Saturday, June 25, 2016

Brexit and the EU



I don't know if any of you are familiar at all with Sargon of Akkad.  He does gamer gate and social issue related video commentary, generally, and presents himself as an atheist valuing reason and facts over feelings and narratives. Here he talks about voting for Brexit.  Now I had never really paid much attention to how the EU is set up, how it's ruled.  Beyond mocking the thickness of its "constitution" it really isn't relevant to my life.  Sargon describes the functioning of the EU governing body.  I was pretty shocked, if he's even slightly accurate and no reason to think he's not, that anyone would let themselves be ruled with those parameters.

30 comments:

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

@4:50 "The EU has the façade of democracy"

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

@8:34 "Being in a declining financial position and being in control of the direction you then take to solve this problem is way better than being in a declining financial situation and not having any control over the people who are making the decisions. I can't believe I have to be saying this."

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

On predicting the future: @12:49 "We can predict a lack of tyranny in the future that we want, in leave. British countries, the English speaking nations don't produce tyrants, this is a matter of historical fact."

chickelit said...

What a lucid rant! Thanks for posting that, synova.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

This was an excellent video Synova.

This guy makes a lot of sense.

The fact that they, the EU, wants their own army.

For what?

Synova said...

If it's just supposed to be a trade-pact and uniform currency, they wouldn't need their own army.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Exactly.

They are predicting its going to go bust, but don't worry.... we have an army.

No wonder the grown ups are saying, get out now while we still can!

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

He didn't go into the refuges aspects of the decision to leave.

But I'm willing to bet it is the EU the primary engine forcing countries to take more and more.

This was not something like Hollande woke up one day and called his advisors to tell them about a vision he had the night before, a Bob Geldof moment, My God we got to take as many of these people as we can, get me Merkel on the phone.

More like a EU committee on population distribution and what not justifying it's existence.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Something out Rahm Emanuel's Leviticus...

"You never let a serious crisis (the war in Syria) go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."

I don't know. Lem's Hot Take.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I came across this tweet by Sally Kohn · Jun 24

Leave vs Remain is really about Has Been vs Become - those clinging to an exclusionary vision of the past railing against a pluralist future

Oh, how compassionate she believes she is... My response.... Link

.@sallykohn out of hundreds of periscopes from Saudi Arabia, one or two r half of a woman's face hidden afraid. That's no pluralist future.

Periscope is a free app which basically allows you to broadcast live using your phone camera to everyone who has also downloaded the app and may come across it. Like Twitter with video.

edutcher said...

Anyone familiar with Daniel Hannan knows why Brexit won.

It also explains why Angie Merkel thinks France, Austria, Finland, the Netherlands, and Hungary will follow suit.

Lem said...

The fact that they, the EU, wants their own army.

For what?


That's been another pipe dream for the "pluralists". I guess to knock the Brexits back into line.

Like Lincoln.

ndspinelli said...

Great post, Synova. The Brits are sensible people and the EU does not make sense.

ricpic said...

I read a comment on another site that Washington DC is our Brussels. Shocked by it but on further thought.....

Yes, we too submit to the rule of distant bureaucrats in the permanent government. Elections? I'm sure the inside the beltway crowd gets a good laugh out of such silliness.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I was pretty shocked, if he's even slightly accurate and no reason to think he's not, that anyone would let themselves be ruled with those parameters.

The whole point of those parameters was to keep them all from going to war against each other over and over again. So whatever they should keep changing, it's obviously been pretty damn successful from that standpoint.

I'm sympathetic to Brexit if only for the reason that global superstructures make more sense if they unite the Anglosphere/Commonwealth than separate it. The other organizations (UNASUR, ASEAN, EU, AU) can each separately go their own way, as well.

But the EU is and remains a needed project, as novel as it is. Uniting that many very different, sovereign states is not an easy thing to do. In the meantime, most of what he gloats about is taking a tumble.

ricpic said...

To Schmendrik the demos is just a bunch of hooligans that have to be policed by their betters in gubmint. That's a good communist, Schmendrik.

Synova said...

From what I've read elsewhere, Brussles is really not set up like DC or like the British system, it's set up after French traditions that really do not "click" on an instinctive level for Americans and our assumptions about our centralized government.

But I've certainly seen the argument that if someone *objects* to being ruled by unelected rulers who they cannot unseat, and yet they don't mind their own system that sort of looks like that but isn't quite but is still being ruled by unelected sorts who are at least their own countrymen, that their argument is invalid and that what they *really* are is racists who are making excuses.

The idea of having an EU has some good reasons for it.

But if we talk about good reasons and good ideas, certainly we understand that they can be poorly implemented. Unless we're the "do something!" alarmists who really don't care if the "something!" works or makes things worse so long as our particular trauma is addressed by subject.

Look at the Dem Congress sitting on the floor demanding a vote on gun control. Did even ONE news outlet that is FOR gun control bother for even a moment to address the substance and reality of the particular bill? No. Gun Control is a "good idea"... nothing more is important.

I have a few Brits on my Facebook and they're firmly and emotionally in the "remain" camp. I've kept my nose out but every single mention for months has been to make fun of the stupid racists and their excuses. They can't imagine a working class fellow being upset because their jobs are gone and their neighborhoods are transformed and the government doesn't seem to give a damn... except that they are racists.

I'm surprised that Brexit won, but the arguments against it were vapid, emotion based, name calling.

Trooper York said...

The elitists kept poking the slumbering British Bulldog and they found that it still had some teeth. There are other groups rising in Europe that are much less benign. We have seen this movie before. An exhausted corrupt elite ceding control to the libertine fringe. Economic dislocation where an honest working man could not get a job. How do they think this is going to end?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

To Schmendrik the demos is just a bunch of hooligans that have to be policed by their betters in gubmint. That's a good communist, Schmendrik.

ric - the good thing about your agitating for a tattered Europe more likely to go to war than before is that this time Trump can ship yekke yids like you over to your adopted continent of origin where, hopefully, another demagogue can continue the job that you so resented the last one not finishing.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I'm surprised that Brexit won, but the arguments against it were vapid, emotion based, name calling.

Nonsense. They were a currency that hasn't lost more of its value than it has in 30+ years, an economy that has boomed since joining and remaining influential in a project next-door that needs to succeed, no matter what demagogue mobsters like the self-hating camp-going buffoon at 11:40 thinks.

A friend of mine can't go through with a property purchase now as their entire housing market's on hold. Or crashing. Hard to tell which.

Maybe the left doesn't hate capitalism as much as you nationalists do.

Trooper York said...

The markets will stabilize quickly. The stock market goes up and down. The British public is not a bought and paid for lackey of the stock market and Wall Street. That is Hillary's job. Don't disturb her rice bowl if you please.

Trooper York said...

I think America's best bet is to pick and choose who we ally with. The old alliances should be thrown out the window if they are not in our best interests. We have no permanent alliances only permanent interests.

At one time NATO was necessary to check Russian communist expansionism. That is no longer an issue. Now we are dealing with Russian capitalist expansionism. Big whoops. They are just the Russian Mafia. We can cut a deal with them.

ndspinelli said...

I just finished watching the Sunday morning shows. I had chuckles to belly laughs. I mean the clueless, breathless, pompous, hypocritical shit spewed brings some here to the verge of a stroke. I find it funny. I was told if you voted for Brexit you were poorly educated, a racist, or both. If you voted for Remain you were well educated and enlightened racially. LOL! The establishments house is on fire and they have hoses trained on the fire, only there's gasoline, not water coming from the hose.

rcocean said...

Thanks - enjoyed it. I've never understood why people would give away political power to some distant unaccountable bureaucrat or elite unless they absolutely have to.

The EU should go back to being a free trade bloc.

Reading/talking to "Remain" voters they seem to split into 3 groups. (1) Don't rock the boat, status-quo types, (2)people who benefit personally from the EU or felt Brexit would result in them having to use passports or some minor fiancial loss (3) ideologues who favor globalization, open borders, and diversity.

None of them could ever advance a POSITIVE argument for staying. Nor could they ever state how staying would help the average Brit.

Synova said...

R&B, my argument was not that there is not arguments FOR remain, only that they were never MADE that I saw. "...but the arguments against it were vapid, emotion based, name calling."

Sargon says this in his rant, but it matches what I saw among my pro-remain British facebook contacts. And now they are howling, demanding that votes be redone until the correct result is obtained, crying that "fascism" has won. I can't decide if they're worried about the economic fallout or if they're embarrassed to be associated with the hoi polloi.

Maybe I'm just a weird person but I can *imagine* good reasons to have an EU. I can *imagine* good reasons to stay in the EU as it exists. I can *imagine* good reasons not to have an EU at all. I can *imagine* the reality of a working class life without denigrating laborers.

Whatever good reasons to be in the EU, the arguments made amounted to "you're a racist."

rcocean said...

The bankruptcy of the remain voters is show by their insanely stupid Brexit = Hitler statements.

Yeah, we don't want to Britain to leave the EU 'cause Hitler.

Its so stupid, its hard to even argue against. Its like someone calling Trump Hitler.

Synova said...

Also, nationalism.

There is no reason whatsoever to say "nationalism" and sneer. And it's funny, really and truely freaking *funny* in that it's NOT... that politically these days the sorts who want to divide us up into infinite groups of adjective combos so that our "diversity" is sorted to at least five decimal points sneer at nationalism or patriotism. The concept of citizenship might as well go with it. Who needs it? What does it matter which country is your own? And how dare you expect your own country to favor its own citizens!

One of my sci-fi internet friends just passed her US citizenship test. Is it worthless? One of my other sci-fi internet friends just passed his tests and obtained his Australian citizenship. Is it worthless?

There are as many "cosmopolitan" genocidal nutcases to match the "nationalistic" genocidal nutcases. Deciding that simple notions like "this is my country" give a person horrible nationalism cooties while the cosmopolitans get off scott free is unsupportable, and possibly self-serving.

William said...

I got about half way through it. He made some good points, but I'm not overly enthusiastic about being well informed on this topic......The unintended consequences of this action are sure to be more dramatic and lasting than the intended.......England has a history of living under better governments and just simply living better than their peers on the continent. If events revert to the mean, then maybe England will come out ahead. Or maybe not......This is a pretty drastic change. More than a 52% majority for such a radical departure would have been better.

ndspinelli said...

"Nationalism" is bullshit on its face. The UK may very well be diminished w/ the Scots and Irish possibly leaving. The upside is the NHS will have fewer liver transplant cases.

Maybe the best analogy to what happened w/ Brexit in the US is comparing and contrasting NYC, DC, Boston, SF, elitists voting record in elections and pompous err..enlightened attitude w/ us older, white, racists, in flyover country. The big city folks are gun hating, secular progressives, we are just "clinging to our guns and religion."

edutcher said...

ndspinelli said...

"Nationalism" is bullshit on its face. The UK may very well be diminished w/ the Scots and Irish possibly leaving

The Irish are already gone, a century ago.

If you mean the Ulster Scots, they can't go it along, and the Scots are the worst basket case in Europe.

Methadras said...

Rhythm and Balls said...

A friend of mine can't go through with a property purchase now as their entire housing market's on hold. Or crashing. Hard to tell which.

Maybe the left doesn't hate capitalism as much as you nationalists do.


Where? As of Friday a few of my REIT investment showed incredible gains. Also, interest rates on 15 and 30 year mortgages are going to drop if this goes through if they haven't already. I'm expecting a .25% rate drop come this week which in the long run is good for refi and home sales in general.