Trump, the laughing stock of the world!

[mrswdk]

-Sounds like you're just on another rampage saying "I hate socialist, atheists and the EU'".

Well, I do hate socialism because it is diametrically opposed to the principle of subsidiarity and basically is fundamentally flawed.

I don't particularly hate attests, but the fundamental ones tend to make religious fundamentalists to shame (even Islamic ones).

As for the EU, I don't particularly hate the EU, I hate the bureaucracy of Brussels. The US had a pretty good working model of how nation states could organize together in a federal hierarchy. Instead the EU went with progressive clap trap with a legislature that does shit and an unelected bureaucracy that creates burdens on the nations of the EU.

The politicians in the European Parliament are directly elected by European citizens.

[waauw]

-Sounds like you're just on another rampage saying "I hate socialist, atheists and the EU'".

Well, I do hate socialism because it is diametrically opposed to the principle of subsidiarity and basically is fundamentally flawed.

I don't particularly hate attests, but the fundamental ones tend to make religious fundamentalists to shame (even Islamic ones).

As for the EU, I don't particularly hate the EU, I hate the bureaucracy of Brussels. The US had a pretty good working model of how nation states could organize together in a federal hierarchy. Instead the EU went with progressive clap trap with a legislature that does shit and an unelected bureaucracy that creates burdens on the nations of the EU.

Well that I can understand, socialists can irritate me as well. Every time they receive a piece of the pie, they want more pie. Radical atheists are a stain on the rest of us.
As for the EU though I agree it is overly bureaucratic, largely due to a lack of common vision, however the EU is not undemocratic at all. Parliamentarians and members of the european council are directly elected and the european commission is elected by parliament under a particratic system. The only one who is not democratically elected is the EU-president, but there I don't really care as the EU-president's position is largely without powers. Donald Tusk is basically a glorified press secretary.

But the fact that many european nations still have better living standards than even the USA is evidence enough that europe is not "going to hell since the french revolution".

Tell that to the people in the 21st century ghettos throughout Europe (the "No Go" zones).

Every country has such "No go" zones, or so to speak. From what I hear Detroit and many 'black' neighbourhoods in the USA are unsafe as well.

Anyway my point is, most of the criticism on western governments is one of spoiledness. Things have gone so well for so long, the media and critics like to forget most of the western world(including europe) is still vastly more prosperous than the rest of the world. Sure europe hit a blip in the road, but so far it hasn't led to an actual implosion.

-Socialism did not get inspired by the values of the french revolution, it was a direct reaction against the values of the french revolution. Which in economic terms was about freedom of entrepreneurship and the rise of the bourgeoisie over the nobility. Socialism is a reaction to 'laissez faire' and unbound liberalism.

But the 'laissez faire' of pre-revolution France was only a minor effect on the revolution and was really a part of the monarchy basically ignoring everything around them at the time. As an economic force it doesn't really get pushed into the next century and then this push was in Britain. The first real application of liberalism / libertarian theory is the United States. It's hard to say the full impact of this because the conversion of a nation from colonial to industrial is in and of itself such a major kick in the economic ass that it is difficult to really evaluate on its own merits.

The USA was indeed the first real application of liberalism, which is why it was such an inspiration. Even if things went off the rails at the start, laissez-faire and liberalism were slowly implemented accross the 19th century, precisely because of the spread of idealism emmenating from France, and later Belgium and Switzerland(the later safe havens for political dissidents). This led to immense prosperity accross that century(aided of course by Pax Britannica as you mentioned). The continent only started to derail in 1914, when they blew up the economic machine by military means.

And since you mention atheism as well you should know that the french revolution enabled the freedom of religion, even the jews became protected by law, as opposed to persecuted by the catholic church. Obviously communism did the exact opposite.

NO, sorry but no. The protection of Jews was due to one person and one person alone, Napoleon, who also did work behind the scenes to reverse the trend towards the bizarre "worship" of the goddess of reason. As for alleged persecution of Jews by the Catholic Church in pre-revolution France ... produce the evidence, unless you are talking about Spain which is a different situation. Spain had previously regained its territory from an Islamic invasion in a warthat lasted centuries. As a result they issued a law banishing all Muslims from the land, and that banishment induced Jews. Some Muslims / Jews converted in order to remain in the kingdom while keeping their prior traditions in tact and the monarchy went overboard on this matter. (Note that the abuses of the Spanish Inquisition were specifically condemned by the Pope.)

Just did some research, it appears you're correct; my bad. Apparently things weren't as bad as I thought, though anti-semitism was still popular.

[Dukasaur]

Yeah, I don't know about the rest of Europe but in the UK the idea of having any welfare state at all wasn't seriously considered by more than a handful of people until around 1900. I think during the 19th century it was actually illegal for public funds to be used to set up schools, for example.

All societies since the dawn of time have made provisions of some kind for taking care of those less fortunate.

The pendulum has swung back and forth between Church and State, but somebody has to do it. In the Bronze Age it was the temples (Church) then in Classical antiquity it was mostly the state. After the fall of the Roman Empire the Church filled the void, until the Enlightenment, when the importance of churches began to wane, and slowly but surely the pendulum began to swing back toward the State, where it is now.

Homo sapiens has survived by being a tribal species, and one of the key elements of a tribe as opposed to merely a mob or a herd is that a tribe takes care of its own. The wounded are nursed, the hungry are fed, those suffering afflictions or misfortunes of whatever kind are somehow given help. The mechanism for doing so has changed from time to time, and you're quite right that the welfare state in its current form is a relatively recent development, but it only emerged to fill the vacuum left by the decline of the claustral orders.

A nation that lets its less fortunate members starve won't be a nation for long.

[tzor]

The politicians in the European Parliament are directly elected by European citizens.

Yes but that is a mere technicality. Allow me to selectively quote from Wikipedia ...

The Parliament is composed of 751 members
it does not formally possess legislative initiative
shares equal legislative and budgetary powers with the Council
has equal control over the EU budget

The bulk of the power is concentrated in the executive (The Commission) especially since it takes that body to introduce legislation to the parliament. Given this major restriction, I would hardly call it "democratic" in terms of the government as a whole.

Back to Wikipedia, but this time, let's look at the Commission

The European Commission (EC) is an institution of the European Union, responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the EU treaties and managing the day-to-day business of the EU.
The Commission operates as a cabinet government
There is one member per member state, but members are bound by their oath of office to represent the general interest of the EU as a whole rather than their home state.
also include the administrative body of about 23,000 European civil servants who are split into departments called directorates-general and services.
...
The Commission was set up from the start to act as an independent supranational authority separate from governments; it has been described as "the only body paid to think European"
Considering that under the Lisbon Treaty the European Council has become a formal institution with the power of appointing the Commission, it could be said that the two bodies hold the executive power of the EU (the European Council also holds individual national executive powers). However, it is the Commission that currently holds executive powers over the European Union. The governmental powers of the Commission have been such that some such as former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt have suggested changing its name to the "European Government", calling the present name of the Commission "ridiculous".
The Commission differs from the other institutions in that it alone has legislative initiative in the EU. Only the Commission can make formal proposals for legislation: they cannot originate in the legislative branches. Under the Treaty of Lisbon, no legislative act is allowed in the field of the Common Foreign and Security Policy. In the other fields the Council and Parliament are able to request legislation; in most cases the Commission initiates the basis of these proposals. This monopoly is designed to ensure coordinated and coherent drafting of EU law.
Once legislation is passed by the Council and Parliament, it is the Commission's responsibility to ensure it is implemented. It does this through the member states or through its agencies. In adopting the necessary technical measures, the Commission is assisted by committees made up of representatives of member states and of the public and private lobbies (a process known in jargon as "comitology"). Furthermore, the Commission is responsible for the implementation of the EU budget, ensuring, along with the Court of Auditors, that EU funds are correctly spent.

Every Utopian in history would be drooling at the structure of the EU, from Plato, Wilson and beyond. The interests of the nations states are given token representation in the Council. The interests of the people are given token representation in the Parliament. Neither can really do anything to significantly alter the great grand BORG that is the EU - resistance is futile!

[tzor]

Every country has such "No go" zones, or so to speak. From what I hear Detroit and many 'black' neighbourhoods in the USA are unsafe as well.

Absolutely correct. And you want to know an interesting fact. All of these zones (in the United States) are in urban areas strongly controlled by progressive Democrats. Detroit has been non stop Democratic Party controlled since 1962.

[riskllama]

ALL of them? stfu.

[mrswdk]

The politicians in the European Parliament are directly elected by European citizens.

Yes but that is a mere technicality. Allow me to selectively quote from Wikipedia ...

The Parliament is composed of 751 members
it does not formally possess legislative initiative
shares equal legislative and budgetary powers with the Council
has equal control over the EU budget

...

The interests of the nations states are given token representation in the Council.

Not sure how you reached that conclusion. The Council has 29 members: the 28 European heads of state plus a Council President, who is elected by the other 28 members and whose role is to basically to be the Council's message boy.

The Commission is the bureaucratic body that the Parliament and Council use to implement their policy initiatives. The Commission are not elected, but then neither are the people who staff US State Departments, so I don't see the difference.

[waauw]

The bulk of the power is concentrated in the executive (The Commission) especially since it takes that body to introduce legislation to the parliament. Given this major restriction, I would hardly call it "democratic" in terms of the government as a whole.

Back to Wikipedia, but this time, let's look at the Commission

That is actually not true. The European Commission only holds the power in theory. In practice the real power lies with the European Council, most notably with Angela Merkel and now Emmanuel Macron. The european commission only drafts up the finer details sent down by command of the Council and guards the system so that every member adheres to the rules. The Council-members are directly elected heads of state.

Saying the European Commission is undemocratically elected is complete drivel as well. The EU uses a particratic electoral system, which means people vote for a party/political fraction rather than a specific person. Every fraction does push forward a presidential candidate, but that doesn't mean much. Not until a majority government is formed, can commission seats be divided among participating fractions. Traditionally the seat of the president of the commission does go to the candidate of the largest fraction. This is completely different from the american electoral system, but therefor not undemocratic, just different.

[tzor]

ALL of them? stfu.

Well, name me one that's controlled by Conservative Republicans?

(crickets)

[riskllama]

how the f*ck would I know? I haven't set foot inside the US in 20 years. your argument seems a tad implausable, is all.

[Dukasaur]

Every country has such "No go" zones, or so to speak. From what I hear Detroit and many 'black' neighbourhoods in the USA are unsafe as well.

Absolutely correct. And you want to know an interesting fact. All of these zones (in the United States) are in urban areas strongly controlled by progressive Democrats. Detroit has been non stop Democratic Party controlled since 1962.

The problem with this argument is that the cause-and-effect is infinitely debatable.

Republicans like to say that these areas are poor because they are governed by Democrats. Others would argue that because they are poor, they vote Democrat in an effort to at least have someone looking out for them.

I think it's a bit of a self-serving argument on both sides. There's no real proof which came first, the chicken or the egg.

[mookiemcgee]

ALL of them? stfu.

Well, name me one that's controlled by Conservative Republicans?

(crickets)

Interestingly though, virtually all the states with the highest death by gun rates vote Republican (Detroit's home state of MI isn't even in the top 20):

1. Alaska - Death by firearm per 100,000 population: 19.8
2. Louisiana - Death by firearm per 100,000 population: 19.3
3. Mississippi - Death by firearm per 100,000 population: 17.8
4. Alabama - Death by firearm per 100,000 population: 17.6
5. Arkansas - Death by firearm per 100,000 population: 16.8
6. Montana (TIE) -Death by firearm per 100,000 population: 16.7
6. Wyoming (TIE) -Death by firearm per 100,000 population: 16.7
8. Oklahoma - Death by firearm per 100,000 population: 16.5

The problem with your argument (and the one that might be made by the above statistics) is that people too easily confuse correlation with causation.

Duku first posted me

[tzor]

Republicans like to say that these areas are poor because they are governed by Democrats. Others would argue that because they are poor, they vote Democrat in an effort to at least have someone looking out for them.

The problem is that we have actual cities that went from Republican to Democrat and subsequently went to hell in a hand basket. Detroit being the best example. It was in solid Republican hands until 1961.

The city of Detroit, in the U.S. state of Michigan, has gone through a major economic and demographic decline in recent decades. The population of the city has fallen from a high of 1,850,000 in 1950 to 677,116 in 2015, kicking it off the top 20 of US cities by population for the first time since 1850.

Now to be fair, some job losses did start in the 1950's as the rise of the suburbs caused some jobs to move there. But it was the riots of 1967 that put the city on the road to Hell (which is some 60 miles away from Detroit).

According to the economist Thomas Sowell:

Before the ghetto riot of 1967, Detroit's black population had the highest rate of home-ownership of any black urban population in the country, and their unemployment rate was just 3.4 percent. It was not despair that fueled the riot. It was the riot which marked the beginning of the decline of Detroit to its current state of despair. Detroit's population today is only half of what it once was, and its most productive people have been the ones who fled.

Detroit became notorious for violent crime in the 1970s and 1980s. Dozens of violent black street gangs gained control of the city's large drug trade, which began with the heroin epidemic of the 1970s and grew into the larger crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s and early 1990s. There were numerous major criminal gangs that were founded in Detroit and that dominated the drug trade at various times, though most were short-lived. They included The Errol Flynns (east side), Nasty Flynns (later the NF Bangers) and Black Killers and the drug consortiums of the 1980s such as Young Boys Inc., Pony Down, Best Friends, Black Mafia Family and the Chambers Brothers.

Source: Wikipedia

[mookiemcgee]

Republicans like to say that these areas are poor because they are governed by Democrats. Others would argue that because they are poor, they vote Democrat in an effort to at least have someone looking out for them.

The problem is that we have actual cities that went from Republican to Democrat and subsequently went to hell in a hand basket. Detroit being the best example. It was in solid Republican hands until 1961.

The city of Detroit, in the U.S. state of Michigan, has gone through a major economic and demographic decline in recent decades. The population of the city has fallen from a high of 1,850,000 in 1950 to 677,116 in 2015, kicking it off the top 20 of US cities by population for the first time since 1850.

Now to be fair, some job losses did start in the 1950's as the rise of the suburbs caused some jobs to move there. But it was the riots of 1967 that put the city on the road to Hell (which is some 60 miles away from Detroit).

According to the economist Thomas Sowell:

Before the ghetto riot of 1967, Detroit's black population had the highest rate of home-ownership of any black urban population in the country, and their unemployment rate was just 3.4 percent. It was not despair that fueled the riot. It was the riot which marked the beginning of the decline of Detroit to its current state of despair. Detroit's population today is only half of what it once was, and its most productive people have been the ones who fled.

Detroit became notorious for violent crime in the 1970s and 1980s. Dozens of violent black street gangs gained control of the city's large drug trade, which began with the heroin epidemic of the 1970s and grew into the larger crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s and early 1990s. There were numerous major criminal gangs that were founded in Detroit and that dominated the drug trade at various times, though most were short-lived. They included The Errol Flynns (east side), Nasty Flynns (later the NF Bangers) and Black Killers and the drug consortiums of the 1980s such as Young Boys Inc., Pony Down, Best Friends, Black Mafia Family and the Chambers Brothers.

Source: Wikipedia

Your post seems to align a correlation between the timing of the change in local political opinion, but says nothing about the causation.

So you are contending local politics are to blame for poverty and violence in Detroit? You really don't think its was the 'fault' of technological advancement, and cheap labor abroad that cause the car industry to die? And you don't think that the resulting poverty from all the jobs leaving is what drove up crime rates? ... like Duku said chicken and egg. The city started declining and things went to shit. the poverty generated the crime, not the politicians.

[riskllama]

yeah but, it was the dems who pushed the assembly line tech - right, tzor? fuckin' democrats, it's all their fault. always & w/o fail, amirite?

[mrswdk]

Republicans like to say that these areas are poor because they are governed by Democrats. Others would argue that because they are poor, they vote Democrat in an effort to at least have someone looking out for them.

The problem is that we have actual cities that went from Republican to Democrat and subsequently went to hell in a hand basket. Detroit being the best example. It was in solid Republican hands until 1961.

The city of Detroit, in the U.S. state of Michigan, has gone through a major economic and demographic decline in recent decades. The population of the city has fallen from a high of 1,850,000 in 1950 to 677,116 in 2015, kicking it off the top 20 of US cities by population for the first time since 1850.

Now to be fair, some job losses did start in the 1950's as the rise of the suburbs caused some jobs to move there. But it was the riots of 1967 that put the city on the road to Hell (which is some 60 miles away from Detroit).

According to the economist Thomas Sowell:

Before the ghetto riot of 1967, Detroit's black population had the highest rate of home-ownership of any black urban population in the country, and their unemployment rate was just 3.4 percent. It was not despair that fueled the riot. It was the riot which marked the beginning of the decline of Detroit to its current state of despair. Detroit's population today is only half of what it once was, and its most productive people have been the ones who fled.

Detroit became notorious for violent crime in the 1970s and 1980s. Dozens of violent black street gangs gained control of the city's large drug trade, which began with the heroin epidemic of the 1970s and grew into the larger crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s and early 1990s. There were numerous major criminal gangs that were founded in Detroit and that dominated the drug trade at various times, though most were short-lived. They included The Errol Flynns (east side), Nasty Flynns (later the NF Bangers) and Black Killers and the drug consortiums of the 1980s such as Young Boys Inc., Pony Down, Best Friends, Black Mafia Family and the Chambers Brothers.

Source: Wikipedia

Seeing how you've abandoned the thing about the EU being unelected I'm going to assume you've conceded that I was right.

[xtratabasco]

So? Seriously, so?

Europe has been going to hell and a hand basket ever since the French Revolution.

Do elaborate.

plz just stay on fucking topic

[waauw]

So? Seriously, so?

Europe has been going to hell and a hand basket ever since the French Revolution.

Do elaborate.

plz just stay on fucking topic

You're a wee bit late, mate.

[waauw]

Trump"s disastrous foreign policy: