Re^9: Patience is a Monk Virtue

[Your Mother]

I will take your critique will all the tremendous value and historical backing it contains.

If the US were divided by even 2 major states like New York or California seceding, there would not be military bases littering the world like cigarette butts, 1 million dead Iraqis, 10 million refugees in the mid-East, a seven-fold worldwide increase in terrorism in just 15 years, and the chance that any given moment in any given day the world will be plunged into nuclear war. China and Russia long tried to conform to your view. They killed 100 million of their own citizens in the last century without needing a single war to do it.

[LanX]

The flaw in your reasoning is that the EU is not a super state.

It's an economic block of independent members who can veto decisions, guaranteeing citizens equal rights and freedoms.

Not least minority rights ensuring peace in complex ethnic settings.

It's not engaged in military operations. For instance the stupid operation in Libya was orchestrated by France and the UK ( plus a bunch of borrowed US missiles), not the EU.

[Your Mother]

My reasoning is chiefly freedom based. Economics is a defining factor in freedom so I see no flaw. Without total freedom of money, there is no individual freedom. Economics was the copilot in all the death described in this thread.

[LanX]

Still, while the EU is also an attempt to play in the same heavy weight league like the US or China, it is not a unit where you need force for secession.

As demonstrated, EU member states are free to leave and all regional independence movements I've seen so far (Scotland, Catalonia, Lega Nort,...) expressively want to stay inside the EU.

Finally I'm not aware of any EU atrocities.

There is a tendency in the British press to compare the EU with the 3rd Reich or the USSR, and so I can't leave this uncommented.

[hippo]

The flaw in your reasoning is that the EU is not a super state.

It very much is. The EU creates laws which its member states must enshrine into their own legislation. That's pretty much the definition of a superstate. It also has its own bank, currency, court, police force, etc.

It's an economic block of independent members who can veto decisions

Only a small subset of the decisions can be vetoed. The rest are binding.

It's not engaged in military operations.

... but the Commission president has other ideas. (Update 18th Dec: he has got his way)

You may argue the pros and cons of the EU as an institution (and there are both) but its status as a superstate is incontrovertable.

[LanX]

I couldn't find a clear definition for superstate, so I retract.

My point is most institutions are bottom up not top down.

• the EU can't start a war or stop a member starting one ( like UK vs Iraq)
• the EU can't stop windy city boys causing a global financial crisis
• Europol can't arrest a London lawyer engaged in tax evasion schemes on British territory like Guernsey
• the ECB is controlled by a council of representative of national central banks.

Contrary to this

• Washington is able to stop Texas invading Mexico,
• the FBI can arrest criminal bankers at Wallstreet
• Dollar is not controlled by a council with representatives of a hypothetical California or Missouri central bank.

Finally the number of civil servants working for the EU is comparable to the one of the Birmingham City Council, not more.

[erix]

its status as a superstate is incontrovertable

As long as there is no "european" army it seems nonsensical to talk of a superstate. And I don't think such a European army (that is, an army commanded by the hugely unpopular civil servants in Brussels) is a feasible proposition, at least in the foreseeable future.

But by all means, let's work together in Europe, in defense as elsewhere.

[holli]

Despite the impression one can get when watching the news, the world has become more and more peaceful, better if you will, ever since the middle ages. Look up talks by Hans Rosling if you don't believe that.
This development is in parts due to first the invention of the nation state and later supranational organisations like EU, ASEAN, the UN and the free trade they make possible. Hence the only logical forward is even greater unity, not more division.

You want to lead us into the past and I will speak out against that, no matter the number of negative votes.

[Your Mother]

Yes, the world has become more peaceful. It has nothing to do with centralized power. And giving it as a reason to justify or, better, we'll say, ameliorate, US foreign policy would require all ad hominems in the world to address adequately.

Collectivism, what you are preaching, is all the past is; from religion to every flavor of statism and tribalism. Everyone must live for something greater, something other than herself. The extent to which a political entity is successful is the extent to which it can escape that. Freedom and individual rights can only flourish in a decentralized world where everyone can have an efficacious voice and choose for herself. But I don't suppose an idiot such as myself can fairly form cogent opinions on any topic at all really so you just go ahead and take the last word–