> I doubt the EU will survive in its current state.
A lot of people desire this to be true, but that does not mean that it is. It is a particularly weird opinion to hold in the wake of the most recent challenge to its continuity -- the Brexit fiasco, with the EU having maintained a united front for more than 4 years, while the UK emerges out of it in a terrible state -- and the worst is yet to come.
The EU is not perfect by any means (what is?), but it is a terribly ambitious project that has been painstakingly built over decades. Every step of the way, someone like you was claiming that it was impossible, that it was surely about to collapse. Well, we are 27 member states strong and we are dealing with the economic challenged posed by COVID better than most of the rest of the world.
If we look at objective measures, such as economic inequality, political polarization or civil unrest, we are perhaps forced to conclude that the US are closer to collapse than the EU. To be clear, I do not desire the collapse of the US. I think that that US and the EU are natural friends, in a world where they have much more in common than what separates them.
You are looking for meaning. That is a normal human instinct.
I am talking about power structures. They should be examined. Most people here are not willing to do that, because they figure they will soon be the top dogs. They are wrong, and this expectation is being exploiting by less naive actors.
Big corporations like Amazon are part of the dominating class. Me (and probably you, since you need to ask the question -- no offense intended) are part of the dominated class. Two different sets of rules apply here, it's not a matter of the products themselves being different.
Pointing out that it is becoming a common mistake to confuse the verb "to have" with the preposition "of" -> pedantic!
Failing to capitalize "Nazi" according to what the Oxford dictionary thinks is best for a contraction of two German words -> HAHAHAH! You were being a grammar nazi, but ironically you failed to capitalize Nazi correctly.
Regarding being pedantic: well, I'm not sure what to say. I think confusing "could of" with "could have" is a fundamental, terrible mistake. I guess one person's permissiveness is another's idiocracy?
I've been noticing this "meme" recently on HN: that since company X (any one of the FAANGs) is American, it is not subject to European law. If it operated in Europe, it absolutely is. Believe it or not, the EU is also a sovereign territory with its own laws.
Can you imagine arguing that American law does not apply to some company operating in the US, because said company was founded in some other country?
What? How on earth would you conclude this from that I wrote?
I was replying to the idea that it is the "naturalist fallacy" to say that it is better to be develop good habits (in this case, eat better), than to just take some drugs and maintain the bad habits. Obese people should take the drugs, I don't wish for anyone to die. Even better for them would be to lose the weight.
The US has a huge (pun intended) obesity problem, and it seems related to worse health outcomes across several dimensions. This is just a fact.
Normalizing obesity because you can take some drugs to stay alive (artificially lowering your cholesterol, blood pressure, etc) might not be the smartest idea ever. But yeah, maybe it's the naturalist fallacy. To each their own.
The European Council is made of the democratically elected Heads of State of each Member State. The European Council nominates the president of the European Comission, which again has one member per Member State. The European Parliament, which is composed of MEPs directly elected by the citizens of each member state, must ratify all nominations. The directly elected European Parliament has veto power on European Comission decisions, and so has every Member State.
A state can only join the EU by virtue of a democratic decision according to the constitution of the Member State itself, and there are strong requirements on prospective Member States to be themselves proper democracies with separation of powers in order to be allowed to join.
Granted, these requirements have been slightly overlooked when it came to the UK: the House of Lords is undemocratic, one could say outdated, and would almost certainly not be tolerated in any other candidate state.
So, the EU might be complex, but in what sense exactly is it undemocratic?
Sorry, I didn't mean to sound aggressive against you, even if you were of a different opinion. I am a bit tired of all the disinformation on this topic, I highly value the European project -- it is not perfect but my life would be so much poorer without it -- so I can get a bit emotional.
I have also been an anglophile since I can remember, so I am quite disappointed with the UK. I think I'm not alone in this.
Regarding the budget round: my impression is that the struggle comes from the situation caused by covid more than anything else. Brexit became a niche interest in the EU, most people are not paying attention or really care about it anymore.
Notice that the contribution of the UK after rebates amounted to 9 billion euros, in comparison to a yearly EU budget of about 165 billion euros, which is in itself 1% of the EU's GDP. While I am sure that the EU misses that contribution, I find it hard to believe that it is a huge problem.
> the UK government has never had any interest in remaining in the EEA, which the EFTA requires
Perhaps, but nevertheless they were preemptively rejected, as you can read in the above article.
> when future treaty modifications occurred the UK did not veto the changes (its right), and permitted the changes, remaining under the rules the members had previously agreed
They did not only "permit the changes", they signed the treaties. Including the obligation to join the Euro, something that the UK never intended to do and everyone overlooked because they were the UK. That kind of special privilege is gone. By the way, the initial treaty that the UK signed already spelled out the goal of an "ever closer union", but then the UK politicians and media make Pikachu face when they rediscover this goal, and claim that they were deceived and that "it was just a trade agreement, never a political project".
And the rebates also existed, and had nothing to do with vetoes or treaties. It was outright special treatment. And still the UK kept complaining about its "contributions".
> Nah, they'll want the budget contributions back.
Also: "The German car industry will demand it", "The EU needs the UK more than the UK needs the EU", etc. All of this has been falsified in the last four years. The integrity of the single market and of the European project is turning out to be much more valuable to EU member states than the highly rebated UK contributions.
> The baggage caused by the UK will dissipate in 5-10 years or so
This is quite optimistic. I'm not sure if you live in the EU, but the UK severely tainted its image and destroyed all good-will with most powerful EU member states. In less than 5 years, it went from being a highly respected member and culture, with a reputation for pragmatism and seriousness, to a sad joke and an object of scorn with a bad after-taste of good old-fashioned xenophobia.
More objectively: if you study the history of the EU, you will see that this "baggage" is quite old. For quite some time in the 70s vetoed UK's accession (to the then EEC), precisely because it feared that the UK was only interested in economic benefits and would sabotage any other aspect of the European project. That is more or less what happened when the UK eventually joined, and the EU had to build around the UK (Schengen, Euro, etc.). It is true that the EU likes rich countries, but it is also true that things are far from being as simple as you describe.
Interesting detail: you mention Switzerland, Norway and Iceland. They are members of EFTA. EFTA was created by the UK during the time that they were not able to join the EEC. After Brexit was decided, the UK tried to rejoin EFTA, and they were refused. So being rich is not enough once you become sufficiently toxic.
Due to the situation after WWII, the UK was given special treatment. It was allowed to opt-out of most things, and it was given extraordinary rebates for its contributions to the EU budget. Should the UK wish to rejoin, it would have to accept Schengen, the Euro, no more rebates and the "ever closer union" political commitment spelled out in the treaties. I find it very hard to believe that the UK would accept such things in our lifetimes, and I find it very hard to believe that the EU would be willing to put up with the current circus that is UK politics and media in the forseable future.
The UK government is now talking about not honoring the Withdrawal Agreement if there is no Free Trade Deal. Well, this means a border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. This means the return of violence to that region. Even if the UK honors the WA, it is quite likely that the situation will degrade to a point that this border comes back. That was the crux of the negotiations for the last 4 years between the EU and the UK, that everyone is now forgetting about. There are also other issues, like Gibraltar. I am afraid that heavier baggage will necessarily accumulate before it can even start to dissipate.
> As it is right now it's dead in the water for any commercial usage
So what? If companies need a certain software, they can pay for it. I remember a time when FOSS was not about providing companies with free work, quite the opposite indeed.
Can you? There are a few problems: firstly, the primaries are controlled by the parties, so you have a very limited menu to choose from when it comes to the actual elections. Secondly, the media is no longer independent. If you are not aligned with the status quo, you will get no exposure, or only very negative exposure. Finally, politicians consistently do the opposite of what they promise on such matters. Take Obama: a lot of people believed that he was the way to fight, that he was the "correct person". He promised to encourage whistle-blowing, and then he did the opposite. This is not a partisan observation, I pick this example because it is the most recent disappointment on such matters.
> But more importantly, I won't be spirited away to a black site by speaking ill about the president.
It is happening right now in Oregon.
> Nor can the government decide it doesn't want me as CEO of my company anymore.
Are you sure?
> Or prevent me from funding the opposition party.
Try funding a radical party and see what happens.
> There's an enormous difference between the West and totalitarian dystopia China.
I agree that there is, but it is scary to see that the difference is becoming smaller and most people seem ok with that. I worry that the future will not be a place worth living in.
A lot of people desire this to be true, but that does not mean that it is. It is a particularly weird opinion to hold in the wake of the most recent challenge to its continuity -- the Brexit fiasco, with the EU having maintained a united front for more than 4 years, while the UK emerges out of it in a terrible state -- and the worst is yet to come.
The EU is not perfect by any means (what is?), but it is a terribly ambitious project that has been painstakingly built over decades. Every step of the way, someone like you was claiming that it was impossible, that it was surely about to collapse. Well, we are 27 member states strong and we are dealing with the economic challenged posed by COVID better than most of the rest of the world.
If we look at objective measures, such as economic inequality, political polarization or civil unrest, we are perhaps forced to conclude that the US are closer to collapse than the EU. To be clear, I do not desire the collapse of the US. I think that that US and the EU are natural friends, in a world where they have much more in common than what separates them.