England maybe leave EU june 23.

[fightinfrenchman]

Unfortunately your left-wing party is super anti-Semitic which I imagine would go well with our Republicans

That doesn't seem right, U.S. Republicans are the biggest Israeli cheerleaders in the Western hemisphere.

It's complicated

[Horsemen]

Unfortunately your left-wing party is super anti-Semitic which I imagine would go well with our Republicans

That doesn't seem right, U.S. Republicans are the biggest Israeli cheerleaders in the Western hemisphere.

It's complicated

Yeah I can relate to that

[fightinfrenchman]

I can't wait until the US is in the same position as the UK, flailing as it tries to deal with the insecurity of no longer being the power it once was due to poor governance

[Dolan]

Gonna repost this:

[duckzilla]

Unfortunately your left-wing party is super anti-Semitic which I imagine would go well with our Republicans

That doesn't seem right, U.S. Republicans are the biggest Israeli cheerleaders in the Western hemisphere.

It's complicated

Also: Israel =/= Jews =/= Semites

Goldman Sachs currently estimates a 40% probability of Brexit not happening at all, 15% probablity for no-deal brexit and the missing 45% for any kind of deal.

The beautiful thing is that the country is doomed to get some nice national strife no matter what happens. If Brexit happens, the youth + big city dwellers + scots/irish are pretty pissed off by the classic english midlandians for selling/risking their future and prosperity for the temporary feeling of "getting back control". If Brexit does not happen, it will be vice versa with large portions of society realizing that their political system is rigged while scapegoating the wrong people (EU) for it.

[Dolan]

Everyone is using the EU as a scapegoat for pretty much anything these days.

[Dolan]

Thousands have demonstrated in Cardiff to call for an independent Wales in what organisers said was the first such march in Welsh history.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-politics-48239666

Uh-ohh..

[Kaiserklein]

Can go to lan. Thats good enough, fuck this thread

[Dolan]

[duckzilla]

On the positive side, the EU can now safely use English as a common language without it being the main language of a major member state. It allows us to avoid the problem of people feeling being oppressed language-wise by a hegemonial member state.

[Mr_Bramboy]

On the positive side, the EU can now safely use English as a common language without it being the main language of a major member state. It allows us to avoid the problem of people feeling being oppressed language-wise by a hegemonial member state.

That was really only a problem when French was the lingua franca back in 1958 when the EEC was founded. Nowadays, everyone in Europe knows English is the main language in international communication.

[Googol]

On the positive side, the EU can now safely use English as a common language without it being the main language of a major member state. It allows us to avoid the problem of people feeling being oppressed language-wise by a hegemonial member state.

Revive Latin

[duckzilla]

On the positive side, the EU can now safely use English as a common language without it being the main language of a major member state. It allows us to avoid the problem of people feeling being oppressed language-wise by a hegemonial member state.

That was really only a problem when French was the lingua franca back in 1958 when the EEC was founded. Nowadays, everyone in Europe knows English is the main language in international communication.

Sorry, I should have said "the EU can now safely use English as the common language". Currently, the EU has dozens of official languages. That should be changed.

[Dolan]

On the positive side, the EU can now safely use English as a common language without it being the main language of a major member state. It allows us to avoid the problem of people feeling being oppressed language-wise by a hegemonial member state.

Revive Latin

Revive Latin and retake Constantinople!



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8tW-obVkDQ

[duckzilla]

Nice, I support a turkish membership of the European Union as well!

[Dolan]

Nah, that won't work. They're now going back to authoritarianism. And they're not part of geographical Europe.

The current partnership and customs union are more than enough and they work to the benefit of both parties.

[duckzilla]

Nice, I support a turkish membership of the European Union as well!

He said retake, not integrate. The Turks have no right to the ownership of Constantinople. Christians in Europe need to unite to retake the Holy city.

Yeah, I got that and was not really serious. Especially since I don't believe that any south-eastern European wants to have Turkey in the EU. Too much bad blood apparently.

The argument of Turkey "not being part of geographical Europe" is just stupid. Firstly, because the most important city of Turkey is actually part of geographical Europe (Istanbul). Secondly, due to Anatolia being historically a part of geographical Europe. Thirdly, because "geographical Europe" is an arbitrarily defined term (Cyprus is Europe, but Izmir/Bursaiare not?!). Finally, it is used by people to find some wanna-be scientific reasoning for using "Othering" on turkish people and to cover their blatant racism.

Turkish authoritarianism is not much worse than Hungarian (and maybe Polish/Bulgarian/Romanian). It is again a weak argument given the amount of "pluralist democracies" which are already in the club.

[Dolan]

Turkish authoritarianism is not much worse than Hungarian (and maybe Polish/Bulgarian/Romanian). It is again a weak argument given the amount of "pluralist democracies" which are already in the club.

This is a very ignorant and light usage of the word "authoritarianism". Romania does not have an authoritarian government. No citizen rights are being encroached upon or denied right now by the current political coalition. The problem they are creating is with their attempt to control and tame the judiciary to the extent that they want anti-corruption investigations to be basically neutered. But that's not authoritarianism. They're not controlling the media or using the military to abusively stay in power, which is one of the characteristics of authoritarian regimes (such as we've seen in South America). It's pretty far from that definition. Let's not play with words, let's use very precise words/labels, which can be based on evidence and cool-headed analysis.

The difference in how democratic these countries are and Turkey is huge. If we take only freedom of the press... In Romania, you can pretty much publish anything, you can criticise any party, any leader. In fact, freedom of the press in Romania is one of the main and most powerful factors in what made Romania implement some reforms over the years which allowed it to join the EU eventually. Lots of corruption cases that were eventually prosecuted were first raised to the public's attention by press investigations. Our press has pretty much played the role of a social gadfly, constantly prodding our political class for further reforms and for more transparency.

We don't imprison journalists here just because they criticise the government or because they unveil some corruption cases involving politicians. By contrast, Turkey has been cracking down on the press which is not favourable to their supreme leader. They have been arresting journalists from media outlets that criticised the government. They have been cracking down hard on people who were suspected to have links to particular reformist groups like the Gülen movement.

Romania, on the other hand, was a champion in terms of fighting corruption just a few years ago, before the current political coalition came to power and started pushing back on those reforms. Let's not forget that just a few years ago Romania was the country that sent most politicians and high corruptions cases to prison in the whole Europe. Tell me another European country that sent a former prime minister to prison on corruption charges. We did that and a lot more. We prosecuted and sent to prison over 2000 cases of high corruption. I don't think that there is one single state in the EU or Europe right now which can boast a similar record. Sure, we're coming from a much worse situation and we do need to also make a lot of progress, but let's not negate the progress that we made some years ago. Lately, the current coalition in power has made attempts to roll back those reforms and put a leash on these investigations on high corruption, because some of their leaders are directly targeted by these legal investigations.

Now show me something similar taking place in Turkey. There is no such thing. I mean, for fuck's sake, the party in power right now in Turkey has just lost the elections in Istanbul and they are forcing a rerun. Despite all the protests, despite the fact that they have organised these elections that they have lost (so they cannot claim that elections have been tampered with by their opponents), it's obvious that they are trying to undo a major loss. Nothing of the sort is happening in Romania or Hungary or any other Eastern or Southeastern European country.

We are miles apart. And I'm saying that Turkey cannot join the EU simply because they don't fit the culture. They're not really part of European culture. Sure there is a small area of Turkish territory that is located in geographical Europe but that's not a substantial argument for including Turkey in geographical or cultural Europe. The bulk of the country is in Asia Minor.

Secondly, due to Anatolia being historically a part of geographical Europe.

Well, yeah, Anatolia was part of cultural and ethnic Europe when it was inhabited by Greeks, Celts and Romans. But then Greeks and Romans also colonised Northern Africa to some extent, but that doesn't make Northern Africa part of Europe either geographically or culturally, right now.

[Dolan]

@duckzilla
If you want to talk based on evidence, check this out:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016%E2%8 ... by_numbers

How is this even remotely comparable to Romania/Hungary/Poland? These states have adopted some laws that may disrupt the rule of law in subtle ways, like making anti-corruption prosecution harder or making the constitutional court less independent. But there are degrees of gravity. And none of these countries are imprisoning journalists, laying off people because of their political views and so on. There's a world of difference between these three countries and Turkey. It's like another world. And Turkey seems to be hellbent on allying itself with Russia, which is not a very loyal behaviour for a NATO ally, is it?

[fightinfrenchman]

There's a world of difference between these three countries and Turkey. It's like another world.

Nice writing skills

[Dolan]

[deleted_user0]

Someone: romania.
dolan: triggered

[fightinfrenchman]

Dolan is anti-semitic

[Googol]

Dolan is anti-semitic

how?

[deleted_user]

If I remember right Romania was the hardest country to beat in the snitch mini game in Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets DS game.

So much pointless grinding. Then my cousin who was better at the game than me killed himself.