Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveinGermany
There are many blokes who can readily asses the facts, formulate an opinion & present a cognizant argument for or against dependent on their view point. Me, I am out & out "Out!" thank you very much, as previously mentioned I live in Germany & have done (from 1984 -93 with the Military & then officially as a legal civilian resident) since November 1993 up to the present time. As an "English European" I've happily wandered throughout northern Europe, seeing how others live, talking to various nationalities & garnering an insight into various mindsets of the differing nations. Some are rabid europhiles, others bemoan the loss of their previous way of life & all this due to the EU's one size fits all mentality. It doesn't work & can't work & will never work as long as there is such disparity between member states.
For the EU to work, all laws, taxes, language & standards need to be the same throughout the present disparate nation states, It's never going to happen. Wages in eastern europe aren't going to rise to the levels of the west & the west certainly won't accept wage cuts to the levels of the east & do you think the southern states will give up their lackadaisical work attitude for the Nordic/Scandic model of long hours & high taxes? No, the dream of an all encompassing socialist europe, governed by the benign leftist socialist marxists ain't going to happen, but the useful idiots will insist on persevering with their failed experiment, well why not, it isn't costing them anything & they'll be just fine & dandy regardless how much degradation the rest of us have to suffer in the massaging of their egos.
Just give me out any day of the week! It maysn't be the best option, but it'd be our choice, the choice to place an elected member & his/her party, that we choose to represent us, the best of a bad bunch most likely , but at least we can kick the muppets out if they don't buck up & work for us, something we'd not be able to do when being governed from a non-elected EU mandarin select allocated via cronyism.
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Now all this got me a'thinkin'. The EU ain't all that massive by Canadian standards; but there's a shiite load of folks living there. There are lots of ethnic groups, cultures, languages, beliefs, and histories. Come to think of it there's only one history; but each country and region had different experiences of it. Over here we have a big country. We have National Parks bigger than countries. The Federal constituency of Nunuvut is about five times bigger than the UK. And "no" this is not a "mine is bigger than yours" thing. Bottom line is, there are only about 35 million of us here. Sure we have a bunch of different cultures hanging around; but nowhere near as many as you find in Europe. And we have only a couple of languages to deal with, plus a few First Nations languages. Lots of things unite us: hockey and a hate of Toronto come to mind. And you would think that with so few of us, we could all get along. Not so. Regional differences are obvious to anyone who cares to look. In the last Quebec Referendum ... call it Quebexit
... 49.42% voted to leave Canada, and 50.59% to stay. Now that was a close run thing. If 35 million of us have difficulty getting along, what chance does a EU have? ... about as much chance as a snowball in hell.