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A Considered Opinion on the European Union

Benefits and problems from the EU membership.

A Considered Opinion on the European Union

Postby cyprusgrump » Wed Jan 09, 2013 12:55 pm

Roger Dewhurst wrote:Democracy can work only with small populations, a few millions or less. Only then can the electors know their elected representatives and their elected representatives be so few in number that they can have any influence on outcomes.

An elected representative is someone you can telephone, someone you can email, someone who has regular meetings with his electors, someone whose address is listed in the telephone directory, someone on whose door you can knock without being assaulted by the fucking gestapo. It more or less works in New Zealand with a population of four million. It worked a hell of a lot better when I first came here when the population was around two million. In those days I could knock on the door of the Prime Minister and he would open it himself. On one occasion he did just that, for me. There was no policeman standing outside.

If you think democracy can work in a federal Europe with many different languages, many cultures, armed gestapos, many traditional hatreds, several hundred million people, and next to no countries which have actually experienced ‘democracy’ for more than a generation, you have nothing but shit between your ears.


:lol:

Clicky...
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Re: A Considered Opinion on the European Union

Postby kurupetos » Wed Jan 09, 2013 4:37 pm

Roger Dewhurst wrote:If you think democracy can work in a federal Europe with many different languages, many cultures, armed gestapos, many traditional hatreds, several hundred million people, and next to no countries which have actually experienced ‘democracy’ for more than a generation, you have nothing but shit between your ears.


:wink:
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Re: A Considered Opinion on the European Union

Postby cyprusgrump » Thu Jan 24, 2013 9:55 am

European Values

A new EU proposal aims to regulate the press...

A European Union report has urged tight press regulation and demanded that Brussels officials are given control of national media supervisors with new powers to enforce fines or the sacking of journalists.

The “high level” recommendations that will be used to draft future EU legislation also attack David Cameron for failing to automatically implement proposals by the Lord Justice Leveson inquiry for a state regulation of British press.

A “high level” EU panel, that includes Latvia’s former president and a former German justice minister, was ordered by Neelie Kroes, European Commission vice-president, last year to report on “media freedom and pluralism”. It has concluded that it is time to introduce new rules to rein in the press.

“All EU countries should have independent media councils,” the report concluded.

“Media councils should have real enforcement powers, such as the imposition of fines, orders for printed or broadcast apologies, or removal of journalistic status.”

As well as setting up state regulators with draconian powers, the panel also recommended that the European Commission be placed in overall control in order to ensure that the new watchdogs do not breach EU laws.

“The national media councils should follow a set of European-wide standards and be monitored by the Commission to ensure that they comply with European values,” the report said.


So now they want to regulate the media, in order to ensure compliance with ‘European values’.

Douglas Carswell, the Conservative MP for Clacton, attacked the report for making an “extraordinary, and deeply disturbing proposal”.

“Having EU officials overseeing our free press – and monitoring newspapers to ensure they comply with “European values” – would be quite simply intolerable,” he said.

“This is the sort of mind-set that I would expect to find in Iran, not the West. This kooky idea tells us little about the future of press regulation. It does suggest that the European project is ultimately incompatible with the notion of a free society.”


What are “European values”? One may be fairly sure that “European values” will include a commitment to the EU and all its institutions. But “European values” might include any number of other elements. The EU Commission, for example, has proposed a Europe-wide smoking ban, and this has been ratified by the European Parliament, although it is not yet mandatory on member states. Are antismoking measures one of the elements of “European values”? Most likely they are. And who knows what other “European values” there might be?” These values might be anything at all. Nobody may have heard of any of them before.
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Re: A Considered Opinion on the European Union

Postby cyprusgrump » Fri Feb 15, 2013 5:34 pm

EU squanders £100m on train line in Turkey

The Express wrote:BRUSSELS bureaucrats have handed more than £100million to Turkey to build a high-speed rail link - in case the country joins the EU.

The staggering sum does not have to be paid back and there will be no return on the investment.

The cash is from a £12.1billion fund to support nations hoping to join the EU to which Britain contributes £120million a year.


How wonderful the EU is and how easily it squanders our money.... :evil:
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Re: A Considered Opinion on the European Union

Postby kurupetos » Sat Feb 16, 2013 3:03 am

cyprusgrump wrote:EU squanders £100m on train line in Turkey

The Express wrote:BRUSSELS bureaucrats have handed more than £100million to Turkey to build a high-speed rail link - in case the country joins the EU.

The staggering sum does not have to be paid back and there will be no return on the investment.

The cash is from a £12.1billion fund to support nations hoping to join the EU to which Britain contributes £120million a year.


How wonderful the EU is and how easily it squanders our money.... :evil:

IMO, we should be more careful when we choose our politicians. :wink:
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Re: A Considered Opinion on the European Union

Postby cyprusgrump » Sat Feb 16, 2013 9:27 am

kurupetos wrote:
cyprusgrump wrote:EU squanders £100m on train line in Turkey

The Express wrote:BRUSSELS bureaucrats have handed more than £100million to Turkey to build a high-speed rail link - in case the country joins the EU.

The staggering sum does not have to be paid back and there will be no return on the investment.

The cash is from a £12.1billion fund to support nations hoping to join the EU to which Britain contributes £120million a year.


How wonderful the EU is and how easily it squanders our money.... :evil:

IMO, we should be more careful when we choose our politicians. :wink:


Sadly, like so many others this was not a decision made by democratically elected politicians....
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Re: A Considered Opinion on the European Union

Postby Oceanside50 » Sat Feb 16, 2013 8:31 pm

I think you're missing some key points cyprusgrump and those are that the Eu isn't expecting a united Europe today where one area or one democratically elected body rules all of Europe, it's expected in a few generations from now. The groundwork is what we are seeing today. Wait a decade or so and with the new economic boom approaching attitudes will change and then more groundwork towards a unified Europe
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Re: A Considered Opinion on the European Union

Postby cyprusgrump » Sun Feb 17, 2013 8:18 am

Oceanside50 wrote:I think you're missing some key points cyprusgrump and those are that the Eu isn't expecting a united Europe today where one area or one democratically elected body rules all of Europe, it's expected in a few generations from now. The groundwork is what we are seeing today. Wait a decade or so and with the new economic boom approaching attitudes will change and then more groundwork towards a unified Europe


I can assure you I am not missing anything...The key point is that huge swathes of legislation and tax law are already decided by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels.
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Re: A Considered Opinion on the European Union

Postby Oceanside50 » Tue Feb 19, 2013 4:00 am

cyprusgrump wrote:
Oceanside50 wrote:I think you're missing some key points cyprusgrump and those are that the Eu isn't expecting a united Europe today where one area or one democratically elected body rules all of Europe, it's expected in a few generations from now. The groundwork is what we are seeing today. Wait a decade or so and with the new economic boom approaching attitudes will change and then more groundwork towards a unified Europe


I can assure you I am not missing anything...The key point is that huge swathes of legislation and tax law are already decided by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels.


of course they are, even though im not an expert of the Eu, i guarantee you these laws passed by unelected officials are going to have a huge impact on Eu citizens. I think they are debating tax for corportations or whether or not to lower the tax rates across the board. Even if you look at the recent election in Cyprus, what a huge impact the European Union had on the results. The Cypriot electorate is set to choose a new President that supports a plan that they rejected by 78 percent.(probably the first time since 74 that the Cyprus problem took a back seat to the economy in importance) why? They trust Anastasiades over all others because they see him as more experienced and has been more cordial with the European Union(Merkel)...the photoshoot with Merkel was a clincher. Why was there no photoshoot with Lillikas or Malas?
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Re: A Considered Opinion on the European Union

Postby cyprusgrump » Tue Feb 19, 2013 7:57 am

Oceanside50 wrote:im not an expert of the Eu, i guarantee you these laws passed by unelected officials are going to have a huge impact on Eu citizens.


Precisely!

That is why I hate and loathe it...

The unelected tell us what we can eat and drink, what we can smoke and thousands of other petty regulations on our lives while squandering our taxes on projects that nobody asked for, wanted or ever had a chance to vote on...

The unelected create laws which strive to control our media and restrict criticism of themselves...

The unelected have brought havoc to to the economies of just about every European country with their ridiculous €uro experiment...

And your new president...? How much power does he have now that most laws, taxes and many other regulations are imposed by the EU?
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