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| The Turbulence Underneath | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 11 2008, 10:02 PM (575 Views) | |
| ds9074 | Dec 13 2008, 11:40 AM Post #16 |
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Admiral
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^^^ Dwayne I am not saying that the colonies were not diverse in their ethnic make up, just that they had been unified under British America so had a common framework for the new state to work with. What I am opposed to is the idea of transfering power to a level of government, under whatever rule book, that is too large and remote to be properly accountable. I do not think it would be a good idea to create a United States of Europe at all. I am not sure from what you have said whether you are trying to put forward the idea that such a superstate would be a good idea provided it was formed under a US style constitution. |
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| Dwayne | Dec 13 2008, 11:51 AM Post #17 |
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Profanity deleted by Hoss
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^^^ You are assuming things DS... It's like you seem to think that the United States was formed with a huge federal government in mind, and wasn't the result of a Civil War, a Great Depression and a World War 2. All I am really saying, is that IF EUROPEAN NATIONS ARE GOING TO FORCE ANYTHING ON THEIR PEOPLES something modeled on the < 20 page US Constitution is far superior to the > 400 page EU Constitution. |
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| rowskid86 | Dec 13 2008, 11:58 AM Post #18 |
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Suck my Spock
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Why is it when you have protests that go against violence end up with the protesters becoming violent? |
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| ds9074 | Dec 13 2008, 12:08 PM Post #19 |
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Admiral
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^^^ The key point is that we should not be forcing anything on the people of Europe. If any change to a federal system was to occur it would have to be with consent or it would not have the ligitmacy to govern. We would also need to be mindful of any possible irreversable changes on future generations. I am not saying the US was formed with a huge federal government in mind, just that is what has resulted. The US constitution did not prevent that from happening. Since I would find a similar federal government very undesirable in Europe I would be concerned that the US constitutional model could allow, if unintended, such a scenario if adopted here. I would also say that while a US constitutional model would probably be a more efficient way to run a federal government than the proposed EU contitution thats kind of understandable as the EU constitution was not proposing a federal system. It was proposing an extension and reform of the existing hybrid supra-national system that is based on sovereign states agreeing to pool their sovereignty in certain agreed areas by treaty. Whether you think the US constitutional system would be superior comes down to whether you think a federal system would be a good idea. I do not think it would be as it would result in a much greater loss of independence and sovereignty from the nation states than exists at the moment. I would prefer to keep the EU than for the UK to become just a constitutent part of a federal Republic. |
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| rowskid86 | Dec 13 2008, 12:15 PM Post #20 |
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Suck my Spock
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DS how does that answer my post? |
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| ds9074 | Dec 13 2008, 12:56 PM Post #21 |
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Admiral
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It was a reply to Dwayne's post, I think you posted while I was writing. |
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| rowskid86 | Dec 13 2008, 01:35 PM Post #22 |
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Suck my Spock
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I posted about 10 minutes before |
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| Dwayne | Dec 13 2008, 07:01 PM Post #23 |
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Profanity deleted by Hoss
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Well, if your argument is just narrowly confined around the concept that no one should be forced to accept any EU Constitution, I'm all with you on that. I think ALL Europeans who will live under such a government should have the power to shape it's content. You also have no argument from me on the UK joining the EU. In fact I've argued that all of former British colonies and members of the Commonwealth ought to band together in a UN like arrangement that would serve as a counter weight to the UN. And yet still, you're just not getting my point... it doesn't matter if you change the system of governance from a republic to a democracy, monarchy or whatever-archy, a < 20 page constitution that concisely lays things out in general terms and leave wiggle room for a more flexible government is far superior to a > 400 page constitution that ridigedly tries to set everything down in writing and leave very little flexibility for changing circumstances. |
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| Franko | Dec 13 2008, 09:39 PM Post #24 |
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Shower Moderator
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Actually, the violent protests didn't really involve Great Britain, here Skid. Nor is DS9 defending any of that; in fact that is why we're discussing the problems with the political ideas concerning the EU, the US constitution, federalism, and all that jazz. Basically, it isn't so much the idea of Europe adopting a "US style constitution", but more the concepts and method of that. I would think that it would be more important to still have a lot of autonomy for member nations in a commonwealth/federation/union, because of language and historical/cultural background (and barriers) rather than integrating the territories sprung from what started out as a colonial project (America). I don't think that Dwayne was being jingoistic or nationalistic at all here; he was speaking in terms of emulating the conceptual approach of the US constitution as perhaps less "federalistic" or even to a degree as "authoritarian" as the structure and powers put forth in the massively detailed EU documents. A nation can be federalistic; although even in Canada I deplore the existence of a federal party that is in fact separatist and irrelevant to anything outside of Quebec (which is another reason I saw the proposed coalition as illegitamite) but a group of nations trying to subvert the autonomy of each right down to even their justice systems can only work in a geo-dictatorship, like the USSR. |
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| whitestar | Dec 14 2008, 03:08 AM Post #25 |
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Captain
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interesting concept, would you care to elaborate on why and how? Do you mean just the english speaking former colonies or all?, the list is extremely long and range from industrialized developed nations to failed 3rd world states such as Zimbabwe (formely known as Rhodesia) Edited by whitestar, Dec 14 2008, 03:10 AM.
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| whitestar | Dec 14 2008, 03:19 AM Post #26 |
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Captain
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touchy, touchy, touchy, is it that hard to accept that nations with a history measured in thousands of years would be reluctant to forgo sovereignty? |
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| Dwayne | Dec 14 2008, 09:56 AM Post #27 |
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Profanity deleted by Hoss
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^^^ Actually it's not hard to imagine... what's hard to imagine is that these same nations wish they and the US were willing to give up more sovereignty to the UN, which is even crazier than giving up sovereignty to a government of you and your neighbors. |
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| Dwayne | Dec 14 2008, 10:13 AM Post #28 |
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Profanity deleted by Hoss
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I think it ought to be conditions based, and the primary condition being that any member nation ought to be a constitutional democracy. Let the dictators and despots join the UN. I'd also make this organization a constitutional one too, with a executive, judiciary and a legislative body too. And while maintaining the peace, like the UN, would be a founding principle of this organization, peace for peaces sake would not. Peace through justice would be the main path to peace this organization would seek, because what would be sacrosanct is the rights of people irrespective of the nation they live, so where rights are believing violated, and this organization is in a position to act, it would. It would protect the peace in Darfur not with words, but with actions. It would not talk about peace in the Middle East, but would cast a bright light on those actually preventing the peace then put a stop to them. Russia and China would never again have the power to prevent action as they can currently do now. In a nutshell, the UN is a quasi-criminal organization in that many member nations are dictatorships or other authoritarian systems. In effect, the real power of the UN, the Security Council, are the same as a 5 person city council where 2 of the 5 members aren't just suspected criminals, but proven criminals, and they use the power of the council to keep the other 3 members from cleaning up the crime in the city. |
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| ds9074 | Dec 14 2008, 11:30 AM Post #29 |
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Admiral
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The EU is a set of bodies established by treaty that enable nation states to pool their resources and sovereignty. I would be afraid that if you made any constitutional document too flexible and too general then the EU authorities would use that to bring more power to themselves and diminish the role of the nation states. I would sooner have an EU where the power of the EU authorities is very clearly limited in the treaties, even if this makes them less responsive, than a more efficient union that fatally undermines national sovereignty. |
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| Dwayne | Dec 14 2008, 11:43 AM Post #30 |
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Profanity deleted by Hoss
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^^^ And you seriously think you can achieve that better with a 400+ page constitution that most Europeans haven't read or understand than a 20 page document that's quit easy to read even given the era in which it was written? Your argument seems fallacious to me, because there is no logical reason why a short and concise constitution cannot clearly delineate the size and scope of the super-national entity it seeks to create. How does adding more and more articles and amendments to protect this or that special interest actually serve to keep the size of this EU government from eventually overwhelming the governments of the member-states? It doesn't. In fact it insures the opposite. Edited by Dwayne, Dec 14 2008, 12:09 PM.
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