First test for the EU against challenge of far right populism

[K. A. Pital]

Why do you think European states would go to war with each other if there is no EU, though? It is not the early XX century, and most nations in the EU are no longer aggressive colonial empires. I mean, this is the exact type of stupid exaggeration which causes people to stop taking you seriously.

[His Divine Shadow]

The EU is centralization, this in an age when I think decentralization is all the more important for a decent, humane society. I have no affinity for the people down in the continent, they live vastly different lives in crowded cities, they can have their laws for themselves. Here in the north we need different laws. I'm tired of everyone being forced into the same mold.

[Crazedwraith]

The EU is centralization, this in an age when I think decentralization is all the more important for a decent, humane society. I have no affinity for the people down in the continent, they live vastly different lives in crowded cities, they can have their laws for themselves. Here in the north we need different laws. I'm tired of everyone being forced into the same mold.

What? Because people in other countries all live in Cities with no rural areas at all?

There's no reason the laws the EU writes can't take different situations into account nor they need to force everyone into the same mould.

I'm struggling to think of the law that could do that.

[His Divine Shadow]

But they don't, they keep pushing for more control, for more "integration" that people don't want. CETA was a dumb agreement that negatively affects northern producers but hey city people get marginally cheaper canadian produce. The EU gun laws are just stupid shit from A-Z that can fuck off. A local EU representative described 90% of the stuff he voted on as insipid stuff that the EU had no business regulating in the first place. There's a local place that smokes hams that hopes the finnish exception to some EU law on smoked products gets renewed or they might have to pull their products, this would affect a lot of local business.
http://online.vasabladet.fi/Artikel/Visa/133315 (in swedish)
Fuck the exception, fuck the extension, fuck the EU for thinking we need their approval and that they have anything to say here, the gall... All of these things in of themselves seem small, and by large pro EU types just mock people for it, which in turn just leads more people to hate the EU. So thanks for that. I mean 15 years ago I thought it was mostly a good thing, but it just keeps on coming up with new stupid shit.

I remember they told us this was merely a financial trading thing back in the 90s, when my parents sensibly voted against joining btw. Well so much for that, now we're also bogged down with this euro shit, and what about all the neoliberal claptrap the EU enforced on the nordic countries like postal privatization.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/deregulati ... pe/5363277

[The Romulan Republic]

Why do you think European states would go to war with each other if there is no EU, though? It is not the early XX century, and most nations in the EU are no longer aggressive colonial empires. I mean, this is the exact type of stupid exaggeration which causes people to stop taking you seriously.

As I said before, I think that the rise of xenophobic Right wing demagoguery in Europe shows that we are not as far removed from those days as the complacent among us would like to believe. Likewise the war in the Ukraine, and the fact that it has only been, what, a couple decades since Irish terrorism was a major problem (and as discussed in the current Scottish independence thread, its not inconceivable that it could be again, as England keeps resolutely pissing on the other members of the UK).

Europe has a history of millennia of vicious warfare between European states, including two World Wars and a Cold War that nearly lead to nuclear conflict in just the last century.

Do you truly believe, then, that in just a few decades, Europe has collectively moved so far beyond such things that it could never slide back under any circumstances, even as the EU seems to be gradually falling apart under the pressures of economic difficulties, a refugee crisis, and Right wing xenophobic nationalism?

I don't consider that exaggeration, but a carefully considered conclusion about a very real danger based on historical evidence and contemporary events.

But I'm sure taking shots at me and my reputation will score you points faster than refuting the argument.