined which reduces the influence of individual member states. We are already seeing this with QMV increasingly replacing vetos. Again, that's precisely the point and there's no blaming involved - it's pretty much inevitable considering what the EU was always meant to become.


Excuse me, what silly accusations are you referring to? especially when you use ominous, vague and unqualified statements such as "what the EU was meant to become" trying extremely hard to simply blame the EU for whatever you can put together. The EU is meant to protect the interests of its member states and that it what does and is committed to doing. Even in this post you use "integration" in a negative sense without qualifying it while ignoring that "integration" already exists without the EU with the US literally running the global economy, politics & pop culture directly threatening the economic, political, military and cultural integrity of nation-states at a far greater degree than the EU. As such you can hardly blame the EU for "integration". You claim that the EU's empowerment of nation-states to participate in the formulation of European and Global policy, a power reserved for EU nation-states is merely a carrot while totally ignoring that such an empowerment has never existed before institutionally and that it totally contradicts your argument that the EU threatens the existence of nation-states when in actual fact it literally empowers nation-states to levels that these nation-states had never exercised before. It is the lack of power and the lack of a platform to exercise that power that actually threatens the integrity of nation-states and that is why even nations such as Turkey beg to join the EU because they know that it is empowering and not reducing their power and influence as you and the author you quote erroneously claim.

Of course that is also the reason why European nationalists/patriots and advocates of national strength and sovereignty do not wish to see Turkey getting empowered by joining the EU which makes this whole blame-exercise totally hypocritical because once the matter of EU membership for Turkey is broached the very same right-wing people who argue that the EU allegedly damages national power flip their own switch and argue that the Turkish nation should not be empowered by joining. :knife:
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